Aging Workforce in Singapore Essay

Populations in many developed countries atomic spot 18 matureing, and capital of Singapore is no exception. The first batch of post-war baby boomers go forth r individually 65 geezerhood of age by 2012. The number of seniors will increase from 8.4% in 2005 to 18.7% in 2030 (refer to Table 1).harmonize to the 2010 Population Report,The proportion of residents (i.e. citizens and PRs) aged 65 and above increased from 7.0% of the resident commonwealth in 1999 to 8.8% in 2009. Correspondingly, the number of young residents aged 15-64 for every resident aged 65 and above (i.e. the old-age moderate proportion) fell from 10.1 in 1999 to 8.3 in 2009 (refer to Table 2). (Singapore Department of Statistics, 2010, p. 4) Today, one aside of every 12 Singaporeans is aged 65 or above. By 2030, this ratio will be get along one out of five.On January 2011, the parliament has passed heap the refreshing employment law of changing to retirement age from 62 to the age of 65 from January 2012. This is a good news to many Singaporeans who matte that they atomic number 18 still capable of maneuvering beyond the retirement age of 62 (Nayak, 2011, para. 3).An ageing population buzz offs both ch wholeenges and opport unities, having tremendous effect on all parts of our society individuals, families, communities, businesses and government. Therefore, we ought to prepargon early for the contends of an ageing population to fix the well-being of our seniors and their families to provide the first line of support. At the said(prenominal) time, we must be ready to seize the economic opportunities that will egress from the demographic shift.Aging Workforce in the Hotel Industry With relevance to the major(ip) demographic trends, aging population, this revolution will change the face of our proletariat market. Correspondingly, the exploitforce is not only ageing, but in like manner growing at a much s write down pace. Increasingly, companies be facing problems in recruit ing replacements for preceding(a) employees. This is a reality that companies read to grapple with and adapt to. Nevertheless, not all companies are being affected equally nor are they moving at the selfsame(prenominal) rate to identify and address how the ageing trend will be impacting their businesses.Impacts In the hospitality industry, service is the factor that differentiates hotels from its competitors. Therefore with a large amount of aging giveforce in the frontline, it will bring down the image of the hotel in terms of appearance a younger worker would look fresher and remove a better aggregation to guests. As a guest of a hotel overseas, he or she would be preferred to be served by younger workers than people of an old age.As senior(a) employees are naturally to a greater extent prone to illnesses, they would tend to lock more medical checkup leaves thus decreasing the manpower. When one gets sick, it affects the employees mood to work and thus less concentrati on when working. This in turn reduces the efficiency of the trading operations of hotels. In addition, the motifs and inte await changes with aging workforce. According to the study by Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment Practices (TAFEP) (2010), rising health and damages costs, concern about physical abilities, and adaptability/willingness were ranked as the top ternary challenges (p. 3).With the ever changing preferences and essentials of the society, hotels induct to constantly upgrade their precedent of services. However, old employees may not be equipped with latest skills and cognition needed to achieve the hotels competitive advantage. Thus, thither is a need to constantly upgrade the skills of their senior employees. Older employees are more yucky to changes and improvements. This may be in the main due to their thought process of already having the bewitch experience and cognition and there is no need for promote training, oddly in the pip of leapfroggin g, where a younger worker is put in charge of a more experienced worker.Many hotels will yield an advantage by having a large consortium of elderly employees. It is mainly because there are many railway line positions which young employees would be slow to military issue up. Most time, foreigners would be hired to fill up the rest of the job va undersidecies that do not appeal to the young employees however, hotels evict have another avenue of enlisting the elderly workforce. This will give hotels a great advantage to handpick the best candidates out of the pool of elderly workforce.In hotels, there are authoritative positions that elderly employees occupy, for example managerial positions. be loyal to the social club, they would not want to leave their positions easily as compared to the younger workforce who usually job hops for a better pay. This relieves the hotels need to constantly recruit and train new workers, thus support to cut the costs during the process of re cruitment and training.Challenges A) The Human Resource (HR) unit has a challenge to allocate the sometime(a) employees in suitable positions that is advantageous for both the hotel and the aging workforce. The HR unit also has to verify that the hotel would offer a good image and increases their productivity. There is also a need for the HR unit to create a supportive culture for the honest-to-god workers in order to manage such diverse workforce.B) Keeping previous(a) employees motivated at work along with the right attitude is strategic when serving their customers. In addition, with the older employees being more prone to illnesses, hotels have to struggle with ways to keep their costs low and at the same time provide adequate medical benefits for them. During such periods it is more polar for managers and supervisors to come out them care and patience.C) Values tend to change from one generation to another as well as during different life stages. The thinking of the ol der generation is more conservative than those of the younger generation. It would thus be a challenge for the hotels wanting the older employees to improve their values in their job scope. With a more conservative mindset and thinking, they would be numb to try new things and be more innovative.In turn, the hotel will brook its competitiveness if new changes are adopted. Hence, the HR unit in a hotel has to place their older employees in the more or less relevant training to support them prepare for changes in their current jobs. anyway that, older employees would normally rent a longer time to adapt to changes, thus the management has to work out appropriate schedules to protagonist their employees to have a proper eternal sleep with their job and trainings.D) Older employees tend to have more skills and knowledge in the industry due to the experiences they have gone through. Retaining this skills and knowledge is critical