SINGAPORE: Participants of the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon have taken to social media to express their frustration following the event on Sunday (Dec 3).
Complaints included poor organisation of the baggage deposit area that resulted in many participants missing their flag-off time for their races, as well as connection issues with the marathon’s mobile app and lack of management during the distribution of finishers’ T-shirts.
Some participants complained of inadequate manpower at the bagage deposit and collection areas. (Photo: Facebook/Thomas Pabst)
Participants took to Facebook to vent their dissatisfaction during and after the event, with many saying that it took at least one hour to deposit their belongings and ended up missing their flag-off time.
Responding to one of the comments on Facebook at 4.43am, Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon organisers apologised for the long wait.
“Thanks for giving us the heads up, and we’re sorry for the long wait. We’ve communicated to onground staff to fix the situation and step up the manpower. Apologies for that once again, and we’re trying our best to fix the situation now,” the post said.
Participant Janice Leong, 27, told Channel NewsAsia that she waited 45 minutes to deposit her bag and was late for the flag-off time for the 10km marathon, even though she arrived 15 minutes early for the race.
“I think the time I spent waiting from baggage drop to starting the race, to collecting my bag is even longer than the time I take to complete my race,” Ms Leong said.
“So much time wasted. Utter disappointment,” she said.
“Baggage retrieval was just as nightmarish,” said another participant. It took him more than 45 minutes for him to retrieve his belongings, after he queued in the wrong lane due to lack of instructions given by staff.
Participants waiting to retrieve their bags at the Standard Chartered Marathon on Dec 3.
Other participants complained that even though they registered the size they wanted for the finishers’ T-shirt prior to the race, they ended up with the wrong size as there were no staff to manage how the T-shirts were distributed.
Participants ended up grabbing any size they wanted, with many getting sizes that were either too big or too small.
Runners relying on the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon mobile app to track their progress also reported issues during the race, saying that the app did not record their run properly.
“None of the timing stations showed on the app apart from the start time,” a participant said, adding that it only worked hours after the event itself.
The Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon on Sunday was sold out to 48,400 participants comprising 126 nationalities. The event includes the full marathon (42km), the half-marathon (21km), 10km, Ekiden and Kids Dash categories.
Channel NewsAsia has reached out to the marathon’s organisers for comment.
NEW DELHI – Indian police arrested a man whose stinky socks caused a showdown on a bus as his fellow passengers protested the pungent odour, an officer said Saturday (Dec 2).
The man removed his shoes and socks on a bus going from the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh to New Delhi and put them near the aisle, police said.
Other passengers protested and asked the man to put away the offending socks or throw them out.
The man refused, sparking a heated confrontation that forced the bus driver to stop at a police station in Una district of Himachal Pradesh.
Una police chief Sanjeev Gandhi told AFP the bus stopped several times because of the smelly chaos before they came to the police station.
“He was arrested on charges of causing public nuisance and later released on bail,” Gandhi said.
Gandhi said the accused had threatened other passengers and caused a disturbance at the police station.
The man in turn filed a complaint against his fellow passengers and the bus crew for harassment and insisted his socks did not smell, the officer said.
He left the area in another bus a day later, police said.
SINGAPORE: Chances are as you start your day with a cup of coffee in the office pantry, you’ll hear a low-pitched groan coming from behind you.
Without missing a beat, you’re likely to respond quite calmly: “Hi Michael, how’s it going?”
Most recognise the distinctive call of the zombie employee – people who are physically present at the office, but mentally absent or “checked out” as they go about work.
Aon Hewitt’s 2016 Trends in Global Employee Engagement Study found that Singapore employees are the least engaged — or psychologically invested in their organisations — among major Asian markets.
Mercer’s recently published Singapore Employee Engagement Index shows Singapore to be in a third consecutive year of decline in employee engagement.
All these put together suggests that Singapore-based companies have not been doing enough to curb poor employee engagement, or that efforts have not been hitting the right spots.
