HRM Magazine Asia April/May 2023 Issue

70% of executives say they could make better decisions—faster—with improved access to people data.

Visier, the global leader in people analytics, is here to help.

HEAD

Dear HRM Magazine Asia readers,

Shawn Liew

JOURNALIST

Josephine Tan

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Adrian Taylor adrian.taylor@mac.com

SALES DIRECTOR

Luke Kasprzak

SENIOR ACCOUNTS MANAGER

Edwin Lim

MARKETING DIRECTOR

Phyllis Chua

MANAGING DIRECTOR AND PUBLISHER

Catherine Wong

Are you ready to join Asia’s HR community in discussing how organisations can successfully navigate the new paradigm of people and work?

If so, the Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre is the place for you to be from May 10 -11 as HRM Asia, organised for the first time as part of the Arc network, proudly presents HR Tech Festival Asia 2023, Asia’s largest HR technology and workforce management event.

For the first time since 2019, HR Tech Festival Asia will be presented as a fully inperson event, bringing together some 5000 C-suite HR professionals, business leaders, government officials, HR tech analysts and influencers, to discuss the most pertinent workplace issues faced by organisations in Asia.

Over the course of two exciting days, HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 will bring you a packed agenda of cutting-edge content, headlined by global and regional thought leaders and HR luminaries, including Diana Wu David, Work Futurist and CEO, Future Proof Lab.

In this issue, Diana gave a sneak preview of her keynote presentation on May 10 at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023, by highlighting why organisations should not neglect the human potential in their employees, even as technologies such as generative AI continue to impact and change the way we work forever.

As she highlighted, “Sometimes, companies miss the point of technology as a way to amplify the value that humans can bring to their business.”

they take a deep dive into the most pertinent workplace issues faced by organisations in Asia today.

To ensure that you extract the maximum value from your visit to HR Tech Festival Asia 2023, we have also dedicated this issue to the event with a comprehensive show guide that provides you with all the information you need about this unmatched two-day conference.

For example, we are delighted to once again collaborate with Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower to bring you the fourth edition of the ASEAN Future of Work conference, which brings together representatives from regional governments, unions, and the private sector to discuss best work practices as organisations in South-East Asia adjust to a post-pandemic world of work.

While Diana Wu David correctly pointed out that the adoption of technology should not come at the expense of people, HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 will also feature more than 70 of the leading HR tech solutions providers in the world, who will bring you products, services, and technology demonstrations that can help support your HR transformation.

With 2023 shaping up to be a challenging but exciting year for HR, the HRM Asia team wishes you a very fruitful and successful HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 and we are looking forward to seeing you in Singapore.

PUBLISHED BY

Join Diana and more than 130 speakers across seven dedicated content theatres as

SHAWN LIEW, Head of Content Development, HRM Asia

CONTACT

Josephine Tan Journalist josephine@hrmasia.com.sg.

Shawn Liew Head of Content Development shawn.liew@hrmasia.com.sg

CONTENTS

ON THE COVER

21

HR TECH FESTIVAL ASIA 2023: NAVIGATING THE NEW PARADIGMS OF PEOPLE AND WORK MANAGEMENT

www.hrtechfestivalasia.com

HR Tech Festival Asia 2023, which is taking place from May 10-11, will bring together Asia’s HR community, global influencers, and industry experts to learn, collaborate, inspire, and discuss the more pertinent workplace issues faced by organisations in Asia today. In this issue, the digital Show Guide lays out everything you need to know about HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 and how you can create a fruitful event experience.

08

UNLEASHING HUMAN POTENTIAL IN AN AGE OF AI

Diana Wu David, Work Futurist and CEO, Future Proof Lab, highlights why organisations should not neglect the human potential in their employees, even as technologies such as generative AI continue to impact and change the way we work forever.

10 HOW TO BEST SUPPORT YOUR PEOPLE IN THE NEW WORLD OF WORK

Rob Squires, VP, Regional Head of Asia and Japan, Ceridian, explains how organisations can cultivate a culture that promotes employee wellbeing and equip their workforce to thrive in the face of future disruptions.

12 TRANSFORMING TALENT: PROACTIVE APPROACHES IN REVOLUTIONISING EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT

More organisations are now pivoting to a skills-based approach to people strategy, and are increasingly utilising innovative technologies like AI and ML to meet the skills challenge.

14 WHY LAYOFFS CAN BE THE CATALYST TO RETAIN AN ORGANISATION’S BEST TALENT

Organisations need to make sure that they understand the employee experience and take action on the moments that have the biggest impact on engagement, says Tony Tran, Lead People Scientist, Culture Amp.

FEATURES

16

WHY EVERY GREAT HIRE STARTS WITH A FOCUS ON THE CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE

Eleanor Vajzovic, Head of Strategic Solutions, Paradox, provides some tips on how organisations can create successful candidate experiences.

18 THE FUTURE OF WORK IS HERE: HOW TO ATTRACT AND RETAIN TALENT WITH EMPLOYEE BENEFITS

Offering flexible and varied benefits will improve inclusivity and meet the disparate needs of employees, says Primus Lee, Executive Director and Head of Employee Benefits, Howden.

68 COPING WITH CHANGE MANAGEMENT PLANS WITHOUT BURNING OUT

Dr Tanvi Gautam, HR influencer, keynote speaker, bestselling author, and transformational leadership expert, offers frameworks that can be used to manage the stress of change management programmes.

