SP Group Reducing Bonuses for Senior Management Team to ‘Show Solidarity’ Due to COVID-19

Boon Hun

2020-03-07 , 2:41 pm

With Covid-19, the economy of Singapore is hit really hard.

Visitor arrivals dropped, drivers have lesser passengers and malls in Singapore are emptier.

With that, companies are cutting costs and freezing headcounts one after another.

The latest case comes from a company that every Singaporean is familiar with.

SP Group

On 6 Mar 2020, SP Group announced that they are cutting directors’ fees by 5%.

Bonuses for the senior management team (vice-presidents and above) will also be reduced by one to two months.

This, they say, will reduce their annual pay by 5 to 15%.

A Show Of Solidarity

So where would this money be going to? The company’s reserves fund?

According to SP Group, the pay cuts and bonus reductions are done in a “show of solidarity” against Covid-19.

Which makes sense because even if people don’t come out of their homes, they’ll still be using gas and electricity. Which means technically, they might earn more money during this period.

The money “earned” from these reductions will be funnelled to its frontline workers. Yes, about 400 of them.

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Every SP frontline worker will receive a one-time payment of S$1,500 to show appreciation for their efforts in these tough times.

Rallying Employees To Help S’poreans

Besides that, the company is also encouraging its employees to donate to the SP Heartware Fund.

SP Group will match its employees’ donations by the dollar.

The SP Heartware Fund will be used to provide support to the elderly in low-income families.

Not The First Company To Take Paycut For ‘Solidarity’

SingPost is another company that every person here in Singapore is familiar with, especially because of the “Covid-cursing comment”.

Image: Facebook screengrab / Winston Tay / Singpost

Just 2 days ago on 4 Mar 2020, SingPost announced that they are freezing the hiring process for new employees.

All employees who are senior vice-presidents and above at SingPost will have their pay reduced by 5%.

Individuals who are ranked assistant vice-president and above will also have their pay and promotion increments frozen.

Thankfully, similar to SP Group, SingPost is leaving the pay of lower-level employees alone.

“We Should Do It Too.”

Wen asked for the reason behind the pay cut and a hiring freeze, group chief executive officer Paul Coutts revealed two reasons:

One, that they must be more careful about how they spend their money due to the poor economic outlook
And two, because the government and leading companies are implementing measures, SingPost “should do it too”.

In other words, monkey see monkey do.

Other companies who have imposed pay reductions include SMRT, Temasek Holdings and CapitaLand.

There’s one company that I’m hoping would not do this.

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