‘Job Flexibility for Productivity’ Initiative for Hospitality Industry

Move set to optimise workforce, reduce reliance on foreign workers, and improve productivity and wages

1. The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and Singapore Tourism Board (STB) announced today the ‘Job Flexibility for Productivity’ (JFP) initiative for the hospitality industry. Under this pilot initiative, hotels and hostels licensed by the Hotel Licensing Board (HLB) can offer their employees, both local workers and foreign Work Permit Holders (WPHs), opportunities to work across different job functions within the same hotel or hostel¹.
2. The JFP initiative was put forth to the National Productivity and Continuing Education Council (NPCEC) under the Hotel Productivity Roadmap as one of the productivity measures to grow and strengthen the hospitality industry. This initiative essentially enables hotels and hostels to deploy their current workforce more efficiently to reduce their reliance on foreign workers, and in the longer term, improve productivity and raise wages for workers.
3. Starting from 1 October 2012, hotels and hostels who are interested to participate in the initiative can apply to STB. Once the application is approved, the participating hotel or hostel can deploy its employees to a maximum of two other job functions within the same establishment for two years from the time of approval. For instance, during a down-time in F&B, a local F&B staff can be deployed to Front Desk to help out. This reduces the need for the hotel to employ an additional foreign worker for Front Desk, thus yielding productivity gains. These gains can then be shared with the worker.
4. “With Job Flexibility for Productivity, hotels can optimise the use of their current workforce by deploying their existing workers to perform more functions, instead of hiring more foreign workers. The expected productivity improvements should contribute positively to the bottom-line of companies. We expect hotels to share gains from the JFP initiative with employees as incentive, to further encourage them to become more productive workers,” said Mr Lee Ark Boon, Divisional Director, Manpower Planning and Policy Division, Ministry of Manpower.
5. Participating hotels and hostels must ensure that their employees are adequately trained and prepared before taking on the additional job functions, and are remunerated fairly for taking on these additional job functions. JFP opportunities should also be offered to both local and foreign workers.
6. Mr John Conceicao, STB’s Executive Director of Capability & Innovation and Visitor Information & Feedback added, “The launch of JFP for the hospitality industry will allow hotels greater operational flexibility, as well as enable employees to take on new challenges and develop skills that will add to their value as hospitality professionals. We hope that this initiative, combined with other measures such as job redesign and the adoption of technology, will encourage the hotel industry to re-examine its traditional use of manpower and take the opportunity to raise productivity while ensuring continued personalised customer experiences.”
7. The hotel industry has been looking forward to the implementation of such an initiative as well. Ms Margaret Heng, Executive Director of the Singapore Hotel Association (SHA) said, “We are pleased that the government has started this programme as deployment of employees to different job functions is one of the key initiatives that will help the hotel industry increase productivity. This will also help hoteliers improve operational efficiencies and manage their resources more effectively.”
8. MOM and STB will monitor and review the results of the pilot over the next two years.