Something good is cooking in the kitchen of Eighteen Chefs.
During a National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) Learning Journey last 10 February at the restaurant’s Tiong Bahru Plaza outlet, NTUC Secretary-General Lim Swee Say and other delegates from the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the F&B (Food and Beverage) sector observed the positive new vibe in Eighteen Chefs.
The business has raised its standards of productivity after leveraging on NTUC e2i’s (Employment and Employability Institute) Inclusive Growth Programme (IGP).
Under the IGP scheme, Eighteen Chefs invested in the Ipad Queue Buster that speeds up order-taking.
Another item is the SousVide Machine which optimally cooks a large number of eggs at a precise temperature of 64 degrees Celcius.
The Combi Oven enables more brownies and other food items to be baked at the same time.
Aside from these productivity intitiatives, Eighteen Chefs has also adopted the Progressive Wage Model (PWM) allowing for better pay and career progression for its employees.
The staff works a straight eight-hour shift a day. Since January this year, they received a 15 per cent wage increase and good performers were paid as much as a two month bonus last December.
SG Lim complimented Eighteen Chefs’ efforts to enhance their menu for the customers.
“But more importantly, they spend tremendous effort to reach out to potential employees by bringing them in, developing them, upgrading them, rewarding them accordingly, so that over time they are able to ensure that manpower will not be a bottleneck in their growth,” added SG Lim.
He also shared that the Labour Movement hopes to help companies cope with manpower shortage by taking full advantage of IGP.
“The NTUC and the e2i are stepping up our efforts to reach out to these F&B outlets, especially the SMEs, because we believe that by working together, there are ways we can make better use of technology and better use of every worker,” he urged
Since the launch of the IGP in 2010, over 900 productivity programmes have been implemented with over 63,000 workers having benefitted to date.
Original article written by Joshua Joseph, and can be found in NTUC This Week (16 February 2014)
