She started her own journey right from the bottom doing liaison and coordination work between employees and clients, learning the tricks of the trade as she moved along. Soon, she began combining work, taking relevant courses and getting involved in trade association activities to improve her capabilities and responsibilities to cope with the industry advancement. But having begun from the basics, Sharon Kee, managing director, Horsburgh Engineering, has both feet firmly on the ground. Well-versed with the realities and challenges of the cleaning industry, she understands full well that given the sheer nature of the work, hiring and retention are the biggest and most difficult tasks in her industry sector. Most importantly, as she admits, younger workers are not very keen to work as cleaners and the turnover rate is high. Yet, the industry has to battle the fundamental stigma, hire and retain workers without letting it affect its productivity.
How is that possible? By employing older workers, and training and developing them to meet the demands of the industry. And given that 80% of Horsburgh's current workforce of 500 staff are aged 40 and above, this strategy seems to have worked extremely well for the company.
Hiring mature workers
Needless to say, its commendable efforts have been greatly acknowledged by its peers as well as the Singapore government. Horsburgh has recently won the Special Commendation Award for promoting employability of older workers at the Lifelong Learner Awards 2006. Pointing out to the reason behind employment of mature workers, Kee says, "For older workers, as long as they get accustomed to the work they stay and can work very efficiently. In the end the benefit is having a pool of older workers who stay with the company longer and contributes to a lower rate of productivity loss."
Further, she outlines, older workers are basically responsible and many want to prove themselves when they come on board. "Their previous working history is not as important as whether they can add value to our line of work and adjust to the new working environment. It's more like they come and try, we train them and they respond accordingly."
Most importantly, as an employer, Kee feels, it is important to understand the employees' strengths and weaknesses and deploy the employee where their particular strengths can assist in improving their work productivity. "Do not marginalise but instead motivate them to work to the best of their abilities," she emphasises. Beyond that, communication plays a vital role. "If you don't communicate to them, you can't handle them. And this communication has to be at a level that they can understand. If you give them a power point presentation, they won't be interested. You have to talk to them."
Training the workers
The most important and logical step after hiring older workers is training and upgrading their skills to match the industry standards, feels Kee. The biggest challenge is to make new hires learn from scratch. "You'll have to make them forget their existing skills and retrain them." As soon as a new hire joins, he or she is paired off with an existing good performer to ensure that one-to-one training on the job is carried out. Once the new employee settles in the job, he or she is sent out to polish and learn the skill-sets. "In addition to on-the-job training, we send our employees to various related NRSS training schemes. Each learns the skills of the trade through these courses. Employees are sent in batches so as to minimise disruption to our work schedules," she informs
However, Kee observes, sometimes individual training works better than training in groups because of the age factor. "Also, some people forget their training sooner, so we have to keep following up to check that they are applying what they have learnt."
Interestingly, for each of these courses, Kee takes a personal interest to enrol and assess its relevance to work. "I have to go through it myself to ensure that it is relevant to my workers and practical to use." Besides, she feels, it is a good way of "instilling a sense of responsibility and pride in the employees and leading by example".
Retaining workers
Kee agrees that in an industry where turnover is rather high, it is difficult to retain workers. But unlike its contemporaries and competitors, Horsburgh believes in hiring workers permanently and not on contracts. "This helps to a large extent. When workers are on a contractual basis, they have no leaves, no CPF, no medical leaves. But here, when we employ, we give them all those benefits."
Besides, the training plays a large role. Workers understand that their skills get upgraded: they are developed, appreciated and valued. "This makes them stay and want to go an extra mile. You don't have to push them. They feel responsible for the jobs," Kee says.
It is an ongoing revolution in understanding what motivates the workers, she observes. "Currently we have schemes such as additional payment for non-absenteeism, monetary awards for exceptional working attitude and emphasis on their well-being."
Still...there are challenges
However, challenges are unavoidable regardless of age group, says Kee. "Changing the mindset of people, their attitude as well as the general public on the image of the cleaning industry is indeed a challenge." She is hopeful that as the society progresses and with the government's effort, the industry image will improve overtime. "These conceptions will not change overnight, unfortunately, but it will one day."
"We should learn from the Japanese cleaning industry, their cleaners work with pride. You can notice and feel it from watching them work. If we continue to strive and dare, we can reach that standard eventually."
Also, in the future she will want to get the older employees to preach to their retired friends on the benefit of working so as to keep both body and mind healthy, and that the cleaning industry is as important a career as any other in keeping Singapore as a first world country.
Bio Brief
Sharon Kee, managing director, Horsburgh Engineering started her first job as a general clerk in the construction company in 1987. The first course that she attended was the First Aid course conducted by MOM, followed by the Safety Management Course. Afterwards, she worked as a coordinator in handling the maintenance contracts for the company for a period of 10 years, during which time she was promoted to a manager. From here, she moved upwards to become the project director and subsequently assumed her current role as managing director.