Poster boy

He has been a long-​serving employee at Robin­sons and still enjoys com­ing to work serv­ing the many gen­er­a­tions of customers.

BY: Eleanor Yap

Mauri­cio V Soliano (his father is Fil­ipino and his mother is Por­tuguese) started work when he was 22 and has since been with Robin­sons depart­ment store (mainly at the Cen­tre­point out­let) for close to half a cen­tury! Through the years, he has seen cus­tomers return with their chil­dren and grand­chil­dren, after being served by him in their youth!

At 71, now a senior sales asso­ciate at Robin­sons, Soliano is the poster boy in the recent ad cam­paign (left) by the Min­istry of Man­power, NTUC and SNEF (Sin­ga­pore National Employ­ers Fed­er­a­tion) high­light­ing the value of older employ­ees. He serves his cus­tomers with a smile and it is no won­der they keep com­ing back look­ing for him. And he is actively involved in guid­ing, train­ing and instill­ing a pos­i­tive cus­tomer ser­vice mind­set to junior staff.

As a result of his hard work and ded­i­ca­tion, he was awarded the Sin­ga­pore Retail­ers Asso­ci­a­tion Excel­lent Ser­vice Award (Sil­ver) in 2001 and the Sin­ga­pore Retail­ers Asso­ci­a­tion Excel­lent Ser­vice Award (gold) in 2002. I am sure you will agree he makes a good choice as poster boy:

So you have been with Robin­sons in your whole work­ing career?

Yes, I have always been at Robin­sons. In fact, Robin­sons is my very first job. I started off as a tem­po­rary helper at the Lug­gage Depart­ment in Novem­ber 1959. I then pro­ceeded to join Robin­sons in Jan­u­ary 1961 as a per­ma­nent full-​time employee after I com­pleted my studies.

What made you decide to go into retail in the first place?

My father wanted me to pur­sue a music career when I was in my early 20s. How­ever, I took time to con­vince him that what I wanted was to join the retail line – in par­tic­u­lar, Robin­sons.
 
I joined the retail line because I enjoy meet­ing peo­ple from all walks of life and I love mak­ing con­nec­tions and inter­act­ing with cus­tomers. Over the years, it has given me immense job sat­is­fac­tion to be able to turn demand­ing cus­tomers into loyal cus­tomers. Recently, when my pic­ture was pub­lished in the news­pa­pers, some cus­tomers took the trou­ble to cut them out and pre­sented them per­son­ally to me.

What made you decide to con­tinue in the work­force even after reach­ing your retire­ment age?

I felt that work­ing beyond retire­ment age is a more pro­duc­tive use of time. Robin­sons re-​employed me when I reached my retire­ment age, and it worked out well. I would get bored eas­ily if I stayed at home. More­over, all my friends who have been work­ing with me for so many years are still work­ing in Robin­sons. To me, I look for­ward to report­ing for work and be with my friends every­day! I also look for­ward to meet­ing my cus­tomers whom I have got­ten to know on a per­sonal basis.

I noticed at 60, you were a senior sales super­vi­sor but now at 71, you are senior sales asso­ciate. I am assum­ing this means you are now on the floor and not at a desk. Did you want this change?

Regard­less whether I was a senior sales super­vi­sor or a senior sales asso­ciate at the Men’s Depart­ment now, I am hardly at my desk. A major­ity of my time is spent on the sales floor. I usu­ally work in var­i­ous dif­fer­ent areas in the Men’s Depart­ment includ­ing sport­ing goods, men’s shoes, lug­gage, etc. It is impor­tant to know the dif­fer­ent mer­chan­dise that Robin­sons offers.

As for the change in job title, to me, it is a job that I have to per­form at the end of the day. I embrace changes and I am able to adapt to a new posi­tion and work envi­ron­ment. Being a senior sales asso­ciate now, I do not feel embar­rassed hav­ing to fol­low instruc­tions from a sales man­ager (Anthony Lim, above right, who is 34 years old) who is much younger than me. What’s impor­tant is for me to stay alert and atten­tive at all times and per­form well in any job that I undertake.

How many days per week do you work? 

I work on a fixed shift pat­tern, which is five days a week, (42¾ hours per week) on the aver­age includ­ing week­ends and pub­lic holidays.

