Report Release: What’s Next? The impact of COVID-19 on Singapore corporate legal departments
Dazychain and Yarris Technologies are pleased to share the results of our survey conducted with SCCA on the impact of Covid-19 on corporate legal teams and their organisations in Singapore. Our results showed the high levels of emergency preparation, comprehensive responses and sophisticated thinking on the future post-Covid-19 in the Singapore teams.
Singaporean organisations were well prepared to respond, with many having business continuity plans and pandemic response procedures ready to launch. Many organisations immediately commenced remote working, except those few essential services requiring on-site presence. Challenges included accessing the appropriate collaboration software, acquiring required hardware and providing access in our security conscious age to key corporate information via the internet.
Legal teams were also challenged by larger numbers of matters, and in some circumstances, a substantially reduced budget. Overall, we found the responses of Singapore teams focused on sustaining the businesses, the teams and external customer relationships.
We also examined the post-pandemic future of in-house legal teams given the dual threats of the ongoing pandemic and the economic downturn. Many respondents were pessimistic about the economic future, believing the economy and their own organisations would experience a significant or possibly catastrophic downturn.
While our respondents generally believed that working life will change forever post-COVID-19 there were still some who believed that workplaces will go back to the way things were or that the current change is temporary, but many added the caveat that the duration of the pandemic will be a vital determiner of the way we work.
Respondents who believed a greater embrace of remote working and flexible working will transpire noted that telecommuting will be the norm for some and that working from home will be much more accepted. These respondents believed that current remote working arrangements have proven that the workforce can still be productive outside of the office.
Perhaps the most compelling conclusion we can draw from our research is that the prevailing resilience of the Singapore in-house teams: remote work is embraced, teamwork is prioritised, safety procedures are in place, business continuity plans are enacted, higher work volumes are embraced and managed, and business continues despite the unprecedented challenges.
