Despite experiencing a shortfall in labour of 100 workers, an average of six employees per store, throughout its operations, Solomon Yufe and Company Ltd or Yufe’s as it is known, is looking to increase market share. While not disclosing details of its plans, Yufe’s wants to expand.
Yufe’s has been existing since 1938 offering products from fabric, to clothing, bed and bath items, wall art to its customer base at its 15 locations employing 200 people.
Determined to grow the business, managing director, Joan Achong-Low—at Yufe’s for 23 years—spoke to Business Guardian last Friday, to highlight how she planned to overcome the challenge of sourcing labour while strategically positioning Yufe’s for growth.
The legal owners of Yufe’s are Dr Boris Yufe and Richard Yufe.
She spoke after the ceremony to open a new outlet of Yufe’s at 101 Saddle Road in Maraval on 15,000 sq ft of land. The outlet offers its customers not only textiles, but a high-end line of lighting from Europe for household purposes. Having a consistent supply of US currency is of utmost importance as most of its imports comes from the United States and Canada.
Achong-Low said a shortage in labour can have a domino effect on the operations of a company resulting, in some cases, in embarrassment to the owners.
There is need for ethics to be taught at schools as a life skill so when it’s time for young people to enter the job market, it becomes easier.
“You can’t open 25 stores without having reliable staff to help you turn the wheel. The customers want assistance, when they come to store, but we are embarrassed, the service is terrible. They (young people seeking employment) don’t know the basics of how to address people, which was not a problem say, five years ago. It is increasingly getting worse,” she said.
As a result of her analysis of the local labour market, Achong-Low said training at Yufe’s is a top priority.
Our workers get training on good customer service, on how to cut fabric and, lastly, they have to learn about what they are selling, the type of fabric, how it is washed, its uses and its fibre content.
Apart from competing to find workers with high-quality ethic, businesses must now compete with the Government’s high wage levels for less hours of work, she said.
Ease of operating a business is becoming a turbulent road and prevented her from opening other branches. Achong-Low is not worried too much about T&T’s economy as economies globally are battling with almost the same challenges as T&T.
“We do face a challenge with the Government paying as much as the business owner. Before taking the job people often ask what are you paying, and we would say the same amount a CEPEP worker gets. The person refuses saying we would work for the Government then go home.”
“I am heartened to hear that efforts are underway by the Government hopefully to cut down on the amount of people that they pay (at the CEPEP programmes). They look as though they are over staffed because there are so many of them to clean a certain area,” Achong-Low said.
Offering a suggestion as to how labour should
be utilised in the CEPEP programme, she said: “I’ve always had the idea that what they should do, is place two to four people on a street depending on how big it is, and keep them as regular workers on that street, so there is no need for a gang of 24 people to do what maybe two people can do.”
Regarding the overall labour market, she said the same amount of pay which the Government is offering some businesses are offering.
“Workers are telling me that they are getting $6,000 to $8,000 per month to be trained, and here am I offering an employee who has just walked out of university the same. We have the jobs and we want the people but their expectations are too high.”
Gone are the days of workers having pride in their work and it’s now all about the money, Achong-Low said.
“All the workers want to know is how much is this job paying? They are not offering to work hard or have integrity, I want to learn-you don’t hear those things.”
The other aspect of Yufe’s external environment which is posing a problem is the lengthy time it takes to obtain approvals from Town and Country to construct a building. There is too much bureaucracy, she argued.
“It’s a long waiting time,” that has to occur.
Regarding the operations on the port, there have been improvements.
“There are still a lot of problems in that I find that our containers take four, sometimes five days to clear and that should not be,” she said.
Asked what is the right work ethic a worker should have, she said they should take their jobs, “seriously and when they say I am working it means exactly that, come to work to be productive. Unless, there is a supervisor standing over someone, the work is extremely slow.”
Competition is not stiff for Yufe’s.
“I do see a lot of competitors closing down. I am not sure whether it is we are so good. One competitor told me that we sell too cheap and they can no longer make their mark-ups so they are coming out of the business.”
A female leader for more than two decades, Achong-Low, believes there are not enough women in leadership positions. Her perception of women in leadership is: “If you look at all my stores, with the exception to the Maraval store, I have women running them. I believe in the power of a woman that she can multi-task, she can be creative and hardworking.”
Achong-Low has two children: one is a lawyer living in T&T and the other is a market analyst with his own hedge fund.
Government’s response:
In an interview with Business Guardian last week Wednesday, Tertiary Education Minister Fazal Karim said the ministry has been studying the labour market and developments in it.
“The National Training Agency continues to do reports by sectors, so we can, in fact, tell you what the shortages in the various sectors are. We have priority sectors (to fill vacancies), for example we have the ICT sector, manufacturing, tourism. We have a number of sector skills reports that will tell us the shortages.”
He added: “I am not relying on any report, I have started what I call Employer Round Table discussions. For example the TTMA, the Chambers of Commerce, all of those employer organisations to meet with them, for them to tell us what this labour shortage is, and how as a Ministry we can respond to the labour market needs.”
On the issue of importing labour, Karim said when it comes to skilled imported labour, there is greater need to learn from them. Regarding the workers who are within the semi-skilled and unskilled category, he said:
“We are going to be talking to them (the business community). We are talking about people who are in CEPEP, URP and the social programmes. We are saying we can also assist with that, with the manufacturers (and other sectors).
“When I meet with them I will show them a model which I have developed, how we can use programmes to compliment the workforce, at that level, so we can elevate them to other levels in terms of the supermarkets and manufacturers and service sector.”
