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Speech at CEO Breakfast Talk - Lean Hotel Initiative

Minister Of State For Manpower, Mr Teo Ser Luck, Suntec Singapore Exhibition And Convention Centre

Skills, training and development

Mr Tan Choon Shian, Chief Executive, Workforce Singapore

Ms Diaan-Yi Lin, Senior Partner and Managing Partner, McKinsey & Company, Singapore

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good Morning.

  1. It is my pleasure to join you here at the CEO Breakfast Talk for the Lean Hotel Initiative (LHI), hosted by Workforce Singapore (WSG) and McKinsey & Company. 
  2. The hotel sector is an important contributor to the Singapore economy, with 33,000 individuals working in the sector. 
  3. One key challenge faced by the hotel industry is having to keep up with rapidly evolving consumer needs while facing a challenging manpower situation.
  4. At the Committee of Supply debate earlier this month, Minister Lim Swee Say spoke about the importance of strengthening the bridge of innovation, which links technology to the market, to help more companies transform and grow. 
  5. Our policy is dynamic and flexible to help companies transform and grow. To do so, we launched the Lean Entreprise Development Scheme (LEDS) – response has been good so far, with 2,100 firms on board.
  6. Part of the support that LEDS provides is the provision of transitional manpower over a period of time to firms that need it. This is with the objective of helping companies to be manpower lean.
  7. Last year, we launched the Skills Framework for the Hotel and Accommodation Sector, an integral component of the Hotel Industry Manpower Plan (IMP).The Hotel IMP serves as a guide for those in the sector - individuals, employers and training providers, to identify key skills and competencies in new areas such as digital marketing, data analytics, revenue management and business process re-design. 
  8. With technology driving change across the economy and the tightening manpower situation, it has become even more crucial for the hotel industry to improve its productivity and not let manpower become the bottleneck.
  9. I’m pleased to see that increasingly more companies are acknowledging the need to embrace lean solutions and are receptive to different approaches on their productivity journey.  
  10. Many of you may already be familiar with the Lean Enterprise Development Scheme, (LEDS for short) which was launched in October 2015, to help companies develop manpower lean solutions and build a strong Singapore core.
  11. As at end January 2017, the LEDS had been “the bridge” for 2,100 companies, helping them to take steps to cross the technology gate in particular.
  12. We will continue our efforts to help more companies transform. We are going to strengthen LEDS as a bridge of innovation, to make innovation more pervasive in our business community. We will nurture more industry cluster-based projects to create a viral effect in adopting these solutions. 
  13. We see 16 hotels working together to identify and pilot lean manpower solutions, as we launch of the Lean Hotel Initiative (LHI) today. I would like to see that in time to come, these can be translated into larger scale, long-term and holistic transformations through LEDS.     
  14. They will be coming together to identify gaps, share best practices, brainstorm and benchmark against the best-in-class. With these findings, they can then design and develop blueprints before moving on to test-proof concepts through pilot projects.
  15. While they may be competitors, they are also collaborating for the good of the industry as a whole.
  16. Other sectors have already shown that such collaboration can be successful. One example is the F&B sector.
  17. One of our first LEDS projects was a group of Indian restaurants that came together to centralise their backroom and kitchen processes. Ingredients were prepared and distributed to different restaurants for further preparation and serving. This helped them save costs and maximise manpower.
  18. WSG is supporting the LHI effort by defraying the cost of this 4-month programme which covers both classroom training and fieldwork.
  19. Later, you can hear from two of the forerunners – Amara Hotels and Resorts and Crowne Plaza Changi Airport, who will be sharing their productivity improvement journey.  
  20. The LHI concept is aligned to the LED Taskforce’s intent that innovation and transformation should, and can be scaled up at the broader level, beyond individual projects within a single company, so that benefits to the industries, companies and workers can be multiplied.
  21. In tandem with the transformation of the hotel industry, the profile of jobs will change for the better and higher value-added jobs can be created for our local workforce.
  22. The industry can tap on the funding provided by WSG through various Adapt and Grow Initiatives such as WorkPro and Professional Conversion Programmes to redesign the jobs and develop your talent pipeline. This will help to offset the cost of job redesign and provide training and salary support for employing local mid-career entrants into the industry.
  23. Industry stakeholders like yourselves will benefit from having a high quality and efficient workforce with a strong Singaporean core.
  24. Industry transformation can be disruptive, yet rewarding for those who are willing and able to adapt. We will press on with our efforts to support the industry in this transformational journey and help create better jobs and careers for our workforce.
  25. I thank you, key players in the industry, for being a part of this journey.
  26. I wish you all a fruitful session ahead.