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Since the easing of safe management measures, the personal care sector has been seeing an uptick in businesses as Singaporeans return to workplaces and in-person events return. To cope with the recovery of consumer demand, the Hair and Cosmetology Association of Singapore (HACOS) mobilised more than 28 industry stakeholders together to identify key capabilities required to drive sectoral transformation.
The multi-stakeholders convened in a series of Sectoral Operation and Technology Roadmap workshops conducted by the NTUC Industry Training and Transformation team to identify common challenges faced by micro-SME salons, as well as the necessary resources and enablers needed to help these businesses uplift standards and prepare their workers to meet evolving consumer expectations in the post-COVID world.
During an industry dialogue session jointly organised by HACOS and NTUC today, the stakeholders launched the Hair and Cosmetology Transformation Plan Roadmap and announced the formation of an industry alliance that will steer the implementation of the roadmap over the next three years.
Leveraging the support of NTUC U SME and NTUC U Associate, HACOS and the industry alliance will co-develop three key initiatives to address manpower challenges and build a sustainable local core workforce:
- Workforce Development
- Professional Standards
- Technology Adoption
If successfully implemented by HACOS and the industry alliance, these initiatives can benefit an estimate of 4,500 SME hair salons employing over 13,000 workers. With Career Conversion programme (CCP), HACOS expects that there will be at least 1,000 - 1,500 more positions for locals over the next 3 years, eg local talents, PMETs and women return to workforce to fill the demands and gaps.
Mr Simon Lee, Founder of HACOS also shared his thoughts on the importance of workforce development. He said, “While our industry may seem small and insignificant to the country economy, just like how Singapore appears to be a tiny little red dot on the world map, by coming and working together as an industry, we too can create tremendous jobs opportunities for our local workforce and better their livelihood.”
Ms Yeo Wan Ling, Director of NTUC U SME said, “The Beauty Services sector is one that is vibrant and exciting. With the coming together of some of the industry's most progressive employers into a Company Training Committee MOU with the NTUC, I believe that the industry will continue to attract and retain talent, as it develops its ground-up Industry Transformation Map. The NTUC USME looks forward to partnering and supporting HACOS and our Hair and Cosmetology SMEs to transform work processes, upskill workers, leading to better productivity and brighter work prospects.”
At the dialogue, 11 salons also signed the Memorandum of Understanding to set up Company Training Committees (CTC) with NTUC U SME. With these CTCs, these micro-SME salons will be able to apply the NTUC CTC Grant to raise productivity through technology adoption, redesign jobs and upskill their workers. The NTUC U SME will also assist these salons in improving workplace, jobs and enhancing positive mindset to strengthen their businesses.
One of the participant Ms Sylvia Chew, Director from Act Point Salon said, “With the competency Framework & Standards, our workers will be able to upskill and reskill through relevant training, helping them earn better wages with progressive career advancement and work productively. For business, it will help us to build a future-ready workforce to solve manpower issues”.
