Living and breathing service innovation (productivity) in the hotel industry

2012 has been a good year for the Singapore hotel industry. Despite uncertainties in the global economy, visitor arrivals remained strong with an average occupancy rate of a respectable 86 percent.

Moving forward to 2013, the industry continues to be cautiously optimistic. This is because Singapore, with its array of exciting tourism offerings, is well positioned to ride on the upswing of Asia, which has become the economic focus of the world. Given this positive view, the hotel industry is expanding, with some 8,000 new rooms by 2014, to cater to more visitor arrivals.

However, the growth of the hotel industry may be weighed down by the shortage of manpower, particularly at the rank and file level. This is of serious concern for the hotel industry as the manpower crunch, if not addressed, will ultimately lead to service level being compromised.

To some extent there is already evidence of a decline in service level as indicated by the Q3 2012 Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG), whereby the tourism sector fared significantly worse when compared to the previous year.

To deal with the labour crunch, hotels have to be more creative in their delivery of service. To this end, the hotel industry is fast tracking in the area of service innovation, which entails redefining processes, in order to raise productivity and to uphold the level of service.

As such, hotel jobs have been re-designed and enhanced where possible, for example, by enabling hotel employees to multi-skill within the same department or to be cross-deployed, for those who are keen on acquiring additional skills, to other departments.

To ensure that the multi-skilling and cross deployment are carried out effectively, hotels are investing in training and developing their manpower to ensure quality service delivery.

Hence on a broader scale, service innovation calls for a bold shift in mindset to embrace new processes that will lead to higher productivity and yet meet the needs of the guests.

In this regard, hotels are also looking at harnessing technology to innovate its service so as to offer a more seamless experience for our guests. With the support of the various funding schemes from the government, some of the technology solutions that have been adopted by hotels include the following:

• Guest request Management System whereby guests’ requests are centrally managed and automatically dispatched to hotel employees via wireless devices
• Housekeeping operations management system which assigns rooms to be cleaned on a priority basis
• Electronic scheduler that optimises available manpower so as to ensure that service level can be maintained

Although hotels are taking steps to manage the manpower crunch by raising productivity, it must be highlighted that there are limits as to how far the industry can go, given that people is a core element in the hotel business. It is therefore not surprising that hotels are doing their utmost in retaining their employees.

Some of these include the provision of an even more conducive work environment, charting a career for their employees by equipping them with relevant training and development. To that end, hotels are also working closely with hospitality schools in order to not only attract talent to the industry but also to retain them in their roles.

This is because a happy and competent workforce will not only be more productive but will also be well prepared, with the necessary knowledge and skill sets, to enhance their guests’ experiences.

Given the generous funding schemes that are available from the government, it is therefore a very good opportunity for the industry, in this New Year, to press on by strengthening its people asset to align with its drive for service innovation.