A conscientious hotel worker, who upon learning that her vegetarian colleague was having difficulties finding vegetarian food, took the effort to cook and bring the food for her colleague every day; a housekeeping supervisor who, during his night shift, helped the laundry team to dry and iron the linen to ease the workload during a manpower shortage; and a security supervisor who investigated, reviewed hours of camera footage and successfully retrieved a pouch containing money and credit cards to a hotel guest who had it left it behind in a taxi.

These are some of the stories of the individuals who were honoured at the 28^th National Kindness Award – Service Gold event, held on 23 November 2022 at the Holiday Inn Singapore Atrium.

A total of 99 individuals received their award from the Minister of State for Culture, Community and Youth and Minister of State for Trade and Industry, Ms Low Yen Ling.

The full stories of the three individuals are as follows:

Puspah Karuppiah

Room Attendant, 50 years

Orchard Rendezvous Hotel Singapore

A guest who is hearing impaired and has weak eyes was staying in the hotel with her husband for almost 2 months. Knowing this, Puspah reached out to the guest and made special arrangements to meet their preferred cleaning timings. When she was cleaning their room, she observed that the guests always placed their clothes on the bathroom vanity top with a laundry list placed on top. She approached the wife and found out that due to her poor eyesight, she was unable to fill in the form and was always waiting for her husband to do it. Puspah then took the initiative to help fill up the laundry form and to send it for washing.

Another example of Puspah’s kindness was when she learnt that one of her colleagues was having vegetarian meals for the week. As it was during the lockdown period and many shops were closed, her colleague was unable to get the necessary ingredients to cook her meals. Knowing this, Puspah cooked and brought the meals for her colleague.

When I connect with my guests on a personal level, it allows me to create meaningful connections with them. From that, I am also able to find out their unspoken needs and meet them. It makes me very happy when my guests are happy.”

– Puspah Karuppiah

Puvanesan A/L Ganasan

Housekeeping Supervisor, 28 years old

Crowne Plaza Changi Airport

Puvan has always gone the extra mile to ensure the hotel’s public area are maintained at its highest cleanliness standards. Puvan also motivates and helps his midnight team. Besides keeping the public area clean, Puvan also lends a hand to other departments.

When the hotel was facing linen shortages, the staff needed to process the linen in-house. Due to shortage of manpower, the laundry room needed to put in the extra hours and effort to ensure there was sufficient linen to be distributed to the room attendants. Puvan would help the laundry team by drying and ironing the linen as much as he can during his night shift so that when the laundry team arrives in the morning, they will have less tasks to perform.

During this period, he did not neglect the cleanliness of the hotel’s public area.

He even answered enquiries from the front office through the night and monitored the overall cleanliness of the rooms, to make sure that hotel guests had an enjoyable stay.

“We cannot run daily operations alone. We need to rely on one another to complete the daily tasks, so that our guests can check in seamlessly and have a memorable stay with our hotel.”

– Puvanesan A/L Ganasan

Suresh Kumar Govindaraju

Security Supervisor, 55 years old

Amara Sanctuary Resort Sentosa

On 17 January 2022, a guest who checked-out of the hotel called the reception, informing that he had left his pouch in a taxi on his journey home. It contained money, credit cards and his ID.

The guest was unable to recall the licence plate number of the taxi and didn’t have a receipt. Upon hearing the conversation between the reception staff and the guest, Suresh approached the reception staff to gather more details. He then reviewed CCTV footage and identified the the licence plate number of the taxi the guest and his family had boarded.

Suresh called the taxi company to contact the driver of the taxi and check if the lost pouch was inside the taxi. When it was confirmed that the pouch was indeed left in the taxi, Suresh immediately the reception staff to contact the guest. He then liaised with the taxi company to send the guest’s pouch to his residential address.

“Integrity is the most important quality for a security personnel. As a security personnel, my duty is to ensure that internal stakeholders and guests feel safe, assured and can entrust us during their time at our resort.”

– Suresh Kumar Govindaraju

The National Kindness Award – Service Gold recognises the actions of service staff in the hospitality industry, highlighting specific kind and gracious acts by them. This year, there were a total of 99 winners from 57 hotels.