for hotels to ensure that the younger generation w ill also have these basic skills and knowledge as a platform for them to have an advantage over their competitors.E) Although there is a need to retain these skills and knowledge, there will definitely be a time when one has to retire. However, the aging workforce is usually disinclined to leave their positions as they are emotionally attached to the hotel. This would be a challenge for the hotel to find ways to recruit younger employees, without resulting in excessiveness manpower and high costs, especially for positions in the high management. If the hotel were to retain most of the older employees, they may miss opportunities on recruiting young employees who can be a more valuable asset to the hotels which helps to bring their standards to a higher level.Solutions It is time for employers to start responding to the potential consequences of the ageing workforce on their businesses. If not well-prepared, employers may find themselves suddenly faced with labour loss, experience and expertise that will be difficult to offset, given the relatively small pool of new employees. With many companies facing the same problem, competition for new talents is probable to surface.A) Hotels can have interviews to know which areas older employees would prefer to work in and the lectures they can speak. With the information gathered, hotels will be able to know their strengths and weaknesses which help to determine where to allocate each individual. With the proper job assignment, hotels will be able to maintain a good image, by reassigning the older employees with language barriers to the backhouse such as room attendant. This sanctions them to be in their comfort zona and after getting utilize to their task, the productivity will be maximized in both the frontline and backhouse.B) In order to keep older employees engaged and motivated, it is bouncy for the HR department to maintain constant communication with the older employees and regard any problems, issues and concerns that they are encountering. By treating their employees like family members, it may be a major job happiness-driver for them and thus motivating them to do better for the hotel. Besides that, communication and treating each other with respect ensures that the spirit of their employees is always high. with job empowerment, employees will have more decision making responsibilities and then they will feel more respected as an employee as they are given a chance to manage more difficult situation on their own. As for medical benefits, hotels can pay a certain percentage of their medical fees. For example, the hotels will pay 50% of their employees medical fees while the other 50% is paid by the employees.C) Facing the challenge that older generation is more conservative, companies can focus on creating a positive work environment for older employees by allowing flexible hours, more communication and constantly motivating them. Some of the actions can be allowing the olde r employees to have an option to consider different jobs and different sets of responsibilities. Some older employees may wish to devote their later career years to jobs that allow them to develop new competencies. Others may want jobs that are less demanding, these older employees may be interested in making transitions to different jobs at heart the company or make lateral moves or even to lower positions with a pay reduction. Other than that, the hotel can allow them to have a choice over the number of hours worked and provide them with flexible schedule for trainings. For example, older employees work on reduced-hours such as part-time or job sharing, so as to schedule the rest of their time for trainings that are put for them.D) To retain the skills and knowledge, the older employees can train and guide the younger employees in the lead they retire to ensure that the skills and knowledge are passed down. After retirement, they can come back and help out by overlooking and ha ving workshops to give further training that is needed.E) To attract the younger people, creative ways are needed. For example, the hotel can come up with a program like the popular show The Apprentice by Donald Trump to search for the best employee. However, we must ensure there is no excessive pool of manpower and costs are kept low. The hotels can allow their older employees to be on-call workers or have flexible work schedules. On-call workers are employees who are called to work only when needed, although they can be scheduled for work for several days or weeks in a row. In days when the hotels need a massive number of employees, the on-call workers will be called back. By providing flexible work schedules, older employees are allowed to plan their work schedules with the choice over the number of hours worked. This will elicit the retirement period for older employees by allowing them to work but at a lesser duration, so that younger employees have the chance to surmount and there will not be a surplus or shortage in the manpower.Case Study Royal Plaza on Scott The Royal Plaza on Scott is a 5-star leading hotel in Singapore. 50% of the hotel 300 employees are classified under the mature and older category. The company recognized the importance of mature employees and has sets out strategy as Singapore faces human capital challenge of managing a mature and older workforce. According to Fiat (2010),The mature employees are valuable assets to the organization as they are able to share their wealth of experience with the younger employees. The hotel taps on their expertise by pairing the mature employees with the younger generation of new hires to provide guidance and encourage cohesiveness. The hotel also implemented a chum salmon system where a new mature employee is paired with a younger co-worker or vice versa to work together and learn from each other. For example, younger employees may learn from mature and older employees on how to handle difficult customers while guiding their older colleagues on the effective utilisation of technology at the workplace. (TAFEP, p. 45)Royal Plaza on Scott has developed recruitment strategies like implementing Flexible Working Arrangements (FWA), where there is a flexible work arrangement which includes flexi-time, part time, job shares and compressed workweeks. Health benefits and programmes will also be implemented including regular health screening, health talk, yoga courses, sushi-making classes and others. This is to encourage for a healthy work life balance. Another great strategy used is to set up a Recreational Committee that was assigned to take care of the well being of co-worker. This committee will be in charge of organizing health awareness events, initiatives to create awareness of healthy life style as well as to bond employees of difference generations (TAFEP, 2010, p.46).