At StaffAny, CRO Eugene Ng’s vision to dignify hourly labour might just be the boldest reimagining of work we’ve ever seen

This story is one of nine on The Peak Singapore’s Power List. The list is an annual recognition that celebrates and acknowledges individuals who have demonstrated exceptional leadership, influence, and impact.

The theme for the class of 2025 is Vanguards, spotlighting business leaders who are boldly reshaping their industries, questioning outdated norms, and pushing boundaries with vision and conviction. At a time when conformity is often rewarded and change met with resistance, these individuals choose to lead from the front — not for applause, but because the future demands it.

Eugene Ng doesn’t raise his voice when discussing the prospect of upending an entire industry. The co-founder and CRO of StaffAny speaks softly about shift work — that unglamorous backbone of retail, hospitality, and healthcare — with the measured tone of someone who knows real power lies in listening, not shouting.

From his Singapore headquarters, where he leads a team that’s spent seven years building what might be Southeast Asia’s most ambitious reimagining of workforce management, Ng embodies a different kind of vanguard for The Peak’s Power List. He’s not the loudest voice in the room, nor does he want to be.

“I often feel that people associate power with how loud a person is or how aggressive they appear to be,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “But I believe there’s power in meekness, whereby the ones who are better listeners, who don’t show off their power, are actually the most powerful.”

This philosophy underpins his approach to revolutionising shift work across Southeast Asia. StaffAny, the HR tech company he co-founded with Janson Seah, Kaiyi Lee, and Jeremy Hon, serves industries where schedules change by the hour and labour costs can make or break a business.

Think restaurants juggling dinner rushes, retail stores managing holiday crowds, or clinics coordinating staff across multiple locations. In Singapore alone, these sectors employ hundreds of thousands of workers whose livelihoods depend on accurately tracked hours and fair scheduling.

Challenging sacred assumptions

The traditional assumption Ng challenges is deceptively simple: that any HR software will work for every business. It’s an assumption so deeply embedded in the industry that most never question it. But Ng does.

“That’s simply not true — and it’s an assumption that urgently needs to be challenged,” he states with quiet conviction. “In our industry, where we deal with shift work, there are simply too many permutations and too much flexibility in how shifts are scheduled.”

He’s witnessed the chaos firsthand. Legacy solutions, he explains, typically don’t address the root cause of problems in shift work — the planning phase where rosters are created. “Shifts are always changing, and if you don’t have a way to track an accurate schedule with actual time attendance, then the final timesheet at the end of the week or month will never tally with what should be a fair or accurate payment.”

The result is, amongst other woes, significant overpayment, operational inefficiencies, and frustrated workers who aren’t paid accurately for their time. Ng has heard countless stories from friends managing shifts with spreadsheets, only to find mismatches with outdated HR systems — discrepancies that cost both time and money.

But there’s a second, even more entrenched assumption Ng is determined to shatter: that there’s no other way to reduce operating costs in shift-based businesses. In the food and beverage industry, for instance, the three main costs are rental, ingredients, and labour. 

“Rental is fixed because of multi-year leases, and ingredients are more or less fixed based on demand planning. However, labour is the only category that has variability because it can be controlled.” 

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A human revolution

Yet Ng’s vision extends far beyond mere cost optimisation. He wants to fundamentally transform how society views and values shift work itself. His most radical idea challenges the very nature of hourly compensation.

“Gamify performance — many businesses treat shift workers like ops staff. Man the booth, take the order,” he explains, his voice picking up enthusiasm. “People should treat every customer-interfacing staff as sales staff, as they can push sales proactively... So why are we paying front-line staff by the hour, instead of by the result?”

The complexity of attribution — determining which staff member contributed to which sale during overlapping shifts — has kept this model from being implemented. But Ng sees opportunity where others see obstacles.

“Imagine the mental model shift if we can make every front-line staff a sales staff, and reward them every five-star review they get, or every dessert upsold? Wouldn’t you get 10 per cent more revenue per outlet?”

His vision for gamification extends beyond simple rewards. He envisions a world where shift workers earn points for positive actions, where taking extra shifts or garnering stellar reviews translates into tangible benefits. It’s about creating pride and ownership in roles that society often overlooks.

“Another belief we’re challenging is that retention is hard and shift work talent is scarce,” he continues. “Yes, it’s true that finding shift work labour is harder nowadays. But what if we solve this problem from a different angle? How about improving retention by gamifying work in ways that align with business outcomes?”

The misunderstood mission

Perhaps what frustrates Ng most is how often his work is misunderstood. People assume StaffAny is just another scheduling app — they couldn’t be more wrong. 