But the larger looming question is, why are Singapore residents so unmotivated? And more importantly, what can be done about it?
HIGH COSTS
While we may dismiss employee engagement as a personal emotional issue — concerning whether we feel happy and enthusiastic about our work or not — research has shown that it has a measurable impact on business revenue.
Low engagement leads to higher absenteeism and turnover, lower customer satisfaction and ultimately, poor financial performance.
On the contrary, improving employee engagement can result in as much as a 57 per cent decrease in absenteeism and a 12 per cent increase in customer satisfaction, according to research by the Madison Performance Group.
Aon Hewitt has additionally shown that a 5 percentage point increase in employee engagement is linked to a 3 percentage point increase in revenue growth in the subsequent year.
But unlike a self-healing wound, employee engagement will not get better if left on its own. When unaddressed, disengagement spirals into demotivation, which manifests itself in more detrimental ways than employees sleepwalking through their workdays.
Mercer’s Singapore Employee Engagement Index shows Singapore to be in a third consecutive year of decline in employee engagement. (Photo: Sutrisno Foo)
Motivation is the driving force behind any kind of action or lack of action, explains Helle Bundgaard, Danish ex-IT executive who now coaches senior executives using neuropsychology to identify their motivation factors. Everything that a demotivated employee does will not have the impact it should, compared to someone who is motivated.
In economics, an initial change in aggregate demand can have a much greater final impact on equilibrium national income. This occurs because one’s spending is another’s income, which can affect further rounds of spending. Eventually, this change can lead to a multiplier effect on output and employment.
In a similar way, a negative multiplier kicks in when employees are demotivated. When employees are demotivated, they contribute the bare minimum to important projects and initiatives, and sometimes affect those around them. Organisations as a whole cannot produce the outcomes needed to stay competitive.
Imagine an economy full of such companies staffed by zombies – these sluggish organisations wear down a country’s growth, affecting Singapore’s attractiveness and competitiveness as a hub for foreign investments.
IMPROVING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Initiatives to engage employees by some of Singapore’s organisations with the best track record in this area, including Yahoo Singapore, the National Environmental Agency and the National Kidney Foundation, have often focused on improving the working environment and culture, making it more family-oriented, and integrating cross-department collaboration.
Many have rolled out dialogue sessions for staff to air their concerns, and programmes to improve their well-being such as stress-management talks, health days, or fitness weeks.
These initiatives, however, tend to focus on the extrinsic factors of engagement, which only come up to 55 per cent of what keeps an employee engaged, as measured by the Boston Research Group.
The remaining 45 per cent comes intrinsically from having our needs met, identifying our role’s purpose, making full use of our individual talents, and being able to identify what to pursue and avoid.
Addressing poor employee engagement and demotivation has to be tackled at an individual level in order for it to be effective. In this – organisations need to address issues flexibly and not try to find a solution that can be replicated for every employee.
Just as one man’s meat is another man’s poison, what might be extremely energy enhancing to one person, can be absolutely energy draining to another.
For example, an employee with a talent for creativity, who enjoys looking at things differently and exploring new possibilities, may get a boost in energy from working under more flexible guidelines and timelines. However, if this person is working on a project that demands micro-management and attention to detail, shaping the project progress over time can be highly frustrating, draining and eventually demotivating.
Team dynamics can also impact personal motivation. (Photo: Pixabay)
Our motivation is therefore personal. It involves an interplay of factors unique to each of us, including our talents and needs. Our motivation is also situational and dependent on the environment in which we live and operate in – suggesting that we need a fundamentally different approach to human resource management, one that is highly customised.
The good news is, addressing disengagement and demotivation does not have to be a long and arduous process – and can be addressed by looking at common denominators of what affects our motivation.
Based on her research on the brain’s reaction and response patterns, Helle explains that our motivation breaks apart starting with the things that drain our energy. Be it having to handle a series of change after change on a project, manage a team that is always in conflict with one another, or working late to fulfil a tight timeline, these are “energy drainers” that distract us from our current goals, clutter our minds, and waste resources.