70 AVOIDING THE NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF ALGORITHMIC MANAGEMENT THROUGH EFFECTIVE JOB DESIGN

Philippa “Pip” Penfold, Managing Director, Integrating Intelligence, encourages HR to be more involved in conversations across their organisations about the decision to adopt AI.

74 HAVE YOU BEGUN BUILDING A BUSINESSWIDE APPROACH TO PEOPLE L&D

Steven Businovski, who works in Organisational Development & Learning at BHP, emphasises the importance of organisations creating a capability strategy and establishing a L&D culture.

76 THE WORLD IS CHANGING! ARE YOU AND YOUR EMPLOYEES READY?

Tim Sackett, President, HRU Technical Resources, examines the potential impact Generative AI can have on the future of work.

78 THE ROLE HR CAN PLAY TO ENABLE ESG OUTCOMES

CHROs are increasingly looking to devise and execute their organisation’s ESG strategy through people interventions, says Jonathan Cheung, Chief Executive Officer, The ESG Institute.

80 FOSTERING INNOVATION AND SUPPORTING EMPLOYEES THROUGH AN INCLUSIVE WORK CULTURE

Eric Ng, Executive Director and General Manager, Amgen SouthEast Asia, India, and Hong Kong (SEAIHK), highlights the role leaders can play in creating a sustainable DI&B culture.

88

84 LEADING IN A HYBRID WORKPLACE

Elisa Mallis, VP and Managing Director, APAC, Center for Creative Leadership, details how leaders can ensure hybrid team success in their organisation.

86 UNLOCKING GROWTH: HOW HIGH-RES CHROS DRIVE LONG-TERM SUCCESS

Enabling the conditions for CHROs to thrive is critical to boosting productivity and potential across organisations, says Gaston Carrion, Talent & Organisation Lead, Growth Markets, Accenture.

88 ACCELERATING BUSINESS GROWTH WITH CREATIVE LEADERSHIP

According to Dickson Tang, keynote speaker and author of the book, Leadership for Future of Work, creative leaders are more likely to empower their team members with new ways of doing things.

90 WHY PEOPLE DATA ANALYTICS IS POISED TO DRIVE BIG CHANGES IN 2023

People data analytics can empower leaders and individuals with insights that will drive them to make decisions to move themselves and their organisation forward, writes Jelvie Grech, People Systems Lead, REA Group.

92 WHY REMOTE WORK IS STILL OF CENTRAL IMPORTANCE

Scott Harrison, Chief People & Culture Officer, coto, share insights into overcoming the initial hurdles of remote working and how to build a cohesive and successful remote team.

THAILAND

EMPLOYEES IN THAILAND AFFORDED MORE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE WHERE TO WORK

THE LABOUR PROTECTION ACT IN THAILAND has been amended to improve employees’ work-life balance and provide more leverage for employees to negotiate with their employees on where they wish to work from.

The newly added article 23/1 will allow employees to agree with their employers on the location of where they want to work. The amended legislature will also address issues such as the duration an employee is allowed to work remotely, overtime and rest periods, leaving-taking procedures, and conditions for providing work-related equipment to support employees.

HONG KONG

BURNOUT, WORK-LIFE IMBALANCE IMPACT EMPLOYEE HAPPINESS IN HONG KONG

DRIVEN BY FACTORS such as burnout and a lack of work-life balance, the happiness index score for employees in Hong Kong stood at 5.15 out of 10, with almost four out of 10 employees giving a failing score.

According to an online survey of 1,500 employees conducted by HK.WeCare, a positive thinking advocacy group, more than 40% of respondents reported experiencing high levels of burnout at work, while 30% said they experienced work-life imbalance, which prevented them from relaxing in their personal time.

AUSTRALIA

AUSTRALIA PROPOSES IMPROVED PARENTAL LEAVE FRAMEWORK FOR WORKING FAMILIES

THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT is set to improve the parental leave framework in the Fair Work Act, providing greater flexibility for families and making it easier for parents to take unpaid parental leave.

Under the proposed changes, an employee’s entitlement to flexible unpaid parental leave will increase from 30 days to 100 days. Pregnant employees will also be able to take some of their flexible unpaid parental leave starting six weeks prior to the expected date of birth of the child, allowing them to better balance work and prepare for birth.

SINGAPORE

LESS EDUCATED YOUNG EMPLOYEES IN SINGAPORE LACK TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES

YOUNG EMPLOYEES IN SINGAPORE who are low earners and less educated face different challenges from their peers who are more highly qualified, both in terms of job mobility and mental health, according to a study by the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Social Service Research Centre (SSR).

While 64% of employees with a diploma and 69% of employees with a degree had their training sponsored by employers, only 46% of employees with post-secondary education and 41% with secondary education and below had employers who paid for their training.

JAPAN

MALE EMPLOYEES IN JAPAN ENCOURAGED TO PRIORITISE FAMILY OVER WORK

TO ADDRESS JAPAN’S FALLING BIRTH RATE, Japan is aiming to increase the ratio of male employees taking childcare leave to 50% by 2025, before hitting a high of 85% in 2030.

Among the strategies outlined by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida include providing financial support to small businesses that pay a special allowance to employees who temporarily assume the work of colleagues on childcare leave.

The government will also raise the child-rearing allowance paid to parents for a certain period after the child’s birth.

NEW ZEALAND

EMPLOYEE RETENTION A PRIORITY FOR ORGANISATIONS IN NEW ZEALAND

OVER THE LAST TWO YEARS, retaining employees who are hard to be replaced is a key consideration for three-quarters of organisations in New Zealand when determining wages and salaries for employees.

