Resorts World Sentosa announces one-off’ layoffs, pledges to protect ‘Singaporean core’ Resorts World Sentosa (RWS), which reopened to visitors in early July, is now turning

Resorts World Sentosa announces one-off’ layoffs, pledges to protect ‘Singaporean core’ Resorts World Sentosa (RWS), which reopened to visitors in early July, is now turning to the last resort – job cuts – as the coronavirus pandemic continues to take its toll on the tourism industry. The integrated resort announced “the difficult decision to implement a one-off workforce rationalization” in a statement on Wednesday. The move, which was carried out on the same day, came after earlier rounds of cost-cutting efforts. Meanwhile, RWS said it will invest in remaining employees’ skills with an eye on future growth. This includes technology-enabled job redesign, focusing on productivity and higher-value jobs. “RWS takes a long-term view of our manpower needs,” the Genting Singapore-owned resort added, citing a target of “stronger Singaporean core-forming three-quarters of the workforce”. Without giving figures, RWS noted that it has managed to keep “a vast majority of local staff” in the retrenchment exercise. Genting Singapore had about 9,400 employees in 2019 when just over seven in 10 were either Singapore citizens or permanent residents. Even as it pledged to identify “all possible opportunities to them transition smoothly to new careers”, RWS said that it has already found at least two new job opportunities for every affected local worker, with the of public agencies and the labor movement. For instance, a middle-aged junior sous chef was matched with jobs in public hospital kitchens, as well as chef positions in two food and beverage companies. Meanwhile, customer service roles in the public sector, fast food industry and retail industry were suggested for a crew lead with a secondary-school education, alongside the opportunity to retrain at the Institute of Technical Education as a healthcare aide. RWS operations most recently reported a 53.1 per cent year-on-year fall in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation to S$159.3 million for the quarter to March 31. That was before the pandemic forced international borders to close and a twomonth quasi-lockdown to take place. Genting Singapore, which had issued a profit guidance in March for the half-year to end-June 2020, later told shareholders at its annual general meeting that it also expects its full-year performance to “be significantly and adversely impacted”. Media across the Causeway had earlier reported a 15 per cent workforce reduction, or about 3,000 employees, at sister company Genting Malaysia’s Resorts World Genting property. Resorts World Genting also slashed monthly basic salaries of its remaining staff by up to 30 per cent, according to a report on June 28 by Maybank Kim Eng analyst Yin Shao Yang, who estimated that the move could lower full-year staff costs by as much as 40 per cent. (a) Describe Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and discuss its relevance in the context of layoffs by RWS. (5 marks) Read this further excerpt from The New Paper and answer the question 5b. ‘The gloomy, overcast morning on Madam Amy Low’s commute to work at Resort World Sentosa seemed a portent of things to come when she found out that many of her colleagues from different departments were being called in and retrenched. Then she wastold to report to a room herself with several hundred others, she said, where she found out she was also being let go. Madam Low, 55, a Malaysian, who had worked in housekeeping at RWS for two years, said she was given a black bag to put her things in and ushered off the premises. She said she was informed that retrenched workers would get a severance package pegged to the number of years they had worked there’.’ (b) With reference to Kent Hodgson’s Seven General Moral Principles for Managers, propose THREE (3) ethical obligations that RWS has to employees who are laid off and evaluate if the company has fulfilled these obligations in terms of how they handled the termination. (12 marks) (c) Using Kurt Lewin model of planned change, discuss the stage of change that RWS is at and what the company should doing at this stage to facilitate the change. (8 marks).