6 REASONS WHY WAITERS NOT COME TO YOU IN SINGAPORE
Have you ever had a situation in Singapore where you raise your hand and absolutely no waiters are interested in serving you?
There are many reason to this:
1. Serving You is Seen as a problem
When waiters get a basic salary, less work means more efficiency for the worker's free time.
Entertaining a customer is a "problem" the less problem the waiter handles, the easier for them to earn their money. It is because they did not see wealth in gaining reputation to be an excellent service person or they couldn't see any benefit in it. They also could not see the relation of how their hard work will help the paymaster remunerate them.
2. No Clear Definition of Work
Waiters in Singapore are not formatted in a western cuisine system. The western system comprises of the a group of Busboys who only collect soil dishes and does cleaning toilets and mopping undesirable things like vomit or fallen food. This way they do not create cross contamination from the cleaning work to the freshly cooked food. The other group of waiters basically only take orders and serve food. The Singapore food industries uses a mandatory rule that a sink must be installed for waiters, thereby bypassing the western system of having 2 categories of waiters. This alleviates the manpower requirements.
This creates a situation of the waiters confused with the priority of work. When you waive wilding your hand in the air you find waiters not look at customers but at a plate of something, or the ground, or the cashier.
3. The Abolishment of Tipping
Outside Singapore, employers beg for good waiters who will ensure returned customers who can pay. We hear of SIA cabin crew members who moonlight as waiters in London to earn from the tips. The tips are that good to earn. It is not just food that is important, the service of the waiter matters too. The tipping in Singapore has been translated into mandatory service charge regardless if the service is good. We do not know if the service fee goes to the waiters and therefore did not benefit the waiters to perform better.
4. The Experience of Being a Waiter is Undervalued.
We always read about tycoons and famous Hollywood actor starting their early working live as a waiter. This was an opportunity to keep afloat a passion that wanted to keep alive be it an acting career, an invention or getting to know people that can be useful in future. The job as a waiter here is seens as a profession and process of less respect.
5 Ad Hoc Employment Nature of Waiters
Singapore started as a simple country. Doing things do not require training but learning through trail and error. The generation that runs today's business are a little still like that. We lack the importance of planing leading to training because we live in a tropical environment. The Ad Hoc quality of employment of waiters signals to the employer that it is a waste of resource to train waiters. Ironically, most waiters elsewhere are employed in an adhoc manner as well.
6. Recently Developed Economy Still Do Not Understand What Triple Bottom line is.
Employers in Singapore still look at numbers as in a numeral written in ink. They do not look at character of these numbers or how much experience was built into it. For example, I recently had a few interviewees who asked for a $5000 pay because she had 5 years working experience. Inside their curricular vitae shows employment in 3 months and 6 months interval with 3 to 6 months jobless break. The whole duration of their employment lifetime was 5 years but sitting still in 1 job never reached a 3 year duration. If you looked at numbers alone, you only see 5 years experience. If you looked at character and time, the 5 years experience shows a longer experience in some other experience instead of the job scope they were interviewing for.
Employers think that triple bottom line are demands from workers and frequently avoid this topic.only They can also be a demand from employers. ECONOMICS/ ENVIRONMENT / PEOPLE SUSTAINABILITY could be the surety that employers can ask their staff to commit if the employer needs to provide this to them.
In short, we need to look beyond primary school mathematics and begin to look at time and character as an additional layer over the numerical statistics.
There are many reason to this:
1. Serving You is Seen as a problem
When waiters get a basic salary, less work means more efficiency for the worker's free time.
Entertaining a customer is a "problem" the less problem the waiter handles, the easier for them to earn their money. It is because they did not see wealth in gaining reputation to be an excellent service person or they couldn't see any benefit in it. They also could not see the relation of how their hard work will help the paymaster remunerate them.
2. No Clear Definition of Work
Waiters in Singapore are not formatted in a western cuisine system. The western system comprises of the a group of Busboys who only collect soil dishes and does cleaning toilets and mopping undesirable things like vomit or fallen food. This way they do not create cross contamination from the cleaning work to the freshly cooked food. The other group of waiters basically only take orders and serve food. The Singapore food industries uses a mandatory rule that a sink must be installed for waiters, thereby bypassing the western system of having 2 categories of waiters. This alleviates the manpower requirements.
This creates a situation of the waiters confused with the priority of work. When you waive wilding your hand in the air you find waiters not look at customers but at a plate of something, or the ground, or the cashier.
3. The Abolishment of Tipping
Outside Singapore, employers beg for good waiters who will ensure returned customers who can pay. We hear of SIA cabin crew members who moonlight as waiters in London to earn from the tips. The tips are that good to earn. It is not just food that is important, the service of the waiter matters too. The tipping in Singapore has been translated into mandatory service charge regardless if the service is good. We do not know if the service fee goes to the waiters and therefore did not benefit the waiters to perform better.
4. The Experience of Being a Waiter is Undervalued.
We always read about tycoons and famous Hollywood actor starting their early working live as a waiter. This was an opportunity to keep afloat a passion that wanted to keep alive be it an acting career, an invention or getting to know people that can be useful in future. The job as a waiter here is seens as a profession and process of less respect.
5 Ad Hoc Employment Nature of Waiters
Singapore started as a simple country. Doing things do not require training but learning through trail and error. The generation that runs today's business are a little still like that. We lack the importance of planing leading to training because we live in a tropical environment. The Ad Hoc quality of employment of waiters signals to the employer that it is a waste of resource to train waiters. Ironically, most waiters elsewhere are employed in an adhoc manner as well.
6. Recently Developed Economy Still Do Not Understand What Triple Bottom line is.
Employers in Singapore still look at numbers as in a numeral written in ink. They do not look at character of these numbers or how much experience was built into it. For example, I recently had a few interviewees who asked for a $5000 pay because she had 5 years working experience. Inside their curricular vitae shows employment in 3 months and 6 months interval with 3 to 6 months jobless break. The whole duration of their employment lifetime was 5 years but sitting still in 1 job never reached a 3 year duration. If you looked at numbers alone, you only see 5 years experience. If you looked at character and time, the 5 years experience shows a longer experience in some other experience instead of the job scope they were interviewing for.
Employers think that triple bottom line are demands from workers and frequently avoid this topic.only They can also be a demand from employers. ECONOMICS/ ENVIRONMENT / PEOPLE SUSTAINABILITY could be the surety that employers can ask their staff to commit if the employer needs to provide this to them.
In short, we need to look beyond primary school mathematics and begin to look at time and character as an additional layer over the numerical statistics.
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