MyComplianceOffice Blog

“Remember - NO TWO-TIMING - NO MOONLIGHTING”, reads a recent email from Infosys to its employees. The communication stresses the clauses of Infosys employment contracts, which restrict its employees from taking up secondary employment.

The modern workplace has undergone a significant evolution in recent years. The pandemic has changed employee priorities and organisations’ attitudes towards remote and hybrid work environments. These changes have also brought a greater acceptance of workplace flexibility - from both employer and employee perspectives. However, there are also new challenges.

Southeast Asia is a region of diverse cultures, religions, and political frameworks that holds a unique growth opportunity. Asia’s consumer markets are rapidly growing and diversifying. McKinsey Global Institute research found that consumers in Asia are now reaching higher tiers of the income pyramid. At the same time, diverse cohorts are developing within key cities. New behaviours, demographics, and growth angles and being created by emerging segments such as Gen Z gamers, digital natives, and older generations moving online, to name a few.

Much has been written about the Great Resignation of 2021 and 2022. In addition, the past few years have seen workplace norms disrupted by COVID and working remote. What’s been the impact of a shifting employment landscape on compliance in the financial services industry?

Remote work is a part of the current normal in the financial services industry, in the short term and maybe even longer. Arizent, the parent company of American Banker, PaymentsSource, The Bond Buyer and other titles, recently released a survey polling executives to understand how firms are planning the return to the workplace for their employees.

Even as some firms have begun the process of reopening offices, the survey shows that almost 6 out of 10 employers are uncertain about the timing of when employees return to the workplace, and more than half report reluctance from their employees around going back to an in-person work environment. The survey also highlighted that 48% of employees are very interested and 30% are somewhat interested in continuing to work from home. 70% of financial services and 80% of professional services firms polled are likely to allow their employees to continue to work from home if their position allows it.