Our motivation is further hindered when our needs are not met, invoking stress responses that hijack the brain. When this occurs, it is difficult for us to use our talents effectively and achieve our purpose at work.
The sum of our intrinsic motivation is thus made up of our energy, needs, talents and purpose, each of which requires us to take action to manage as individuals.
But before HR can tell employees that their motivation is their own responsibility, organisations must bear in mind that zombie employees will not have the muscle to work on their own motivation. Corporate employee engagement initiatives must take the first step in creating the opportunities and environment for their employees to identify and leverage their intrinsic motivation factors.
Zombie employees are now present in over half of Singapore’s businesses and can continue to be a real cost for our country.
However, the antidote to disengagement and demotivation may actually be much cheaper and within reach than we have imagined, and starts with organisations having the right focus on the intrinsic, individual, and situational aspects of motivating their employees.
Dr Peter Cheng and Dr Lily Cheng are the founders of PACE OD Consulting, an organisation development firm.
SINGAPORE: Marine buoys caught fire at 21 Tuas View Place, where a marine engineering firm is located, on Sunday (Dec 3) afternoon.
In a Facebook post, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said it was alerted at 1.40pm to the blaze, which involved “large marine buoys filled with dense foam”.
Foam jets were used to contain the flames, which had caused the buoys to melt and fuse together. (Photo: Facebook/SCDF)
Using foam jets, officers managed to confine the flames to the storage yard, which SCDF described as the size of a basketball court. The fire was eventually put out at 7.50pm.
“It was a protracted firefighting operation due to the difficulty in assessing the deep-seated fire as the rows of large buoys had melted and fused together,” the post read.
The marine buoy fire was only put out at 7.50pm. (Photo: Facebook/SCDF)
SCDF said in the post it was applying water to the burnt surface – a process called damping down – to prevent rekindling, and that it was investigating the cause of the fire.
SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Health is looking for more opportunities for public and private healthcare providers to work together as Singapore’s healthcare needs are set to grow.
This will allow the sector to pool its limited resources and leverage on the different healthcare providers’ capabilities, said Senior Minister of State for Health Chee Hong Tat on Sunday (Dec 3).
Mr Chee was speaking at an event in which Thomson Medical Group (Thomson Medical) announced a healthcare loyalty programme in conjunction with the Health Promotion Board (HPB). This is the first time that a private healthcare provider is partnering with HPB.
The Thomson Celebrating Life programme includes a mobile application that taps on HPB’s HealthHub for health articles. The app also shares the group’s in-house articles with HPB.
Additionally, the app will allow Thomson Medical patients to track their medical appointments and health records.
Senior Minister of State for Health Chee Hong Tat viewing the carnival booths at the Thomson Celebrating Life Launch on Sunday (Dec 3). (Photo: Thomson Medical Group)
Mr Chee called the partnership “a good start” and reiterated the ministry’s position on getting all healthcare providers to contribute to the National Electronic Health Record (NEHR) – a move the ministry is looking to legislate next year.
The sharing of patient data will better facilitate public-private partnerships, said Mr Chee, a view shared by Thomson Medical which is keen on a closer working relationship with the public sector.
“We can bring down the average waiting time (at the hospital) if we collaborate (and) are able to move patients from public to private fairly seamlessly,” said Thomson Medical executive chairman Roy Quek.
“The NEHR, for example, is an enabler because it allows records to move from public to private and vice versa,” Mr Quek added.
The group is not yet on the NEHR, it has said that it is working on upgrading its software in order to be compatible with the national database.
“It’s really about us getting our own house in order and making sure that we are ready to plug into the NEHR. We’ve been talking to the ministry for the longest time now and we are very clear that we want to be a part of the system,” said Mr Quek.
