FairPrice management trainee gives back with people-centric approach
Video of NTU graduate Harmith Singh speaking Mandarin to shoppers goes viral
In the week leading up to Chinese New Year, a Singaporean Punjabi man caused a stir on social media when a video of him speaking Mandarin fluently to shoppers buying Mandarin oranges at FairPrice Xtra Parkway Parade was posted on Instagram on Feb 4.
Mr Harmith Singh is the "mystery multilingual man" in the clip, which has gained over 4,800 likes. He can speak six languages, including Cantonese and Malay. (See the clip at the end of this article.)
He told The New Paper: "For me, the proudest achievement has to be when I had customers coming back and wanting to talk to me."
However, Mr Harmith is more than just a food promoter at the hypermarket.
GRADUATE
After graduating from Nanyang Technological University's Nanyang Business School last year, he joined FairPrice in July under the company's 21-month management trainee programme, which allows fresh graduates to learn about and be exposed to different aspects of the business through three rotations, before finally deciding on the role they will take on.
The 27-year-old management trainee, who attended his in-person convocation ceremony yesterday, is also the mastermind behind Jeya Spices at FairPrice Xtra Parkway Parade, the first wet market-style spice stall in local supermarkets that offers a spice blending service.
Grateful that he was able to translate his concept of a better customer experience into reality with FairPrice, Mr Harmith said: "(We're) still preserving the traditional spice culture, but at the same time, pulling it into the retail (arena) with air-conditioning and elevating it to a larger audience."
Taking a "people-centric" approach in work and life, he started the #SupportWithLove ground-up initiative during the Covid-19 pandemic, during which he and his friends assisted those in need through phone calls and WhatsApp video calls.
Their services ranged from offering emotional support to helping with voucher redemption and grocery shopping.
Besides the elderly who required help with daily essentials, callers also included job seekers, but Mr Harmith could not help them personally.
"But I can connect them with people who can help. It is another fantastic thing NTU helped me with, to build my network and tap into the resources," he said, comparing his work with that of a spider who weaves the webs of connection between people.
He first learnt about FairPrice's management trainee programme through NTU's iFair, a fully interactive virtual career fair that allowed its students to visit virtual booths set up by participating employers.
Mr Harmith feels fortunate to have been selected out of hundreds of applicants for the job and considers it a "full circle moment", for it allows him to apply the things he learnt at university while giving back to the community further.
"At NTU, they didn't just enable me to identify my brand, but to really do the deep dive of what and who I am as a person to develop my career."
He added: "Now, I really want to amalgamate my brand, with its values of communications, volunteerism and sustainability, with the organisation. If there is this synergy, my career will really fall into place."
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