Mr Mohamed Jinna, 29, and Mr Shaik Mohamed, 27

* Brothers and directors of Mini Environment Service

• Construction booming, but labour harder to get

* Stepping up productivity takes time

It may not be a glamorous business, but construction sub-contracting has sentimental value to us — it was one of the areas of work my father started out with, when he set up the company in 1977 in humble beginnings.

It’s why we have kept at it, even though costs have gone up, profits have gone down and its contribution to our total revenue has become smaller.

When the company started, it was also an environment cleaning solutions provider and manpower recruiter.

Today, the MES group has grown to include other interests, but our principal business is in designing, constructing and managing foreign worker dormitories.

We are also a construction sub-contractor involved in projects at Plaza Singapura, Fusionopolis and the Downtown Line.

Construction will always be taking place to some extent in Singapore. (With all the work on new HDB flats and MRT lines, for instance, foreign manpower numbers in construction shot up in the first six months of this year.) Yet it is one sector where you just cannot find Singaporean workers, except for roles like site foreman and supervisor.

Of the 500 employees at MES, about 160 are Singaporeans and Permanent Residents. We have 300 Work Permit holders who are construction workers from India, Bangladesh and Thailand, and 90 per cent of them are semi-skilled — they can do hacking, cleaning and other jobs at any worksite, so demand for them by main contractors is high.

TOUGHER GOING

We once had 1,200 foreign construction workers in the mid-1990s, but as policies were tightened over the years, so we have decreased their numbers.

Not only have levies increased, the challenge to get good-quality labour has also grown — construction is booming in India and China and salaries are not so different from what the workers here get, with the added perk of being able to remain in their home countries.

And we see construction costs soaring in future — not just for labour, but also for materials like sand and concrete.

For example, the construction of a new foreign worker dormitory cost S$75 per square foot in 2005, but was S$121psf last month based on contract awarded — 61 per cent more.

The bright spot is in our business of managing foreign worker dorms — even if foreign worker quotas are tightened further, we are confident as there are hundreds of thousands of workers here in the construction, petrochemical and marine industries, but only a fraction of this number of bed spaces at proper dormitories.

PRODUCTIVITY TAKES TIME

Dorm management is where we have targeted some productivity measures, given how it’s very tough finding the cleaners and security guards needed to run the hostels.

Two years ago, instead of stationing at least three maintenance crew at each of our four hostels, we opted for a mobile engineering team of five technicians to do maintenance at all the hostels.

It remains very challenging looking for cleaners as the job is tougher in a dormitory with no lifts than, say, a HDB estate. We tried outsourcing the work, but the sub-contractor quit after a month.

We also increased the salaries, from S$800 to S$900 a month to S$1,000 to S$1,200, and turned to hiring foreigners with outstanding cases with the Manpower Ministry on a six-monthly basis. Still, vacancies for at least 15 cleaners remain.

Yes, companies can look for ways to increase productivity to deal with gaps like these, but it takes time.

For instance, next month we’ll be tearing down the 3,000-bed Kaki Bukit Hostel to build a new one with 4,400 beds by 2014. We are investing in more cameras around the compound to halve the need for security manpower; we’ve also designed the corridors and alleys to be wide enough for suction cleaning machines.

For our logistics and warehousing business, finding drivers and supervisors is a challenge, and we’ve worked with the Community Development Councils to identify suitable Singaporean candidates.

This industry will probably use less labour and more machinery in future, but we would still need people to operate the machines!

In the face of all these challenges, MES is looking to further diversify — for instance, maybe going more into hospitality, or venturing abroad to set up and manage foreign worker dorms — to keep our business thriving.

– FACTS: SOME PRODUCTIVITY HELP SCHEMES AVAILABLE

• Productivity and Innovation Credit: 250 per cent tax deductions for investments in R&D, design activities, automation, staff training etc

• National Productivity Fund: Supports innovative initiatives, especially in sectors with potential for large productivity gains

• Productivity Improvement Project: For contractors and prefabricators to improve site productivity

• PRIME: Conferences, classes, training in productivity and innovation for companies

• Productivity Initiatives in Services & Manufacturing: Programmes for managers and supervisors