A member of a Singapore club posted a complaint about the poor management of a particular country club currently..
In his post, he raised the concerns for the newly-employed HR Manager who created lots of conflicts and even removed increment for certain staffs (which is stated in their employment contract), which eventually led to the club attending a MOM – “Ministry of Manpower” hearing, even before her job confirmation.
*Note: All names of individual and entity in this article are censored to protect the privacy their identity etc.
In his lengthy post, he also spoke about the plight of the club currently, which had deteriorated due to the poor management of the current GC – “General Committee“, and regretted voting for them..
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Below is the text extract of the original post:
I’ve been a member In XXX XXX Country Club for more than 2 decades or so, never once the club has been more political than before. Staffs were energetic and took pride in their job. However, ever since the change of the committee last year. Everything went downhill. On one occasion, I spoke to a few staffs and they told me everything that’s happened since the employment of the HRM and the newly promoted FM.
Firstly, they employed a useless and a good for nothing HRM who knew nothing about her job. Everyday she came to work, it was just nothing but creating conflicts and playing undertable politics. The worse part of what she did was that she discriminates elderly workers, elderly workers who has been working in the club for more than 10 years and some even 20 years.
I was told that she denied increment to employees aged 68 and above. Eventhough the contract stated clearly that the increment must be given. Best part is after the hearing at the MOM and also directions from MOM, she proudly said things like it’s ok, this time round I give, after their contract ended, I will not renew with them anymore. A statement from HRM. How ridiculous!
When the Worker’s Union spoke with her, she played they upper hand and denied everything that she has said. Not only she likes to turn the table around, she also denied promises that she made, things that has been discussed in the meeting. Even though with witnesses. Untimately, the club was brought to MOM for this issue. I would like to stress a point that throughout my 20 years as a member here in XXXX, the club never had any issues with any Govt agency. (Maybe there was but it was covered up). Nevertheless, it hasn’t happened before to anyone’s knowledge in over 60 years of the club’s history. No matter how many HRM comes and goes, nothing of such has happened before. But she was so capable that she could actually bring the club to a MOM hearing not in a year, but within 3-4 months into the job. This is even before her confirmation, how can General Committee and GM allowed that? This was extremely unacceptable. I can’t even begin to imagine if she were to get confirmed, how much more trouble can she get the club into.
Secondly, in order to so called “cut cost”. The GC promoted a FM that not only pushes her responsibilities away just so she can concentrate on her budgeting. I wanna ask, which FM on earth only do budgeting and not anything else? What’s the reason? It’s all because she could not handle, there’s always a reason why wasn’t she promoted despite numerous changes of the FM, even though she has been with the club for almost 20 years. Why do you think that there were so many finance staffs resigned ever since she assumed this FM position? Why not before? Just as she assumed this position, the resignation rates in the finance dept skyrocketed. Also, staffs joined less than 3 months? Staff joined less than 1 month? And also not forgetting the staffs that they need to counter offer in order to retain them. So much for cutting cost. All of them resigned? Do you really believe that I’ll see it as a coincidence? To me, it seems purely as a poor leadership. I am not saying this out of my assumption as there’s already a review in JobStreet by one of the staffs or ex staffs. One of the ex GC also shared that the new FM will promise you anything in the meeting, but can’t produce results because she wanna impress the GC and act like she could perform well. In the end, nothing can be done. Not forgetting about the double payment to suppliers, and the club has to claw back the payments from the suppliers and it causes huge stress on the staffs. When fault and mistakes arises, she pushed everything to the staffs and blamed them for not doing their job well. Such despicable actions should not be tolerated. I can’t help but worry the future of the club and the finance dept.
Lastly, the new GC has been going the wrong way. In order to make the club profitable, it’s not just by cutting cost. It’s to maximise the resources as well, employing the wrong person and promoting the wrong person will end up wasting more money in order to retain the staffs to stay back as most of them wanted to resign. To summarize my review, I can only say that I’ve made the wrong decision voting for this GC and seems like the decision was right as most of the GC already resigned.
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This seems like a rather common situation for most private membership clubs nowadays, where proper or sensible governance is lacking, and most members and staffs can only watch helplessly..
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