Tag: Fit for Change

Most conversations about AI at work start with the tool. Last Friday’s started somewhere else. A closed-door group of senior HR, L&D and OD leaders spent the afternoon at AmCham Singapore on a question with no vendor demo attached: when the pressure is on, what does a person still do better than a machine?

This post covers the questions we put on the table, the data that makes them urgent in Singapore, and what HR teams elsewhere are doing about them. It is also an invitation. The interesting part is how your own organisation would answer.

Four Questions, One Afternoon

Fit for Change, Across Difference ran from 2:00 to 4:30pm and was hosted by The Resilience Institute with Aperian. Manish Arneja, Managing Partner, SEA at The Resilience Institute, and Mui Hwa Ng, Aperian’s Director of Consulting for APAC, facilitated. The format was deliberately small and structured, with breakout think tanks so that leaders could work on the problems with peers instead of listening to a keynote.

Why This Is a Live Question in Singapore

Singapore workers are adopting AI quickly. PwC’s Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey 2026, with Singapore results released on 12 October, found that 74% of local respondents had used AI at work in the previous 12 months, up from 69% in 2025 and above the global average of 64%. The biggest barrier to using it more was worry about the accuracy or quality of the output, cited by 32% in Singapore against 25% globally.

Confidence has not kept pace. ADP’s People at Work 2026 report found that only 15% of workers in Singapore strongly agree their jobs are safe from elimination, and that people who worry about losing their jobs are more stressed, less engaged and more likely to be looking elsewhere. The 2025 edition added a second signal: 41% of Singapore workers said they feel constantly monitored at work, and ADP found those workers were three times more likely to report stress.

Employers feel the squeeze from the other side. The Singapore National Employers Federation’s 2026/2027 survey of more than 300 companies found that attracting suitable talent is still the top HR priority, at 59%. Upskilling and reskilling remain key priorities too, and 30% of employers name their rising cost as a challenge.

Put those together and you get a workforce using the technology more every month while feeling less sure of its place. That gap is the HR problem.

What Other HR Teams Are Doing

Gallup surveyed 102 CHROs for its 2026 Global CHRO Roundtable. All but one in a hundred said AI is somewhat or very important to company strategy. Here is what they report doing about it. 78% encourage peer learning and experimentation. 62% are building centres of excellence or naming internal AI champions. 57% are providing AI training for people managers.

Then comes the uncomfortable part. Half of those same CHROs said they are not very or not at all confident that their managers can guide an employee through using AI at work.

Gartner’s 2026 CHRO research, which surveys 426 CHROs, adds the structural picture. 27% of organisations have redefined roles or skills because of AI, 24% have redeployed employees and 10% have replaced some workers outright. And 64% of CHROs say their leaders lack the mindset to guide people through continuous change.

The manager keeps turning up in the data for a reason. In Gallup’s survey of nearly 5,900 US workers, 33% of employees who strongly agreed their manager champions AI said it had transformed how work gets done at their organisation. Among everyone else it was 4%. Same tools. Different manager.

Difference Is Where Rollouts Get Tested

A tool never arrives in a neutral room. Aperian’s co-founder Dr Ernest Gundling has argued that culture shapes how AI gets adopted, and that AI in turn reshapes team culture over time. It changes who gets heard and how decisions get made.

The research on psychological safety points the same way. A 2025 study across 18 societies and 2,451 employees found that collaborative, clan-oriented cultures produced significantly higher psychological safety than hierarchical ones, with trust in top management as the link. A 2026 review of high power distance workplaces across Asia concluded that removing hierarchy is rarely realistic. The workable route is to use it on purpose: leaders who invite dissent, reward the person who raises a concern and admit their own mistakes.

Singapore is adding a legal layer. The Workplace Fairness Act, with its second bill passed in November 2025, is due to take effect at the end of 2027 and will require covered employers to run a written grievance-handling process. Whether a junior colleague feels able to question an AI recommendation that a senior leader likes is a culture question today. It is heading toward being a process question too.

Keep the Conversation Going

If you were in the room, you will hear from us. If you were not, and you lead people in Singapore or across the region, we would like to hear how your organisation is answering these four questions. Get in touch and compare notes.

If you want a baseline for your own team first, the Resilience Assessment looks at 50 factors across physical, emotional, mental and social resilience. We offer it free for a small group of up to five people.