Productivity Priorities

Today, Singapore Minister of State for Trade and Industry, Mr. Lee Yi Shyan said Singapore is giving $86 million SGD ($69 million USD) to boost the retail sector’s productivity 25% by 2015. The money will be pushed into the process, people and service with automation being the key emphasis.

While I applaud the effort and the amount of money for our small city state, I question the push to automation VS. true eduction and development of retail workers. If local stores benchmarked against Nordstroms in the USA where daily education and motivation prior to store opening about products and service standards is the norm, our retail workers in Singapore are woefully ill equipped. That is not the fault of the employees.

Retailers, manufacturing, banks, insurance companies, property agents all get sent to training, mostly on an ad hoc basis. We see at SIM the numbers of attendees soar in Q3 & Q4 when budgets need to get used up and drop like a stone in Q1 & Q2 when money is gone or there is ‘still time’ to execute training.

The key is DAILY training. DAILY reminders. DAILY discussions. DAILY pep talks. DAILY targets. DAILY leadership by example. Where to find the time for such a shift? Fewer LONG meetings. Fewer text messages. Fewer emails. Fewer interruptions. Fewer fault findings and blaming. MORE fixing by those who cause the problems to learn through doing.

Spending money is great. Automation when appropriate is wonderful. But I rarely buy on-line or from a machine. I buy most often from knowledgeable people who engage me and in whom I share reciprocal trust and respect. People who know the benefits of what they are selling, how to share those benefits and care about other people.

My new McGraw Hill book, “Productivity: Winning In Life” due in June 2011 shares how every individual can become as productive as possible, achieve their goals, lower stress levels and get home on time. Stay tuned for further announcement.

Got comments or questions about productivity priorities? Just leave your comments to the blog post.