Besides ser­vic­ing with a smile, there are a few spe­cial touches you do such as deliv­er­ing pack­ages to your cus­tomers. Can you share any others?

Many years back, there was a staff nurse from Cam­bo­dia who asked for a pair of thin swim trunks. How­ever, this item was not avail­able at Robin­sons back then. So I rec­om­mended her to make a trip to a store on South Bridge Road, which was sell­ing the item she wanted.

Being a tourist in Sin­ga­pore for such a short trip, she did not know how to get to the South Bridge Road store. Thus, I pro­posed to bring her to that store after work and she agreed. She then met me at Robin­sons after work and we took a cab to South Bridge Road where she man­aged to pur­chase the item she was look­ing for.

The cus­tomer was very grate­ful that I went beyond the call of duty to help her locate the item she wanted. Beyond this, I also help cus­tomers tend to their chil­dren so they can com­plete their shop­ping tasks. I also call reg­u­lar cus­tomers to update them on new arrivals in our store.

How many older work­ers are work­ing with?

I am cur­rently work­ing along­side with three other older work­ers at my depart­ment, who are over 50s.

Can you share a dif­fi­cult cus­tomer and your secrets into turn­ing him into a loyal customer?

I once had a cus­tomer ask­ing for a full refund for a pair of shoes he pur­chased about two years ago. He had every­thing intact in a box and had not worn the shoes at all. When he asked one of my pro­mot­ers for a refund, the pro­moter rejected his request. The pro­moter rea­soned that even though the cus­tomer had never worn the shoes, keep­ing the shoes in a box for some two years would inevitably affect the con­di­tion of the shoes. 
 
How­ever, this cus­tomer insisted on a refund and the pro­moter came to me for help. By the time I approached the cus­tomer, he was already fum­ing and raised his voice at me on the sales floor. I knew then that this cus­tomer would not take “no” for an answer despite the fact that the expla­na­tion pro­vided by the pro­moter was cor­rect.
 
I then calmed the cus­tomer down and asked him to grant me a few min­utes so that I could get the approval from my supe­rior. After I obtained a green­light from my supe­rior, I gave this cus­tomer a full refund and per­suaded him to buy a new pair of shoes at a spe­cial dis­count of 30 per­cent, which he did. Need­less to say, this cus­tomer became my loyal cus­tomer since that day.

The young and old often com­plain of work­ing together. How have you man­aged to work it out? 

To me, age is only a fig­ure. It’s how you feel inside that is impor­tant. Thus, I strive to be young-​at-​heart and use humour as an ice­breaker when­ever I am work­ing with the young. Trust me, it works!

What advice would you give to a senior going back to work?

It’s impor­tant to keep an open mind. It would also mean that they might take on a smaller job scope and step down to a lower level. Thus, it’s impor­tant that they change their mind­set and meet the demands of the new job scope.

How long do you plan to con­tinue working?

I plan to work for as long as my health allows and as long as the com­pany and cus­tomers need me.

** When he is not busy work­ing, the sin­gle Soliano who is part of a large fam­ily of 12 chil­dren, tends to his 44 pots of plants which he affec­tion­ately calls “my chil­dren”, watches TV and does housework.

Valu­ing older work­ers at Robinsons

Age­lesson­line poses some ques­tions to Chee Nian Tze, gen­eral man­ager, group human resources at Robin­son Group:

What pro­grammes does Robin­sons have to value its older work­ers? Any upgrad­ing of skills that the com­pany offers? 
The older work­ers will attend the same pro­gramme as any other younger staff would have attended. They will also be sent for refresher courses and any other train­ing pro­grammes that are rel­e­vant to their nature of work. When these older work­ers are in class, they are used as resource peo­ple, to cite and share exam­ples for their life­long work­ing experience.

How many older work­ers (over 50) does Robin­sons have in its cur­rent work­force and who is the old­est? 
We have 221 of them in our cur­rent work­force and the old­est is Mavis D’ Cruz, who is 76 years old.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Robin­sons intro­duced the 50-​years Long Ser­vice Award in 2008 and cel­e­brated with six 50-​year long-​service staff dur­ing Robin­sons’ 150-​year anniver­sary dinner.)