Productivity Priorities
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.
HI Micheal,
“our retail workers in Singapore are woefully ill equipped.” This is the true scenario.
It is not the training, etc, etc, it is the passion one needs to have in the job.
My wife and I went to a New York Jean store, the sales girls are fantastic, well trained, well mannered, my wife don’t speak English, the sales girl told her not to worry, and explain all types of designs, colors and fabric. She made her tries on all designs which she thinks my wife should look good and comfortable in them. Could you imagine we spent almost two hours and just bought one pair of Jeans. The sales girl is a graduate and she say she loves her job and appreciate her customers willingness to try her suggestions.She told us to come back again if we are not satisfied! What more do you want?
Thank you Toby. So true, you cannot train someone who hates their job.
What IS true, is that with training, people feel more pride in what they do. Example: One of our clients, Westin Hotels has a 2 hour video on how to mop a floor. I was a janitor in my secondary school and university days to pay for my education so I thought I knew how to mop a floor. I was amazed at what the video taught. Surfactants and how to make water wetter, how different surfaces required different cleaners, the care of mop fibres, mop fibers have many surfaces in each fibre as each is a cleaning surface, how often to change the water, which surfactants needed rinsing afterward, saftey signs and their placement, how long to keep safety signs up as a function of humidity and surface absorption, sealing floors VS. waxing and more. By the time someone who hired on as a ‘cleaner’ learns their job, they see themselves as “Safety officer”, “Health officer”, “Employee and Customer Care Specialist” and more. Eduction (not just ad hoc ‘training’) leads to adult development and hence, true pride in work. The NY sales pro’s attitude was probably inborn, yet someone had to teach her how to use it. Like a great artist has a mentor, she must have had hers. This is what we teach in my SIM programme on Training, Mentoring and Coaching. All 3 must work in harmony. Thank you Toby for your awesome story!
mike