Besides talent retention, competing for employees and adapting to changes in business conditions have also been key factors for organisations in their wage and salary setting decisions, according to Stats NZ, New Zealand’s data agency.

Beyond monetary rewards, more organisations are also offering more flexibility for their employees, with more than one in five organisations reporting an increase in employees’ choice over location of work.

US 4-DAY WORK WEEK BILL TABLED IN THE US

US CONGRESSMAN MARK

TAKANO, who represents California’s 39th district, has reintroduced his 32hour Workweek Act to Congress. If passed, it would officially reduce the standard definition of the workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours by amending the Fair Labour Standards Act of 1938.

The proposal would apply to nonexempt workers who are typically paid hourly in industries like leisure and hospitality, transportation, construction, manufacturing, wholesale, and retail trade. Some salaried workers would also meet the bill’s provision, reported USA Today

MICHIGAN REPEALS ‘RIGHT TO WORK’ LAW

GRETCHEN WHITMER, governor of the US state of Michigan, has signed off on legislation to repeal the state’s right-to-work law.

Right-to-work laws prohibit union security agreements, which is a contract between a labour union and employers that require all employees benefiting from the union contract to pay their share of costs.

“We are coming together to restore workers’ rights, protect Michiganders on the job, and grow Michigan’s middle class,” Whitmer declared.

EUROPE BACK UP YOUR CLIMATE-FRIENDLY CLAIMS, COMPANIES IN EUROPE TOLD

COMPANIES SEEKING TO PROMOTE GOODS sold in Europe with labels like “natural”, “climate neutral” or having “recycled content” could soon be required to carry out a sciencebased assessment that accesses all significant environmental impacts, to prove that the product lives up the claim, or have it verified under an environmental labelling scheme.

According to the European Commission, the proposal aims to stamp out misleading green labels for products ranging from clothing to cosmetics, with companies making climate-friendly claims without proof subjected to financial penalties.

IRELAND EMPLOYEES IN IRELAND LACK MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT

80% OF EMPLOYERS IN IRELAND are not investing in workplace mental health, according to a new study by University College Cork. This is even though more than half of employers reported that the proportion of absenteeism due to mental ill-health has increased in the last 12 months. The study also found that firms in Ireland are less likely to support workplace health promotion than in England. Presenteeism, or working when ill, is also higher in Irish businesses compared to employers in England, reported RTE

UK

UK NOT EXPECTED TO BRING FORWARD DATE TO RAISE STATE PENSION AGE

THE STATE PENSION AGE IN THE UK, which will be raised from 66 to 68 in 2044, is not expected to be brought forward. A previous government review in 2017 had suggested the rise could be brought forward into the late 2030s.

By law, the government is required to examine planned changes to the system every six years, and the latest review considers factors such as the costs involved and life expectancy, which is no longer due to rise as quickly as previously projected, reported BBC News

FRANCE

FRANCE HAS HAPPIEST EMPLOYEES IN EUROPE

EMPLOYEES IN FRANCE ARE AMONG THE MOST FULFILLED in the world, according to a new study by Axa.

33% of employees in France said they feel fulfilled at work, compared to 29% in the United States, 24% in Belgium and Spain, and 23% in Germany and the UK. Globally, only Thailand had a higher number of employees (37%) who reported feelings of fulfilment.

26% of employees in France said that their working conditions were “optimal” and only 10% reported being “in distress” while at work.

UNLEASHING HUMAN POTENTIAL IN AN AGE OF AI

BY SHAWN LIEW

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace is not new and has been applied in areas such as recruitment, onboarding, and employee engagement, many times to great effect.

While organisations have for many years attempted to define the optimal relationship between employees and technology, the recent emergence of ChatGPT has refocused the spotlight on AI in particular.

According to a recent survey by market research and analytics company The Harris Poll, 60% of employees in the US are optimistic that generative AI tools and platforms such as ChatGPT will make them more productive at their jobs, while 40% of employees expressed concerns that their jobs will be replaced.

Are these fears unfounded or should organisations be cautioned against prioritising technology over people, arguably an organisation’s most valuable asset?

Diana Wu David, Work Futurist and CEO, Future Proof Lab, told HRM Magazine Asia, “Sometimes, companies miss the point of technology as a way to amplify the value that humans can bring to their business. We tend to look at a shiny new rollout of onboarding technology as a cost saving and process improvement method, without considering how the human pieces of the equation fit in.”

Drawing an analogy from the world of hospitality, she continued, “The opportunity to have data on your customers can be

uniquely empowering for employees from marketing to front desk to housekeeping. I am willing to give you my data as a customer so that my experience is more tailored.”

“When this works wells, the data you have about my favourite type of pillow, the fact that I have shined my shoes on every single trip or even the fact that I received a marriage proposal in your hotel, could lead to a human level of ingenuity and empathy that makes a hotel stay a transformative experience and loyalty a foregone conclusion.”

When technology fails, however, the experience can be a completely different one, as Diana found out recently on a hotel stay. Despite the best efforts of a dedicated front desk employee, neither Diana nor the hotel employee was able to access her online booking.

She added, “The employee at the front desk was empathetic and could have had all the empowerment and information at her fingertips but the technology failed to amplify her ability to make the experience great.”

Explaining how this is hardly an uncommon occurrence across multiple B2B and B2C client interactions across industries, Diana urged organisations to consider and compare this to a typical onboarding process for an employee.

“Does the onboarding process think about the employee as a person, or is onboarding a necessary evil of filling out physical or offline forms? Does the process check the box on what the system needs, or what the employee needs?” she asked.

