Minimum wage 'may aid hospitality sector': Ho Kwon Ping

Wages of certain sectors of hospitality industry need to be reviewed
It could attract more people to work in the industry, says Ho Kwon Ping
By Cheryl Faith Wee, The Straits Times, 13 Jan 2015

SOME form of minimum wage might attract more people to work in the local hospitality industry, Mr Ho Kwon Ping, executive chairman of well-known hospitality group, Banyan Tree Holdings, has suggested.

He threw up the idea as he addressed concerns about low wages in the sector at a hospitality and tourism conference yesterday at Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP), attended by about 250 of its students.

Mr Ho said it might be helpful if industry players could agree on a wage structure for certain areas of the hospitality sector.

Speaking to reporters later, Mr Ho said: "The hospitality industry is not a terribly attractive one right now for rank and file people and that is probably because of the low wages and low productivity. We do have a problem here."

He said there was a need to look at the sub-sectors of the hospitality industry to see whether there are pockets of low wage that are unnaturally low, like what was done in the cleaning industry.

A wage ladder was introduced last year for cleaners, with basic monthly pay from $1,000.

In 2012, The Sunday Times reported that salaries for full-time food and beverage service crew can be from $1,000 to more than $2,000, depending on experience.

But Mr Ho also cautioned that "you do not just bump up wages without increasing productivity".

Technology can help improve efficiency, but its use in the hospitality industry remains low here compared to countries such as China, added Mr Ho, whose company runs hotels, resorts, spas and golf courses in 26 countries.

"Not long ago, I was in a remote part of China and I went to some little chain restaurant there. They already had no more cashiers - every single wait staff was using a portable device to give customers their cheque.

"I do not know many restaurants in Singapore which do that, most of them still use a cashier."

Based on his personal experience with Singaporeans in China and other countries, Mr Ho found that they sometimes do not measure up to foreigners in terms of social skills.

"Their training in management and in the skills of hospitality is quite high, but what is lacking is some of the emotional intelligence to deal with culturally complex situations.

"I have also found to my disappointment that sometimes the perseverance of the Singaporean young managers is not high enough," he added.

In response, Mr Kevin Wee, senior lecturer of the poly's school of business management, feels the issue here may be about how employers have to adapt to the new generation of Singaporean workers.

"Last time, people would just accept things and do it, but people are more sophisticated now, they need to know the reason why they are doing things," he said.

While the hospitality sector here faces many challenges, enrolment for NYP's hospitality and tourism management diploma has actually doubled over the years. When introduced in 2006, it had 75 to 90 students. This has doubled to around 150 to 180 per batch since 2010.

Some students from NYP's hospitality and tourism management diploma course are not deterred by the relatively low wages.

Final-year student Jarrett Ng, 20, who did a six-month internship at Marina Bay Sands last year, said he wants to work in this field because he enjoys talking to people. "My concern is not really about the money right now. I think $1,500 or above per month is reasonable. I love interacting with people from all over the world - you do not get to do that if you work in an office."

Minimum wage in hospitality sector not a panacea

BEING a venerated doyen in the hospitality business, Mr Ho Kwon Ping is obviously qualified to expound his views on the sector ("Minimum wage 'may aid hospitality sector' "; Tuesday).

Yet the imposition of a minimum wage in whatever guise or whatever sector will not act as a panacea to manpower woes for the employer, or address service deficiencies for the consumer.

Multiple studies have proven that a minimum wage does not decrease poverty, for how can it when, once implemented, salary scales rise for almost all workers, resulting in an inflationary spiral with the lowest-paid still remaining at the bottom rung of the wage ladder?

Also, as Mr Ho concedes, wage increases can come only with a rise in productivity.

In the Singapore context, productivity seems preternaturally stuck in the doldrums for reasons mentioned earlier by other Forum writers.

As such, wage increases can lead only to businesses employing fewer workers, who then have to work doubly hard with the usual consequence of burnout giving rise to callous attitudes and indifferent service.

Where retrenched "aunties" and "uncles" are employed in positions far below their level of expertise, where our "strawberry generation" of young people is employed in positions deemed to have no promising prospects, and where passion and aptitude for service are rare commodities, wage increases alone will just not cut it.

If the long-term benefits of working in an organisation are not tangible, a financial incentive that may help a little, if at all, is a tipping policy to replace the service charge. This may spur better rapport and empathy between customers and service staff.

Unfortunately, Singaporeans are, by nature, parsimonious and good service rendered will be taken as a right rather than a privilege deserving of financial reward.

It is a conundrum that leads to a vicious - or at least a non-virtuous - circle.

Yik Keng Yeong (Dr)

ST Forum, 15 Jan 2015

Singaporeans working in the hospitality sector ‘lack social skills’
By Laura Elizabeth Philomin, TODAY, 13 Jan 2015

With more tourists from different parts of the world visiting the country, Singaporeans in the hospitality industry have the opportunity to rise to the top of the global travel industry, given their multicultural background.

However, they are still lacking in the social skills needed to deal with culturally complex situations, said Banyan Tree Holdings’ executive chairman Ho Kwon Ping yesterday.

Speaking at a dialogue session with more than 250 Diploma in Hotel & Tourism Management students and graduates from Nanyang Polytechnic, Mr Ho noted that compared with the past when travel was dominated by Westerners, the industry is now seeing the rise of “rainbow tourism”, where managers need to be able to serve tourists from all over the world.

From his experience, Singaporeans in the industry usually have high levels of hospitality training and skills, but they still have several undesirable traits to shake off.

“We compare everything to Singapore and how we set the standards without understanding the context of where other people and other cultures come from,” said Mr Ho. “And I’ve also found that, to my disappointment, the perseverance of Singaporean young managers in the hospitality industry globally is not high enough.

“I find that many of our young Singaporeans are not willing to wait. They have all the skills, but they get too antsy too soon and say ‘I’m not rising fast enough and I’ll leave and go somewhere else’. And that’s unfortunate.”

Singapore’s tourism sector has faced headwinds in recent years, though it continues to register growth.

Latest visitor arrival figures released by the Singapore Tourism Board showed that international visitor arrivals in Singapore fell 3.6 per cent to 1.14 million in November from a year ago, hurt by an 8.1 per cent drop in visitors from Indonesia.

With low wages also deterring many from joining the hospitality industry, Mr Ho, who was responding to a question posed by a student, said he was not in favour of a minimum wage for the entire economy because “it is too blunt an instrument” for wage adjustments.

Mr Ho added that when a country with a high minimum wage faces a severe recession, employers tend to get rid of the newer entrants to the workforce and retain the older, experienced employees.

While acknowledging that an industry-agreed pseudo-minimum wage could help the pockets of low-wage employees in the hospitality sector, Mr Ho said what is more pressing is the issue of raising productivity and wages in the industry.

One way to do this is to increase investment in technology, he added, citing an example of a chain restaurant in a remote part of China that uses handheld devices, instead of cashiers, to settle bills.

Mr Ho also had this advice for the aspiring entrepreneurs in the audience: Find an idea that you think really works, innovate to solve problems and be the best at what you do.

“If you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to try to find a niche business where you think you can add value, where you can do something different. Don’t just try to be a ‘me-too’ enterprise,” he said.

The most successful entrepreneurs he has met are those who have mastered the tricks of the trade, studied the market they want to enter, the product and have made contacts.

On what it takes to be an entrepreneur, Mr Ho said: “I would say that if you’re the kind of person for whom the fear of failure is so great that it actually puts you off, then you’re probably not the right kind of person to be an entrepreneur.”