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“I think people often assume that what we do is just about software or just about scheduling. But it’s so much more than that,” he says, his usually calm demeanour showing hints of passion. “What’s most misunderstood is that this work is deeply human. Yes, we’re in HR tech, but at its core, it’s about understanding people — how they show up to work, how they’re motivated, how they want to grow.”

The misconception runs deep. “People might think, ‘Oh, you’re just digitising timesheets or tracking attendance’, but what they don’t see is how those small processes connect to bigger things — like whether a business stays profitable, or whether an employee feels respected because they’re paid accurately and on time.”

There’s also an assumption that building HR software is somehow simpler than creating software in other tech verticals. But in shift work, Ng argues, the complexity is staggering. “People’s lives and livelihoods are tied to the smallest scheduling changes. So, what’s most misunderstood is that behind every shift change, there’s a real person, someone who deserves fairness and transparency.”

He pauses, then adds with characteristic humility: “By the way, I’m not complaining about it. In fact, I think that when the work is hard, that’s when it’s actually worth doing. People always say, ‘You only grow when you’re uncomfortable; when you’re comfortable, you don’t grow.’ So I feel that what we’re doing in our work is meaningful and fulfilling, and it really unleashes our potential.”

A vision for tomorrow

When Ng describes his ideal future for the industry, his eyes light up with possibility. “If the system worked the way it truly should, as a business owner, HR director, or ops director, you’d have good control over your entire operations. The data flow from ops to HR would be accurate, so no one would need to work overtime at the end of the month just to rush payroll.”

But technical efficiency is just the foundation. His real dream is more transformative: “If everything ran smoothly, shift work wouldn’t feel like just another job. It should be exciting. People should feel motivated when they arrive at work. There should be gamification elements, such as earning coins, receiving incentives, and a desire to do more. I get so excited thinking about a world where shift work doesn’t feel like a burden but a source of pride and even fun.”

He envisions a seamless hiring process, with ample talent ready to step in when needed, thereby eliminating the current painful process of going “agency by agency.” It’s a future where shift work feels empowering, not exhausting.

Achieving this vision, however, requires more than technological innovation — it demands a fundamental shift in leadership thinking. Today, seven years into building StaffAny, Ng is remarkably reflective about his evolution. He’s consciously unlearning much of what he thought he knew about leadership and industry dynamics.

“First, how I run and manage the team,” he admits. “I feel like as leaders, or people in more privileged positions, it’s our job to be better leaders because there are people under us. We need to point them in the right direction, provide them with opportunities, and create spaces for them to grow.”

But perhaps more importantly, he’s unlearning assumptions about the industry itself. “If we’re always so stuck in thinking the industry works in a certain way, we’re not able to be agile and adapt when the industry changes. The industry can change at any time, and we have to be sensitive to that.”

Quiet pride

When asked what he’s proudest of that rarely makes headlines, Ng doesn’t mention revenue milestones or user growth. Instead, he talks about people.

“What I’m most proud of is the growth of my team, including my co-founders, Janson Seah, Kaiyi Lee, and Jeremy Hon, as well as everyone at StaffAny. I’ve always believed that a business is just a vehicle — a medium through which we can create real impact. And that impact is only possible because of the people behind it.”

Still, Ng readily admits, as most founders are wont to do, that the journey hasn’t been smooth. “Being on this journey for seven years has had its share of ups and downs. Most of us didn’t start super experienced; it was our first, second, or third job. But we grew to the occasion, from StaffAny 1.0 when we just raised our seed round to our A round, and now to scaling the team.”

This growth from inexperience to expertise, achieved through sheer determination, is what truly makes him proud. “We didn’t have the most experience, but we used our time and effort to overcome the challenges. I think that’s something to be proud of because we’re in a very privileged position to be able to do that, to conquer and still survive.”

Redefining power

As our conversation draws to a close, Ng returns to his philosophy on power. For him, true power isn’t about dominance or volume. “They listen, they adapt, and they do their best to align with what everyone needs. To me, that’s true power. It’s not about how loud you are but how you connect with other people’s hearts. Because without the heart, actions and outcomes would be very different.”

Ng’s approach feels almost radical in its gentleness. He’s not trying to “uber-ise” shift work or reduce humans to algorithmic efficiency. Instead, he’s building systems that recognise the humanity in every shift change, every timesheet, and every worker who deserves to be paid accurately and treated with respect.

And as StaffAny continues to grow across Southeast Asia, serving industries from Singapore’s bustling F&B scene to Malaysia’s retail sector and beyond, Ng’s vision of empowered, motivated shift workers seems less like a dream and more like an inevitable future. In reimagining shift work, Ng is not only building software. He’s also rebuilding the very foundation of how we value human labour, one accurately tracked hour at a time.

For more stories on The Peak Power List, visit here.