Where generative AI is concerned, it is almost certain to affect livelihoods around the world, Diana predicted, referencing a recent study by Goldman Sachs, which highlights how 300 million jobs could potentially be impacted by generative AI technology. Conversely, generative AI could also spark a productivity boom that would add 7% to global GDP and create new jobs, said Goldman Sachs.

How AI will eventually impact the workplace is likely to be determined by how the integration of technology is managed across organisations. Engaging employees early in the process to understand how jobs can be augmented is key.

How AI can potentially shape work and lives

For AI to have a net positive on workplace strategies, organisations need to take a human-centric approach that allows employee experiences to be amplified, as opposed to simply throwing new technologies at problems most people do not have a solution for, said Diana, who added, “It is about how to be engaging, inspiring and productive.”

AI and other technologies, she added, possess the power to make work potentially less grinding, depending on how organisations move forward. For example, can employees who work for 40 hours a week now reduce that total by half?

Diana suggested, “The reason that AI is a fearful proposition for many people is because of losing corporate benefits when going

‘part time’. We, as a society, made up that number to adapt to an industrial age, and regulations and norms started growing around that.”

She highlighted the recent 4-day workweek trial in the UK, which reported increased employee engagement and revenue, as examples of changing mindsets, which can in turn potentially improve the capacity of employees. AI has the potential to for us to supercharge productivity and enhance work-life balance if leaders and HR professionals take a skills-focused approach rather than a job-focused approach.

“We’ve seen research that shows that less structured time, or the famed 20% of time spent on things not directly related to output at work, can increase productivity and innovation. Machine learning has the potential to automate repetitive work and generative AI has the potential to expand our creativity, let us play and offer more ideas and personalisation to clients and employees.”

As for how AI will continue to impact the future of work and how organisations can harness human potential in an age of AI, Diana sees this as a paradigm shift akin to the advent of the Internet or electricity.

“We now use generative AI to generate our social media summaries for newsletters and APIs are now embedded into my presentation software and our online courses platform.”

“I am using these technologies to enhance critical thinking in assignments for my MBAs and friends of mine are using them for coding, analytics and even performance reviews. All of this will lead to a huge impact on the future of work as we adopt an AI co-pilot for key tasks. Ensuring that we stay in the pilot seat will be the work of the next decade,” Diana concluded.

To find out how you can unleash human potential in your organisation in an age of AI, join Diana at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023, on May 10 at 11.30am (SGT). In her keynote presentation, Diana will share stories of how organisations and their leaders are trying to harness AI and emerging technologies to augment human potential and succeed in a new world of work.

“Sometimes, companies miss the point of technology as a way to amplify the value that humans can bring to their business. We tend to look at a shiny new rollout of onboarding technology as a cost saving and process improvement method, without considering how the human pieces of the equation fit in.” ”

DIANA WU DAVID, WORK FUTURIST AND CEO, FUTURE PROOF LAB.

How to best support your people in the new world of work

With the rising cost of living and a 2023 SingaporeBudget largely focused on building capabilities and seizing new opportunities, organisations should turn their focus inward to address existing business challenges and bolster productivity. Fostering internal growth opportunities, supporting middle managers, and ensuring that workers of all generations feel a sense of belonging within the workplace are just some of the ways forward-thinking organisations in Singapore can tap into the potential of their people and secure a future of innovation and resilience.

Here are some tips on how to get started:

Career mobility and resilience

According to Ceridian’s 2023 Pulse of Talent survey, 80% of Singapore workers are a flight risk. But when these respondents were asked if better internal career opportunities would make them consider staying with their current employer, 92% said yes.

When asked about internal career opportunities, more than half of Singapore workers said they would like to contribute skills to new projects from within their current role (53%) or move into a new role in a different team or department (52%).

Despite this interest, less than half (48%) said they saw a clear career path with their employer, and only 1-in-10 felt they had a high degree of control over their career path.

To effectively address these concerns, companies should implement skills training and development programmes to help employees build resilience and prepare for future career opportunities. Furthermore, mentoring and coaching programmes, job rotations, and cross-functional training opportunities can also provide exposure to different parts of the organisation, facilitating the acquisition of diverse skills that promote career mobility and retention.

Stuck in the middle

Employee career experiences and retention are heavily influenced by managers. But middle managers face unique challenges in the post-pandemic workplace. Positioned

between senior leaders and individual contributors, middle managers serve as a crucial link, facilitating communication both up and down within their organisation. This also means that much of their day is spent in meetings.

Despite their vital role, 69% of middle managers globally felt stuck in their roles last year, while more than a third (34%) do not feel fulfilled in their jobs.

One of the ways employers can better support middle managers and improve their efficiency is with a human capital management (HCM) system built as a single solution. For organisations with existing technology in place, evaluating its effectiveness in meeting managers’ needs is essential. If outdated or separate systems are in use for various aspects of workforce management, middle managers may be losing valuable time trying to gather, analyse, and translate people data into meaningful insights.

Likewise, the administrative strain from switching between disparate systems adds more work to managers’ already full plates, taking them away from higher-value work such as coaching and mentoring. The right HCM technology can help reduce these challenges and free up time for middle managers to focus on the work they enjoy.

Working longer beyond retirement

The aging workforce is another trend that presents both challenges and opportunities for organisations. With more people working beyond their retirement years, employers must adapt to accommodate the changing needs of their workforce.

In Ceridian’s 2023 Pulse of Talent survey, we found that ageism in the workplace can start to occur as early as age 45, and that as a worker’s age increases, their chances for workplace development opportunities decrease.

