A RETAIL service training programme has been tweaked to attract more small retailers, after a less than stellar response from this group to the Government's Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (Spur) courses.

Spur's Provide Gems Service course now has shorter sessions held during non-peak retail hours in the afternoon and at a venue near participants' workplaces.

This 'On-Site, Bite-Size' format, as organisers term it, is in contrast with previous full-day courses held at a separate training centre.

The programme, conducted by the Workforce Development Agency and training provider Kaplan, trains workers on how to provide better service through classroom and workplace coaching.

Assistant secretary-general of the National Trades Union Congress Josephine Teo said the Spur courses had initially been more popular among manufacturing companies when it was launched in December.

While many companies in the service industry have since leapt onboard - their workers make up more than half of the employees committed for Spur training as of February - the response from retailers has 'room for improvement'.

This was because many felt that the course structures were not flexible enough to meet their needs, according to Mrs Teo.

She said many retailers are small businesses, adding: 'Most of them have very lean staffing. So to tell them to pluck people out - first of all, it's a cost for them; second of all, it is also the challenge of finding replacement staff to man shops.'

The tweaked programme was first tried out at the Jurong mall IMM, with 24 workers from 10 tenants. They were trained at a learning facility in the building.

'This saves us a lot of time, as our employees don't have to travel very far. The format makes it easier for them to concentrate on the training, too,' said Mr Anthony Tan, operations manager of watch retailer City Chain, which participated in the course.

Organisers said yesterday that following the success of the finetuned programme, they are now considering using this format for other service training courses.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.