The Singapore government had introduced wage subsidies intended to save jobs amid enhanced safe distancing measures, effectively requiring most workers to telecommute and those in non-essential services to temporarily cease operations to stem the spread of the coronavirus. However, some companies which could manage on their own are returning the payouts for the benefit of the larger community. 

Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat shared, “We have received $35 million, which would be used for future payouts. I am very encouraged by their sense of responsibility and shared community. I hope their exemplary action will inspire other companies that are doing well to consider doing the same.”

The aim of the Jobs Support Scheme (JSS) was to provide wage support for companies and help them retain local employees. Some companies have coped better than others and a number of them have come forward to return the first payment of JSS they received and declined future payments. These include MNCs, financial institutions as well as other local enterprises across different sectors. 

One of the companies which has returned the JSS payout is German pharmaceutical group Boehringer Ingelheim that will instead donate $500,000 to five causes that its employees voted for. These causes include Migrant Workers Fund, Sayang Sayang Fund, Invictus Fund, Singapore Red Cross and Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Another company that has decided to donate its payout is DSM, which makes nutritional products. Its business model has proven to be "relatively resilient" despite the crisis and hence, as a moral deliverable the company redirected these funds to those most in need. 

Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat hopes that by standing together and helping one another, the country can overcome this crisis and emerge stronger. “This is the spirit of our #SingaporeTogether movement,” he writes in his Facebook post. 

The gesture of returning payouts by companies who are doing relatively well for the larger good shows how the crisis has made organizations more compassionate and socially responsible. It is interesting to see how these tough times have brought out the better in people and have indeed brought everyone in the world of work closer to each other (in spirit).