To effectively address changing employee needs and identify potential blind spots in HR practices and policies, organisations must adopt a proactive approach to understanding their workforce. Annual employee engagement surveys or diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) questionnaires are valuable tools that allow employers to better understand their employees’ needs while helping identify issues that may be hiding below the surface. This information can help businesses foster a culture of inclusivity and build a resilient workforce that is poised for long-term success.

Final thoughts

Together, these emerging trends highlight the need for organisations to embrace modern HCM technology, such as Dayforce offered by Ceridian, to transform HR practices and policies and meet the needs of today’s workforce. By prioritising career mobility, attending to the needs of their workforce, and removing internal obstacles, organisations can cultivate a culture that promotes employee well-being and equip their workforce to thrive in the face of future disruptions.

About the Author

Rob Squires is VP, Regional Head of Asia and Japan, Ceridian. Join him at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 on May 11 at 9.35 am (SGT), where he will discuss how organisations can embrace career flexibility to move faster, work harder, and build resilience.

“By prioritising career mobility, attending to the needs of their workforce, and internalremovingobstacles, organisations can cultivate a culture that promotes well-beingemployee and equip their workforce to thrive in the face of future disruptions.”

90% of su r veyed employees feel stuck in their roles

We surveyed 8,800 workers in our to learn what they value in their careers. Results showed there’s more to job flexibility than remote work and scheduling autonomy.

Discover how your organization can embrace flexibility to create meaningful careers for your people.

Download the research

2023 Pulse of Talent

Transforming talent: Proactive approaches in revolutionising employee development

BY JOSEPHINE TAN

The ever-changing business landscape has prompted organisations to recognise that external talent acquisition and retention strategies are no longer sufficient. In response, organisations are increasingly turning to internal talent development and progression, leading to a growing trend towards internal mobility.

According to the Why High-Growth Companies Should Embrace Internal Mobility to Support Recruitment and Retention study by Workday and the Human Capital Institute (HCI), 51% of high-growth organisations are increasing their investment in internal mobility to support their talent needs, compared to 32% of all other organisations. In Asia-Pacific, 60% of the organisations are doing so, compared to 48% in North America and 42% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

For internal mobility to succeed, organisations need to take a proactive approach. At its core, internal mobility encompasses two main elements, awareness of internal job opportunities and employee development to take advantage of those opportunities. While the awareness level is typically part of the talent acquisition process, the development level is often part of talent management and HR, which involves promoting and advancing careers within the organisation. Therefore, an internal mobility strategy must incorporate both elements to be effective.

A successful internal mobility strategy requires a career development culture, providing equitable opportunities for employees, and ensuring consistent communication and feedback. For highgrowth organisations, careful planning and preparation around internal mobility are crucial and involve a shift in how they think about talent, including prioritising individuals to unlock their full potential.

Leveraging AI and machine learning to build a skills-based people strategy

The foundation for talent development is increasingly based on skills, and

organisations can improve upskilling and internal mobility by providing fairer hiring processes and making smart talent decisions. Additionally, they can identify and close skills gaps across the organisation to plan and prepare for the future. While skills-based development is not a new practice in talent management, it is becoming increasingly common. Previously, organisations have implemented skills frameworks and competency libraries to enhance talent management and development. These methods, however, have become outdated over time and have not been adequately maintained. Nowadays, AI inference and machine learning are used to support skills-based development, which can support organisations in improving internal mobility and creating a more consistent and applicable experience.

Machine learning also plays a critical role in assisting organisations with their skills-based approach to acquire new talent. Identifying the most important skills for a role—instead of just relying on education and previous job experience—can help with hiring based on potential, expanding pathways for candidates, and opening up new talent pools.

According to Workday’s Building a Skills-based People Strategy report, crucial steps for creating a successful skills-based approach include defining key characteristics for the future skills landscape, designing guiding principles to structure skills-related decisions, identifying operational impacts that require attention to support skills in the new environment, and utilising personas to

bring these concepts to life. Regardless of the stage of development, Workday emphasised that these steps are crucial, and the resulting documentation can serve as a valuable guide for future decision-making on skills in supporting the overall strategy.

A skills-based approach to hiring and the entire employee lifecycle can help deepen the talent pool internally and externally, while boosting diversity, improving retention, and building a culture of continuous learning. It’s up to organisations now to develop the readiness to stay agile, keep pace, and address the challenges of the new world of work.

Pannie Sia, General Manager, ASEAN, Workday, said “At Workday, we believe investing in skills is a great way to help our employees succeed in their current roles and grow professionally. Our talent philosophy is to create an environment where employees can continually build their careers, develop capabilities, deepen connections, make contributions, and feel recognised for their efforts. Our employees are our number one core value, and we continuously create programmes that will help them cultivate their skills in a way that helps them feel engaged and motivated.”

To discover how Workday can enhance workplace engagement and productivity, join Shruti Jana, Vice President, Global People Partners and Organisational Effectiveness, Workday; and Wong Pei Woan, Director, oCHRO and oCIO Solutions, Asia, Workday; on May 10 at 12:10pm (SGT) at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023.

Help your people achieve their potential.

Your employees need a roadmap to make sure they're on the path to success. Workday gives you complete visibility over your team's evolving needs, and the power to curate the right support to help them thrive. Plus, easier communication with employees helps you provide personalized learning opportunities. That way, everyone gets where they need to be, on the path that's right for them. Workday. The finance, HR, and planning system for a changing world.

