M&C Embarks On Productivity Drive

Millennium & Copthorne Hotels (M&C) has embarked on three major initiatives with government agencies to address the vital issues of productivity and manpower shortage in the hospitality industry.

Leveraging on funding programmes by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), M&C has launched the projects to enable staff to upgrade skills and enhance overall guest experience through innovative practices.

One of the three initiatives is a partnership of M&C’s Studio M Hotel with Hotel Productivity Centre (HPC). Studio M will also be working with Republic Polytechnic to find a sustainable solution to address the hotel’s front office as well as its housekeeping and reservations operations.

Costing more than $80,000, this inaugural project will be fully funded by grants and will take 23 weeks to complete. HPC will then look at redesigning system approaches to facilitate and improve processes.

Mr Bhupesh Yadav, M&C’s Chief Business Administration Officer said the group’s second major programme is an e-learning programme which is being finalised with the help of grants from STB.

“It’s aimed at scaling up training efforts for staff while achieving greater flexibility in scheduling training and optimising manpower deployment. It complements M&C’s existing face to face training as a blended approach which will be the new norm,” he said.

“With increasing competition and labour shortage, we are constantly looking at ways to enhance overall guest experience. This includes working with STB on innovative practices and rolling out initiatives to upgrade employee skills,” said Mr Yadav who also oversees the US and Asia operations of M&C, Singapore’s largest hotel owner operator.

M&C’s technology partner, eUniversity, will work with corporate and hotel human resource departments to conduct road-shows at the five Singapore hotels to help employees better familiarise and benefit from the wide range of specially customised training programmes.

The third initiative is a management training scheme for sales – a programme that is aimed at growing the talent in its management pool.

Minister S Iswaran stressed that, “It is important that we continue to enhance and deepen the capabilities of our tourism sector. In that regard, STB will increase its support for the industry to adopt innovative practices and products that can take the sector to new heights.”