A chore made easier

A chore made easier

Housekeeping attendants at the newly opened Crowne Plaza Changi Airport hotel will not have to contend with sore backs when they clean its 320 rooms. This is because each bed has a device that lifts the mattress to an attendant's waist level, so that she can vacuum under it without straining her back. The device can also move the bed away from the wall, to ease the changing of beddings. The hotel is the first here to introduce this device. It is part of an ongoing programme by the Workforce Development Agency (WDA) to have jobs in various sectors re-designed so that older workers and housewives, among others, can be brought into the workforce. Each device costs $500, but the WDA subsidises $400. Another six hotels are due to install the device over the next two to three months. The WDA hopes to get 20 more hotels on board in one to two years. Hotels here hire some 4,000 housekeeping attendants, who are paid about $1,000 a month. Another 1,000 such workers will be needed in the next three years as more hotels are being built, the WDA said.