Why layoffs can be the catalyst to retain an organisation’s best talent

BY SHAWN LIEW

Like a crumbling house of cards, the wave of tech layoffs around the world is showing little signs of abating. In 2023 alone, more than 106,000 employees have reportedly been laid off from US-based tech companies such as Meta, which will reduce 25% of its global workforce from the peak headcount of about 87,000 employees in 2022.

While many employees are understandably concerned about how this may portend a larger scale of layoffs across multiple industries, organisations may also be at risk of losing the employees they want to keep.

When layoffs are made, employees do not give employers a free pass because of positive employee experiences that were previously created, said Tony Tran, Lead People Scientist, Culture Amp

Speaking with HRM Magazine Asia, he explained, “Our data suggests that having many committed employees prior to a layoff doesn’t necessarily decrease the risk of increased turnover (as measured by commitment) post-layoff. Another study found that even a 1% downsize can result in a 31% increase in turnover.”

To mitigate some of the unanticipated consequences of layoffs, organisations can start by prioritising employee engagement, which Culture Amp defines as the levels of enthusiasm and connection employees have with their organisation.

Tran continued, “It’s a measure of how well organisations motivate their people, a sign of how committed employees are to staying with the organisation, and how willing employees are to advocate for the organisation as an employer.”

The biggest challenge facing many leaders, perhaps, is maintaining a high level of employee engagement when layoffs are unavoidable.

Keeping employees motivated and engaged during layoffs

When layoffs take place, it is perhaps inevitable that commitment, motivation, company confidence, and pride are negatively impacted. Employees are

also unlikely to be convinced that their organisation can really succeed over the next three years, said Tran.

“To address this, leaders need to be transparent and clear on how the layoffs will impact the organisation’s bottom line and widely share plans to address and increase profitability. Layoffs can’t be seen as a band-aid solution to the problem –employees need to understand how the difficult decision to layoff employees is connected to the strategy of how leaders intend to make the organisation successful.”

He also highlighted how employees may not only lose faith in leaders but blame them entirely for layoffs. After all, why are leaders immune from the layoffs when everyone else is at risk of losing their jobs?

“To address this misperception, share with employees the sacrifices leaders make, such as pay cuts and increased hours, so they understand they aren’t the only ones struggling,” advised Tran.

With Culture Amp research identifying the lack of development as the number one reason for employees to leave an organisation, assuring employees that they will still be afforded opportunities to grow and develop their careers should also be a priority.

Tran said, “While organisations may not be able to promote employees and increase compensation for employees

during this time, people and culture can work with leaders to better enable them to learn more about each employee’s development aspirations and reassign work accordingly. It might be a good idea to consider ‘catching up’ on employees’ salaries once the economy improves and to clarify that you intend to do so.”

Invest in employee engagement to gain organisational success

Beyond the looming specter of a global recession, organisations are beginning to recognise the vital role employee engagement is playing in talent retention and overall organisational success.

Recommending that organisations measure employee engagement through motivation, long-term commitment, shortterm commitment, pride, and advocacy, Tran said, “On the organisational level, evidence from industry and scholarly studies suggest that employee engagement levels are strongly linked to staff turnover, absenteeism, inventory shrinkage, innovation, productivity and profit.”

Identifying the focus on psychological safety, the impact of remote and hybrid work, and feelings of belonging as some of the factors that have fundamentally changed how organisations approach employee engagement, he added, “As we navigate through these times of uncertainty, organisations need to make sure that they understand the employee experience and take action on the moments that have the biggest impact on engagement.”

Lastly, provide leaders with the right information to eliminate unnecessary assumptions and make better decisions in supporting employees. “We know people are critical to the success of an organisation so you need to empower leaders with information on their talent in the same way leaders would need information on the financial health of their teams, departments, and division,” Tran concluded.

To find out more about employee engagement, join Culture Amp at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023, on May 10 at 3.30pm (SGT), or visit booth 59 to speak to a Culture Amp representative.

“Organisations need to make sure that they understand the employee experience and take action on the moments that have the biggest impact on engagement.”

TONY TRAN, LEAD PEOPLE SCIENTIST, CULTURE AMP.

Employee engagement toolkit

Employee engagement has proven effects on performance, retention, innovation, and more. Learn how to understand your employees – and take meaningful actions – with templates, tips, and real-world examples from our toolkit.

Learn more

Why every great hire starts with a focus on the candidate experience

BY SHAWN LIEW

Much like how many buying decisions are based on consumers’ perception of a brand, how job seekers perceive a company’s brand throughout the hiring process represents the first step on an organisation’s journey to attracting the best talent.

What then, is required to create a successful candidate experience?

Speaking with HRM Magazine Asia, Eleanor Vajzovic, Head of Strategic Solutions, Paradox, said, “All candidates want speed, simplicity, and transparency in the hiring process. When someone feels like they’ve been given a fair chance for a job, and received clear communication in a timely manner, most candidates would say they had a great experience, even if they don’t get the job.”

Organisations may also need to design candidate experiences around contemporary lifestyles that focus on consumer experiences that are fast and frictionless, such as ordering food through apps like Uber Eats and Deliveroo.

Vajzovic added, “As more of us have been conditioned to get more and more things done on our phones, it’s become critical that candidate experiences feel equally simple and clear. There is also a massive opportunity to make sure that how an organisation presents itself in the hiring process to candidates matches the experience they’ll have as employees.”

Taking friction out of the recruitment process

In an ideal world, an organisation identifies its best recruiter, gives that person unlimited bandwidth to work 24/7, and supercharges the ability to speak any language and answer any question. The recruiter, in turn, can manage thousands of candidate interactions simultaneously.

