Nine in 10 global employees feel that it is a personal responsibility to keep up with the best work practices through learning and development opportunities, according to the latest report by staffing firm Randstad.

However, Singapore falls short of the global average, with 83 per cent of employees here ready to take the initiative to upgrade their skills despite the myriad of learning and development programmes available, the Randstad Workmonitor survey found.

This ranked Singapore workers lower than those in Hong Kong (91 per cent) and Malaysia (96 per cent).

Randstad Singapore country director Jaya Dass said: "Employees in Singapore have access to many training programmes either provided by employers or from external channels such as SkillsFuture. Learning and development is a lifelong process and we strongly encourage employees to actively look for interesting opportunities to stay competitive in today's workforce."

Employees in Singapore are more inclined to sign up for courses (45 per cent) and to attend online training sessions (35 per cent) on their own.

In Hong Kong, 49 per cent of workers had taken a curriculum course in the last 12 months while 39 per cent are willing to search and pay for a programme themselves.

But workers in Malaysia put their counterparts in Hong Kong and Singapore in the shade.

A staggering 96 per cent of Malaysian employees say it is a personal responsibility to upgrade their skills and competencies.

One in two employees had attended a seminar or conference paid for by their employers in the last 12 months.

At least one-third of employees are open to investing their own time and money in an online course (35 per cent) or a course on a given curriculum (39 per cent) to stay competitive.

The Randstad Workmonitor study, which covers 34 countries around the world, is published four times a year.

The quantitative study is conducted through an online questionnaire with at least 400 interviews in each country.