We are told to remember the idea, not the man. Because a man can fail. He can be killed and forgotten. But four hundred years later an idea can still change the world.

V, from “V for Vendetta”

Step out of your comfort zones, Singaporeans!

Refer to the following letter from Mr Jeffrey Law in today’s MyPaper (Dec 11)

I REFER to the letter, “Pay too paltry in those jobs Singaporeans shun” (my paper,Dec 10).

Various reasons have been given for why Singaporeans are leery of certain jobs, and we should determine if they are valid.

A monthly salary of $1,000 is meagre in Singapore, where the cost of living is high, but, then, one should also consider the nature of the particular job.

It is not cost-effective to pay,say, a general worker in a coffee shop more than that amount.Ditto for a pump attendant at a petrol station.

Salaries are usually commensurate with the work and one’s skills, experience and qualifications

While it may sound cliched, a respectable company would not want to pay peanuts to get monkeys. Money aside, many Singaporeans dislike working shifts and irregular hours.

In our vibrant business environment,most companies such as banks and retail outlets operate long hours and even on weekends.

Gone are the days when most people worked from 9am to 5pm. As Singapore has progressed from Third World to First World, our mindsets should move in tandem with the rapid changes, lest we get left behind.

It is ludicrous to decline a job offer just because one has to travel to a remote area to work and travelling from one end of the island to the other should not be considered a bugbear.

Besides a good public-transport system, many companies also provide free transport for employees to and from work.
In neigbouring countries, it is common for workers and students to travel for two hours to their workplaces and schools. In other words, they leave home before dawn breaks and return home late.

The corporate world is becoming increasingly competitive and, unless Singaporeans emerge from their comfort zone, they will find it difficult to compete with foreigners for jobs.

MR JEFFREY LAW LEE BENG

Mr Law brought up some rather valid points in my opinion, and I have to agree to some of the views he brought up, while disagreeing with others. Incidentally, I don’t really like the use of the words “First World” and “Third World” to describe developed and emerging economies — the terms smack of colonialist prejudices, in my opinion.

That aside, I have to say that in my line of work, I am amazed sometimes when candidates tell me they reject a job offer because (as Mr Law points out) of the need to travel from, say Sengkang to Jurong East– some of these people drive, for goodness sakes, and it makes you wonder about the sincerity and commitment of these candidates. I also had candidates (both male and female) who tell me they don’t want to work in an environment that requires them to go out in the sun too often, and these are people who are supposed to be engineers!

However, I do disagree with viewpoints that perhaps people should be less fussy about salaries. Yes, most companies pay reasonably and commensurate with job expertise, experience and qualifications, but there is a huge difference between taking a 10-20% paycut, and a job that demands you do the exact same thing but only compensates the person 40% (or in excess) less than what they were paid previously. Case to highlight: I once had a candidate who was paid about $8,000 a month as a plant manager in a factory, but following the closure of his plant due to the economic downturn and bad business, decided to take up a position as an operations manager in another company that paid him $5,000 a month. When I presented him to a client, a renowned multi-national corporation, I was surprised that they overlooked his credentials and achievements and assessed him to be “worth” only $6,000 a month. I had thought that surely being an MNC, and in recognition of his contributions at his first company (he stayed there for close to 10 years), he would be offered something closer to his original $8,000 a month salary, but instead someone must have decided the pay-cut he took was an opportunity to pay “peanuts” to get a golden goose.

I would, however like to reiterate one point that Mr Law brought up to my fellow Singaporeans: foreign competition. Law Minister Mr K. Shanmugam commented in today’s Straits Times that “Singapore’s openness to foreigners enables the economy to thrive” [link here] and he was talking about how Singapore should join the “war for talent” to attract more talents into Singapore. What this means is that if Singaporeans do not step out of their “comfort zones” when it comes to jobs, there will always be that one foreign talent who will– and it would be a mistake to think these foreigners are necessarily less qualified or less experienced to want the jobs that Singaporeans shun.

[this post can also be found on my blog at http://sgheadhunter.wordpress.com]