The scenario Vajzovic described above is not a hypothetical one, with many organisations already deploying Conversation AI to improve the candidate experience.

She explained, “The goal of

Conversational AI is to supercharge your recruiters with automated and conversational experiences that ensure candidates get immediate answers to their questions, or help throughout the process, regardless of the time of day.”

Paradox, for instance, offers Olivia, a conversational AI assistant that instantly responds to every single candidate, helps them find the perfect job, automatically schedules interviews, answers questions through the hiring process, and shares content that is personalised depending on the questions the candidate asks in the language that the candidate speaks.

Conversational AI solutions such as Olivia, said Vajzovic, accelerate the hiring process by automating away the waiting time between stages in the process, help screen candidates for job requirements and can instantly schedule interviews when a qualified candidate is identified.

This streamlining of the hiring process can also be transformational in turning talent acquisition into a revenue-generating function, as she highlighted, “For a restaurant, a hotel or a retail store, there’s a very clear connection between revenue and staffing. When those types of businesses are understaffed, they typically deliver worse experiences for their customers, or even worse, they sometimes have to reduce

hours, close early, or shut down locations.”

“Conversely, when employers shorten the hiring process by several days or weeks, they can dramatically reduce understaffing. They fill and backfill roles faster and in many cases, they decrease short-term turnover because fully-staffed organisations are typically happier, healthier, and more productive.”

Automating the candidate experience while focusing on people

With uncertainty continuing to surround the economy, organisations can do without the extra uncertainty that comes with a constant cycle of onboarding and offboarding.

This, however, will depend on choosing the right candidates, a process that can be improved if the right questions are asked at the start of the hiring process. For instance, is your process driven around mobile-first, consumer quality experiences, Vajzovic asked.

“If someone is being forced to create a user name and password to apply to one of your jobs – and they have to fill out a long application on their laptop to do it – then you’re probably losing lots of candidates who otherwise may have been a great fit.”

Next, organisations should examine how recruitment teams spend their time and identify tasks that can be automated, including screening for basic or minimum qualifications, or scheduling and rescheduling interviews.

“We don’t recommend automating the things that only humans are great at, such as conducting the actual interview. However, there are a lot of tasks that could be automated that would not only make the candidate experience better; they would also make the manager and recruiter experience better. By giving these people hours back in their week, you are helping your organisations save time and money,” Vajzovic concluded.

“As more of us have been conditioned to get more and more things done on our phones, it’s become critical that candidate experiences feel equally simple and clear.”

ELEANOR VAJZOVIC, HEAD OF STRATEGIC SOLUTIONS, PARADOX

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The future of work is here: How to attract and retain talent with employee benefits

BY SHAWN LIEW

As the world of work continues to evolve and employees redefine priorities, the paradigm of employee benefits has inexorably shifted.

As a result, what used to work may no longer be effective, as Primus Lee, Executive Director and Head of Employee Benefits, Howden, pointed out, “Staff retention strategies in the new normal have evolved immensely. Beyond competitive compensation, there are many ways that employee benefits can help improve staff satisfaction and retention.”

Speaking with HRM Magazine Asia, Primus highlighted how an increasing number of organisations in Singapore and Asia are turning their focus on mental health, and for good reason.

He explained, “In the past few years, employees have faced a lot of pressure with the changes to the workplace, including transiting to working from home and now having to return to the office.”

“With mental health becoming less of a taboo topic in Singapore and Asia, organisations who offer benefits that take care of employees’ mental health stand out from the crowd.”

These, Primus elaborated, could be in the form of extending medical benefits to cover mental health services, proactively providing mental health services to employees, or offering mental health stipends or reimbursements to encourage employees to take care of their mental health.

When employees are happy and healthy, satisfaction rises and organisations benefit by retaining their best talent. Besides prioritising employees’ mental health, organisations can do more to offer a more holistic employee benefits package characterised by flexibility and inclusivity.

Primus said, “With today’s highly segmented workplaces, employees have disparate needs and offering flexible and varied benefits will improve inclusivity. Instead of offering standard coverage, why not provide options and flexibility for employees? Allowing employees to select what matters most to them will bring greater satisfaction and increase inclusion

and belongingness.”

Flexible work among key trends shaping employee benefits in Singapore

As the world of work evolves, the conversation around how the future of work will be shaped has continued apace.

To help HR professionals in Singapore better understand the trends shaping the design of employee benefits packages that organisations can offer to attract and retain talent, Howden recently released the Future of Work Trends Shaping Employee Benefits in Singapore guidebook.

One key trend Howden identified, is work flexibility, as Primus described, “Demand for remote and hybrid work is so commonplace now that employees will consider leaving workplaces that do not offer flexibility. Flexible work is here to stay and the keyword here is flexible, so it’s not just about working from home, as there will be employees who prefer working onsite or a hybrid arrangement.”

“Employee benefits need to take care of both employees working remotely and those working onsite. These could be reimbursements or allowances for home office set ups, and in-office perks for those who work in the office.”

Other trends identified by Howden include fairness and equity, holistic wellbeing, skills-based talent, as well as digitalisation and technology, which can all impact employee benefits. “Any organisation that understands and harnesses these trends will be one step ahead in the talent game,” Primus added.

Delivering healthcare benefits at employees’ fingertips

With digitalisation and technology increasingly playing a key role in the employee benefits space, more organisations

are deploying digital HR solutions to improve employee experience and satisfaction.

