The Inclusive Growth Programme (IGP) and Best Sourcing Initiative (BSI) are set to play a big part in achieving a progressive wage structure for low-wage workers.
At the recently-held NTUC's Cleaning Journey, NTUC Alignment Director (Unit for Contract and Casual Workers) Zainal Sapari and NTUC's e2i (Employment and Employability Institute) Acting Chief Executive Officer Gilbert Tan shared how the stakeholders of the cleaning industry can tap on these available schemes to increase the productivity and wages of cleaners and bring about positive changes in the cleaning industry in general.
NTUC's e2i has put together a list of commonly used training equipment for hawker centres, schools and town councils. The list has the details and the estimated cost of each machine that can help improve workers’ productivity.
The cost of funding available is also listed should the company want to purchase them through IGP.
When it comes to Best Sourcing, service providers and buyers will be encouraged to take on the 3Q approach – Quality based on Tender Specification, Quality based on Tender Evaluation and Quality based on Contract Management.
Companies will be guided on how they can build quality-based specification, how to use Price Quality Method (PQM) in the correct way so that ample emphasis will be given on quality instead of just the price, and how to manage the contract regularly to ensure the quality is delivered.
The BSI outreach will include the government and private sector. While the government has pledged to source only from cleaning companies with the enhanced Clean Mark Accreditation Scheme, NTUC will still work with government agencies to improve tender specifications, such as in the areas of liquidated damages.
In the private sector, the Labour Movement will work with the Building Facility and Management cluster and major service buyers to come up with breakthrough ideas to improve productivity.
The outreach is aimed to help 10,000 cleaners in four sectors – 1,300 in the hawker centres and foodcourts, 2,200 in the conservancy sector, 3,600 and 2,200 cleaners in schools and the public respectively.
The outreach will aim to educate buyers on concepts of Best Sourcing through the 3Q approach, and encourage them to adopt proper Human Resources practices based on the Tripartite Advisory.
To further educate service buyers, NTUC together with its tripartite partners, the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA) and the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF), will be developing a Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ) BSI module where service buyers will be trained under this new approach to build capabilities for procurement officers and to allow them to take more responsibility in awarding contracts to good service providers.
Besides Incentive Support through BSI and IGP funding and training grants, a performance management system will also help to cultivate a sustainable “ecosystem” where there are competency frameworks to build up the cleaners’ capabilities, with monitoring and auditing processes are in place to ensure service quality and delivery.
There will also be more publicity efforts to highlight companies with best practices on BSI. Key players from the Building Facility and Management cluster will be invited to join learning journeys to learn from each other and expand their knowledge on what can be done to improve the productivity of the cleaners.
