Mr Albert Teo, Vice-President, Singapore Hotel Association,
Ms Margaret Heng, Executive Director, Singapore Hotel Association,
Bro Abdul Subhan, President, FDAWU,
Bro Tan Hock Soon, General Secretary, FDAWU,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. Good afternoon.

2. I watched an Indiana Jones movie many years ago. Indiana Jones was pursued by the villains. He ran through a crowded market place. All of a sudden, a large guy blocked his way. The man was waving a big sword in a most impressive kung-fu style and was closing in fast. There was no escape for Jones. At that crucial moment, Jones whipped out a gun, aimed it at the villain and fired. Bang! And the fight was over. Jones 1. Bad guy 0. It was quite a funny scene.

3. If Jones did not have the right equipment at that point in time – the gun – he would probably have been cut to pieces by the sword. The same thing would have happened if he had fired but missed – in other words, if he had been unskilled, he would have paid a high price. In that situation, all that he could have done if he was without a weapon was to try and wrestle the sword away from the big guy and then fight the opponent’s strength and kung-fu. Even if he were to succeed, I am sure it would have taken much longer, and he would have suffered many more injuries.

4. But an Indiana Jones, full of confidence and initiative, well-trained and equipped with a good gun, made light work of the challenge, and emerged victorious. The cleverness and humour of the scene make me re-tell the story to you many years later. This is the sustained value they created in the movie. In short, that’s productivity!

5. Productivity is also a very serious matter in real life. Wage levels and standards of living can only rise sustainably with productivity growth. Competition against business rivals will only be effective if you create more value and are more cost-effective than them. In short, your livelihood and prospects eventually depend on productivity growth.

6. In Singapore, productivity growth in Services has lagged that of Manufacturing since 1997. For the Hotels and Restaurants sector, productivity growth has been negative in 2007 and 2008, despite a robust economy. According to figures from the MTI and MOM, labour productivity growth in the Hotels and Restaurants Sector was 4% in 2005, and dropped to 0.4% in 2006 to -6% in 2007 and to -9% in 2008. This is due to employment growth outstripping Value-Added growth.

7. Hotels use a flexible manpower model, using a smaller core workforce and a supplementary contract and temporary one. They have used that as well as multitasking and re-deployment to make quantitative adjustments to match capacity to demand in this ongoing recession. Growth prospects in the hotels sector remain strong in the medium term, with hotels such as the Fullerton Bay Hotel, Marina Bay Sands, and Resorts World at Sentosa coming on stream in the next 2 years. In this time, it is all the more crucial for companies, unions, workers and Government agencies to work together to ensure that growth in the sector is fuelled and sustained by productivity.

Responding to the productivity challenge
8. To do so, we should pay attention to at least 4 areas, namely: • Benchmarking; • Service Excellence; • Innovation, and • People Development.

9. Benchmarking is common in Europe, the US and other advance economies. This is usually done by national industry associations or independent consulting firms. For example, the Singapore Hotel Association runs an annual survey pertaining to key performance indicators for different categories of hotels. Similarly, companies should want to know where their productivity growth stands relative to the competition. Benchmarking for productivity in specific functional areas will allow companies to identify areas for improvement, measure the impact of productivity initiatives, and prompt them to better performance in chosen areas.

Benchmarking in the Hotel Industry

In Ireland, Failte, the tourism development agency, has developed an online diagnostic toolkit “Performance Plus” for the tourism industry in Ireland, that allows hotels to compare their performance vis-à-vis other hotels in the same competitive segment set, so that they can identify areas of improvement. Hotels input their own information to the database on a voluntary and regular basis.

10. Second, service excellence. There are different ways for companies to delight their customers. In some cases, a high-touch service is what works best. In other cases, customers may appreciate an efficient service more than anything else. At all times, it requires astute judgment about what constitutes the optimal mix of service through people contact, hardware and technology. Much depends on understanding the needs and preferences of customers, and turning that attention to detail into practical actions that are carried out systematically, zestfully and in a sustained way.

11. There are various tools and programmes that businesses can leverage on to develop and improve their service capabilities. The Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore is one way to gauge how service industries are meeting customer expectations and delivering quality service and value. Companies can also join the $100 million Customer-Centric Initiative (CCI) to enhance their service delivery systems and processes, and take advantage of a total assistance package.

12. Third, innovation is key to driving productivity growth, value creation and service differentiation. Some innovations are incremental, others more dramatic. All make a big difference to outcomes as they snowball over time. STB’s $10 million Tourism Technology Fund (TTF) encourages tourism establishments to harness and adopt technology such as digital media services, e-services, self-service technologies and tracking technologies (inventory, crowd control) to enhance customer experience. It is an example of a resource that can be tapped for technological improvements. Innovation can also take place in work organisation and process, and in the design of jobs.

13. Fourth, we must develop and motivate our people at all levels to be highly skilled, flexible and full of initiative. Recently, 32 hotels signed an MOU with FDAWU and NTUC Learning Hub to upgrade their capabilities under the $650 million SPUR programme. Many of these hotels will up-skill and multi-skill their workers through the Service Excellence Workforce Skills Qualification (SE WSQ), the Certified Service Professionals (CSP) programme and other courses. This will enhance the quality of each worker trained, and also help ensure that the hotels have sufficient manpower during busy times, while being able to cope with a leaner workforce during periods of slower business.

14. Like what happened in the Indiana Jones movie, true success comes when systems meet hero.

15. Today, we recognise 49 service heroes. These service heroes embody the passion, initiative and attentiveness that let productivity come alive to brighten someone’s day, and to make life’s moments better for another. They serve as models for us to emulate.

16. Mr. Lim Say Boon, a Chef de Partie at Royal Plaza on Scotts is one of them. He went the extra mile to prepare congee with vegetables for a guest’s baby. This was not in the standard menu. He took the initiative when he saw that the guest was worried that the food was not suitable for her child.

17. Mr. Ishak bin Shafe, a Bell Captain at Copthorne Kings Hotel Singapore, took special care of an elderly couple whose holiday in Singapore was almost ruined by sickness after arriving from a long flight. His care and attention showed the couple a Singapore that is genuine, welcoming and warm.

18. I congratulate Mr. Lim, Mr Ishak and all the other model workers for being deserving “Employees of the Year”.

19. Let us continue to invest intensively in productivity growth and service excellence, and build a better future for all in this sector.

20. Thank you.