Managing People is an art

I believe few know that it is actually not easy to manage people. In fact, most companies are just interested in how fast the employee is able to fulfill their KPIs and how much revenue the sales can bring in. However, they tend to neglect on the management of their staff. The mentality of most are the same. Someone else can do your job. Take it or leave it.

I find it very interesting that companies can spend a great deal of time and money in employing the right staff but never put much thought in ensuring how to keep them. Respecting and paying employees well for good work is both the right thing to do and helps in reducing employee turnover and associated costs. The indirect benefits include word-of-mouth advertisement of the company as an employer of choice and raising the level energy and creativity in the employee. How do you do that? Mostly in effective management of your employees. How many are able to do it? Not many judging from the job-hopping trend over here.

Many mistaken management of people by just leveraging only on the compensation.Compensation to an employee is more than just a paycheck. It is also about signaling to the employee about his or her value to the organization. Managing people is definitely an art, an art that few people have.

Promoting Green vehicles through COE

I disagree that it is not possible to promote green vehicles by using the current COE quota system. Under the current Green Vehicle Rebate (GVR) scheme, owners of green vehicles can enjoy the following rebates:

Electric and Petrol-Electric Hybrid Vehicles (GVR applicable until 31 Dec 2012)

• Rebate equivalent to 40% of the vehicle's Open Market Value (OMV) for electric and petrol-electric hybrid passenger cars, 
• 5% of the vehicle’s OMV for electric and petrol-electric hybrid buses and commercial vehicles, and 
• 10% of the vehicle’s OMV for electric motorcycles. 

CNG and Bi-fuel (CNG/Petrol) Vehicles (GVR applicable until 31 Dec 2011)

• Rebate equivalent to 40% of the vehicle's Open Market Value (OMV) for CNG and Bi-fuel (CNG/Petrol)passenger cars, and 
• 5% of the vehicle’s OMV for CNG and Bi-fuel (CNG/Petrol) buses and commercial vehicles.

Why don't the government just extend this rebate to the price of the COE? By doing that, it is still staying true of the objective of using the COE quota system to control the number of vehicles on the road, and yet encourage the use of green vehicles on the road, thus greening the Singapore environment. This will also send the correct message to the public that the COE system is not for the purpose of collecting revenue but it is truly to control the number of vehicles on the roads, and in this case, the type of vehicles.

This will definitely promote the use of green vehicles in Singapore because like it or not, Singaporeans are forever cost sensitive. WIIFM.

Grow and to Share

I quote from Rabbi Harold Kushner:

The purpose of life is not to win. The purpose of life is to grow and to share. When you come to look back on all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasure you have brought into other people's lives that you will from the times that you outdid and defeated them.

Buildings should manage the flood situation, not only the canals

There were many comments and suggestions to resolve the flood situation that crops up every now and then due to the worsening thunderstorms hitting Singapore these past few years. One of which I think is very important and will help in the controlling the flood situation is to reduce and delay run-off at the buildings with structures such as storage tanks, rain gardens, roof-top gardens and porous pavements.

The concept is very simple. Before the building is built, it is most probably originally a piece of green field and serves as a rain garden. I've written more about rain gardens in the post here. Therefore, that should be partly the reason why the area never had floods before the building is built. The water is most probably retained within the field.

The developers should at the very least ensure that the building on the land will not affect the nature surrounding the building. Therefore, creating the structures to control the run-offs as a result of these thunderstorms will help in alleviate the flood situation and developers or land owners should not push all the blame to the canal that is used for the whole of Singapore. In fact, if we really want to go into the details, I'm sure the run-off is lesser if the area was still a piece of field.

Be respectful to nature, and it will respect you too.

Skip Esplanade MRT to go to Marina Square

I'm done waiting for the Circle Line trains. If given the chance, I will avoid Circle Line at all costs. For those who are waiting for the trains at Circle Line, you can do a simple experiment. Look at number of minutes where the next train will arrive, and activate your stopwatch function on your watch or on your phone. You will realise that your stopwatch function may be faster than the time you see at the Circle Line.

Anyway, if you want a faster and more predictable journey to Marina Square, just alight at CityHall MRT station follow these steps

1. Take the escalators up towards Raffles Shopping Mall
2. Take the escalator down near the Starbucks on your right
3. Go straight, following the sign indicating Esplanade MRT, and keep to your right.
4. Take the escalator near the MPH to go towards the underground link that will link you to Esplanade MRT
5. Upon reaching Esplanade Xchange, just go straight and you will reach Marina Square Basement link.

Time taken? Personally, I took less than 5 mins to reach Marina Square Basement from CityHall MRT control station. Definitely faster than the "6 mins" I have to wait for the Circle Line train.

Higher standards required for service staff

Recently, I've noticed a trend where a lot of shops are hiring service staff. However, it seems that many still do not understand it's not the quantity but the quality that is most important. One example of this is when I was eating in a particular eating establishment.

The shop doesn't  look any different but I did notice that the staff serving us were not the same people I've seen previously, and obviously not local. The problem came when one of the staff met a what I would term as a "difficult" customer that couldn't make up his mind, changing the order several times. This should not be a problem if you're proficient with the language. The problem? The service staff wasn't proficient in that language, resulting in the wrong order keyed in. The customer was nice enough not to tell the service staff off and accepted the food offered, but I think he will never visit the shop again.

I think it's time the shop owners need to understand that the service staff is after all your frontline staff. The initial touchpoint of all your potential and repeat customers. Don't train them well, and you will leave a bad impression on the customer. First impression is always important. 

Imperfection is okay, but...

I quote from George Soros:

Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.

Being wrong is normal. However, if you know that you're wrong and yet persist in doing it in that way, then you might as well not do it at all.

Try, Learn, and Do it.

iPhone now checks the AppStore frequently

It seems that at least for iOS 5.0.1, the iPhone seems to be checking the AppStore very frequently, even though it is not initiated by the user. Even though I did not tap on the AppStore, the AppStore seems to know what are the new updates for the Apps in the iPhone once there is a data connection (2G or 3G),

Personally, I prefer if there is a way to disable this as the 2G and 3G signals are not reliable and if the AppStore constantly tries to call back to see if there are any Apps update, the iPhone will use up its resources to scan all the Apps to see if there are any updates. Moreover, using the 2G and 3G signals when the signals are fake (meaning that there's a signal but there's actually no data connection) will drain your battery.

I wonder if Apple will disable this stupid feature. Anyway, I still do not understand why Apple took away the feature to disable 3G. The 3G signals are horrible and I encountered situations where the SMSes came in late and the calls are garbled.

Japan has set another example again

I read with interest on what the senior executives of NTT DoCoMo have done over the series of network malfunctions and leakage of personal information. The president will have his remuneration reduced by 20 percent for three months while the other executives will take a 10 percent cut over the same period.

It's not the cut that counts, but the responsibility shown that is worth emulating. The top management after all are responsible for the direction the company is doing towards. If there are problems, either the direction is wrong, or the direction is not filtered down to the lower levels. Either case, the management cannot absolve themselves from all responsibilities.

Something that we do not see frequently.

Is that the reason why buildings have 99 years lease?

I read recently that high-rise, steel-reinforced concrete buildings are designed and built to last more than 100 years according to international construction standards. That led me into thinking if this is one of the reasons why certain buildings have a 99 year lease.

It makes sense that the lease is given up to the building's estimated usable life. The immediate benefit that I can think of is that the lease forces the owners to redevelop the building so that the useful life can be increased, be it a renovation or a total tear-down and rebuild.

Makes sense? At least that will partially explain why the pipes always have problems in old buildings.