Senior Minister of State for Health Chee Hong Tat at the launch of the Thomson Medical healthcare loyalty programme on Sunday (Dec 3). (Photo: Thomson Medical Group)
There are several public-private collaborations to date including the Community Health Assistance Scheme (CHAS), where lower income patients can use their CHAS cards for subsidised rates at private general practitioners’ clinics.
A partnership between the health ministry and Raffles Medical Group also gives patients easier access to Accident & Emergency services. Emergency patients are sent to the private hospital if it is the nearest available hospital, but patients pay subsidised rates similar to what they would pay in the public hospitals.
Said Mr Chee: “We need to keep our healthcare system sustainable for the longer term so we can continue to deliver value and quality care to our patients in the future – this requires a transformation of our healthcare system, moving beyond hospitals to the community.”
HONG KONG – Around 1,000 people marched through Hong Kong Sunday (Dec 3), led by some of the city’s high-profile democracy campaigners including Joshua Wong, in what they billed an “anti-authoritarian” protest.
Activists say Hong Kong is at risk of losing its rights and liberties in the face of growing Chinese pressure on the semi-autonomous city.
The jailing of campaigners following court hearings, and fears that Hong Kong will introduce an anti-subversion law, are among the key concerns in the pro-democracy camp.
Wong, 21, was jailed in August over his role in the Umbrella Movement mass pro-democracy protests of 2014 and is on bail pending an appeal. He will be sentenced on another protest-related charge Thursday, which could mean more jail time.
“No one likes to serve a prison sentence, (but) if it can mobilise more people to care about justice and democracy in Hong Kong, I think it’s valuable and I will pay this price,” Wong told AFP.
Protesters carried placards reading: “The Hong Kong spirit can never be imprisoned” and “Walk with the resisters, fight authoritarian rule”.
Some held up caricatures of city leaders. Others played a recording of China’s national anthem and paraded a doll bearing the sign: “When you hear the national anthem, don’t eat. Stand up immediately.”
A new law introduced by Beijing against disrespecting the anthem will also be applied to Hong Kong.
The city was handed back to China by Britain in 1997 and is governed under a “one country, two systems” deal which grants it freedoms unseen on the mainland. But with the emergence of a fledgling pro-independence movement, Beijing is pushing a tougher line on Hong Kong.
There are also concerns about a new express railway to the mainland, which will mean that parts of the train terminus come under Chinese jurisdiction.
Student Kelvin Muk, 20, said he had joined the march because he feared he may eventually lose the right to do so.
“We are increasingly coming out to protest because we want to at least hold on to the last remaining freedoms we have,” he said.
SINGAPORE: Five men were arrested in a multi-agency operation at five public entertainment outlets along Sentosa Gateway on Sunday morning (Dec 3), police said in a news release.
Channel NewsAsia understands the clubs were housed at St James Power Station.
The nightlife spots were inspected for possible contraventions of Public Entertainment Licensing Conditions, authorities said, adding that checks were conducted on a total of 125 people.
Police conducting checks at a one of the public entertainment outlets on Sunday (Dec 3). (Photo: Singapore Police Force)
Two men suspected of being a member of unlawful society were arrested while three other men were arrested for disorderly behaviour.
The operation was led by the Clementi Police Division and supported by the Criminal Investigation Department, Special Operation Command, Traffic Police, Singapore Civil Defence Force and Central Narcotics Bureau.
Two men suspected of being members of an unlawful society were arrested during the operation, while three others were arrested for disorderly behaviour on Sunday (Dec 3). (Photo: Singapore Police Force)
Traffic Police also conducted an anti-drink driving operation in the vicinity of Telok Blangah Road, in which 16 motorists were checked. A man and a woman were arrested for drink driving.
Investigations against all seven are ongoing, authorities said.
“With the festive season fast approaching, the police would like to remind all motorists that drink driving is an irresponsible act that puts their lives and the lives of other road users at risk,” said the Singapore Police Force (SPF).
SPF said it will continue enforcement efforts and work closely with other law enforcement agencies to clamp down on criminal activities.
