Hotel Manpower in Singapore

The services sector is one of the fastest growing in Singapore and probably also the busiest during this festive period.

But even as the hotels and food and beverage industry are increasing manpower and working round the clock to cope with demand, they are already mapping out strategies to make sure they do not lose staff to the integrated resorts when they are up and running in two years.

For chef Lawrence Tay and his team at Orchard Hotel, customer satisfaction is uppermost in their minds during the festive season.

It's a 'never-say-no' policy even for last-minute challenging requests.

Lawrence said: "There's one customer, he walked in asking for 30 gingerbread houses. It's really a big challenge for us. We need to dry and make the dough, get it set and then I can structure the house. Our whole team just worked throughout the day and night and then deliver on Christmas Eve."

Ensuring there is sufficient manpower to meet demand during festive periods is something hotels start thinking about in the middle of each year,
while not forgetting about staff who have to celebrate the occasion with their families.

Ruprecht Schmitz, Executive Assistant Manager, Orchard Hotel, said: "The ones who had a day or the whole Christmas period off last year will work this year so that others who had worked last year will be able to take time off this year. In order to prepare successfully for this period - because it's a very strenuous period - you have to have a lot of staff around and attend to many more and different clientele that you have usually around the year. You have to plan a long time ahead."

The period from Christmas to Chinese New Year is also boom-time for part timers.

One key source of manpower for hotels during the festive period are students from the universities and educational institutions.

Industry sources say some of them could even command as much as two to three times more in salary compared to normal periods.

But the Food Drinks and Allied Workers Union - which represents nearly 35,000 workers from the services sector - believes more locals will join the industry, as hotels are now implementing the five-day work week.

All the more so, with some 30,000 jobs expected to be created when the two integrated resorts at Marina Bay and Sentosa start operating.

Tan Hock Soon, general-secretary for Food, Drinks and Allied Workers' Union (FDAWU), said: "We are coming up with a task force for manpower challenges, come the IR...We hope to see how we can work together with the hotels to see how we can tap on the housewives, the matured workers as well as the young, to see how we can attract them by changing the operating systems, like five-day work week and many other things, probably including better wages with a strong economy. The hotels are very fearful of manpower because IRs will be able to pay to attract the best employees to go over."

Meantime, the Singapore Hotel Association says it is optimistic that 2007 will be yet another good year for the industry's occupancy rates.

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