Forty five grand to line your trolleys up?
They’ve thought about the customer at Hong Kong airport. At every MTR station on the express route to the aiport, the trolleys have been lined up so that they are in front of the passengers getting off the train. No hunting for a free trolley – they are waiting for you! Nice!
But stop to think about that. Someone is employed to line up the trolleys. Given the hours the station is open (18 hours) it is going to be more than one person every day, more likely two; three to cover shifts across the whole week. Trains arrive every 15 minutes, so there will be other tasks for this role to do, but if they are offering a consistent customer experience then the focus will be this role.
So let’s work a UK equivalent, we need to employ three additional employees at, say, £8 per hour. Once Employers National Insurance is factored in (and not including sick pay or any benefits) that’s about £15k for each individual, or an optimistic £45,000 pa for the customer experience of having the trolleys lined up.
Justify that to the beancounters…
