The Big Read: At your service — or perhaps not, as manpower crunch worsens for hotels and restaurants

The F&B industry — which relies heavily on labour from neighbouring countries such as Malaysia — also faces about a 20 to 30 per cent manpower gap, said a spokesperson for the Restaurant Association of Singapore.

“Of course, the longer waits in queues to get into the restaurant, and in some instances, a slightly longer wait at the table for the food to arrive has resulted in some customer service issues, but credit must be given to the majority of the diners who have been more patient and understanding,” said the spokesperson.

CASE president Melvin Yong said that during peak periods, the onus should be on the hotel to plan and allocate their manpower to ensure a smooth and pleasant experience for customers.

“If there are any service lapses, hotels should offer some form of service recovery, such as vouchers, discounts, free drink at the lounge, to make up to their customers, as some hotels had done,” said Mr Yong, who is also a Member of Parliament and assistant secretary-general of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC).

‘STAFF STRETCHED THIN’

Hotels and F&B businesses said that the main reason for the worsening manpower crunch is because many of their foreign workers decided to return home and not renew their work permits, after having been unable to visit their families for two years. 

Mr Brendan Daly, general manager for Yotel Singapore hotel at Orchard Road, said that the hotel has vacancies in all of its operations departments including in housekeeping, front office, engineering as well as at its bar and restaurant Komyuniti.

“Housekeeping is the most challenging area, as we are finding it difficult to recruit locally for this position and have difficulty in recruiting foreign workers at the moment,” said Mr Daly, adding that wait staff for Komyuniti has been the second most challenging role to fill.

While the hotel has had busy periods where staff members were overwhelmed with work, Mr Daly said that it has been fortunate to have a group of long-term guests from Malaysia who require less frequent room servicing compared to short-term guests.

Mr Sharma, the director at Marriott International, said that the group’s hotels in Singapore often operate with many contract and part-time staff, who are usually from neighbouring countries.

With the travel restrictions, the group has had difficulty getting these workers back into Singapore. Its hotels’ housekeeping and F&B departments have been particularly hit, Mr Sharma said.

The group’s hotels have also been struggling to keep pace with the fast-changing COVID-19 rules on dining-in at restaurants, he added. He cited how during the circuit breaker in April to June 2020, its restaurants were operating with a skeleton crew.

When the rules changed to allow dine-in, it had to set up a new system that required much more manpower and it was “not the easiest task” to hire skilled service staff on short notice, he said. 

And when buffets were reintroduced, the group could only offer one meal period a day before gradually increasing the number of timings as more manpower came on board, Mr Sharma said.

Self-service buffets are currently still banned in Singapore to curb the spread of COVID-19 among diners and staff. 

Buffets were allowed to resume in mid-2021 but servers must dish out the food items for diners, who are not allowed to help themselves to the food. 

The restriction led to popular buffet restaurant chain Seoul Garden overhauling its business model in August last year and operating with an a la carte menu.

Now, it is facing another crisis after some foreign employees returned home, mainly to Malaysia, to visit their families when the Vaccinated Travel Lanes began opening up over the past months.

Seoul Garden Group now has about 160 employees across its 16 outlets, down from nearly 200 employees before the pandemic. Its chief development officer Garry Lam, 53, said the group currently has about 60 per cent of the manpower it needs.

“A lot of F&B players are facing the same issue, they can only depend on the local workforce. So what they can do is poach employees from other establishments,” he said. 

Currently, the restaurant’s office staff have had to help out with frontline service when necessary, he added.