To enjoy a digital experience that takes away the stress and hassle of delivering healthcare benefits to employees, many organisations are turning to Howden MediHub, a full-service, tech-enabled, medical insurance programme designed to make life easier for employees and HR teams.

Primus highlighted, “The programme is delivered through our intuitive MediHub mobile app, which provides employees with everything they need to manage their claims, access panel clinics and telemedicine services, and more.”

Additionally, MediHub reduces the administrative burden for HR by taking care of all claim enquiries and document collection. Claims data analytics allows HR to forensically analyse how employees are using their benefits and employee benefits specialists from Howden also suggest ways to reduce claims to make sure the organisation is not paying more than they should be.

This attention to detail, said Primus, is at the core of Howden’s strategy in designing and delivering attractive and sustainable employee benefits programmes for a wide range of public and private organisations in Singapore.

“We don’t just compare prices. We help organisations achieve their long-term objectives while taking care of their risks by thoroughly reviewing developing risks and applying appropriate methods of risk transfers,” Primus concluded.

To find out more about employee benefits from Howden, visit booth 6 at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023, which is taking place from May 10-11.

“With today’s highly segmented workplaces, employees have disparate needs and offering flexible and varied benefits will improve inclusivity.”

PRIMUS LEE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND HEAD OF EMPLOYEE BENEFITS, HOWDEN

To attract and retain the best talent, HR and business leaders such as yourself are rethinking your employee engagement and workplace strategies to drive the sustainability and agility that will allow you to create an engaged and thriving organisational culture.

What better time, then, to bring Asia’s HR community together for the first all in-person HR Tech Festival Asia since 2019?

With the theme of Engage.Sustain.Thrive. Navigating The New Paradigm of People and Work, HR Tech Festival Asia 2023, which is taking place at the Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre from May 10-11, will bring together some 5000 C-suite HR professionals, business leaders, government officials, HR tech analysts and influencers, to discuss the most pertinent workplace issues faced by organisations in Asia.

Over two exciting days and through a number of specially curated content theatres, we will bring you a packed agenda of cutting-edge content headline by global and regional thought leaders and HR luminaries providing key insights into what is shaping the way we work.

We are also pleased to welcome Zaqy Mohamed, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Manpower, Singapore, to Asia’s largest HR technology and workforce management event as the Guest of Honour. SMS Zaqy will be presenting his opening remarks on May 10 at 9.50 am (SGT) to kick off HR Tech Festival Asia 2023.

In collaboration with Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower, we are delighted to present the fourth edition of the ASEAN Future of Work conference, which brings together representatives from regional governments, unions, and the private sector to

and work

discuss best work practices as organisations in SouthEast Asia adjust to a post-pandemic world of work.

Other highlights you should not miss this year include the ASEAN Human Development Summit. After a successful online debut at HR Tech Festival Asia 2022, the ASEAN Human Development Summit is returning in-person. This year, the summit aims to improve improve human development at work by connecting ASEAN’s national HR associations, senior human development professionals, thought leaders, and the ASEAN professional community to discuss, debate and establish a balance of economic and human development in the region.

For those of you looking for best-in-class technology solutions, HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 will also feature more than 70 of the leading HR tech solutions providers in the world as they bring you products, services, and technology demonstrations that can help support your HR transformation.

With 2023 shaping up to be a challenging but exciting year for HR, we invite you to join the biggest gathering of the region’s HR community, global influencers, and industry experts to learn, collaborate, inspire, and be part of the discussion on how Asia’s HR community can successfully navigate the new paradigm of people and work.

Catherine Wong Managing Director HRM Asia

Empowering Asia’s HR community to navigate the new paradigm of people

2023 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for many organisations in the Asia-Pacific region as employees continue to demand more flexibility in the way they work.

Catherine Wong

Revolutionise the future of work at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023

HR Tech Festival Asia 2023, with the theme Engaged. Sustain. Thrive. Navigating the New Paradigms of People and Work, is returning to Suntec Singapore Exhibition and Convention Centre from 10-11 May 2023. The two-day in-person event is centred around exploring the latest HR and people management trends, research, and technologies. With over 130 luminaries and thought leaders sharing their strategies, attendees can gain insights on the latest trends and innovation across the entire HR spectrum.

The event will kick off with opening remarks by Guest of Honour (GOH) Zaqy Mohamad, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Manpower, Singapore, at 9:50am (SGT), and attendees can choose from eight conference tracks, including:

• #Engage/#Reimagine/#Innovation Theatres: Gain exclusive

insights and practical case studies on the latest HR and people management trends, research, and technologies.

• CHRO Symposium powered by Workday: An exclusive programme connecting senior HR and business leaders with visionary experts and industry thought leaders to step beyond the traditional HR functional management.

• ASEAN Future of Work and ASEAN Human Development Organisation (AHDO) Human Development Summit: Bringing together regional governments, unions, and private sector leaders to share insights on how they put people first in their strategies to recover from the pandemic.

• HR Tech Theatre: Located at the exhibition hall, the HR Tech Theatre will host essential updates and product demonstrations showcasing the latest technology and strategies that attendees can adopt to drive higher business growth.

• Power Talks: Get inspired by industry leaders and HR innovators as they present back-to-back seminar sessions for two days at the Power Talks stage, located at the heart of the exhibition hall.

Asia’s largest HR technology and workforce management event, HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 will provide a platform for attendees to learn, experience the latest technologies and solutions, and network with the region’s HR community. The event promises to be an exciting opportunity for HR professionals and technology enthusiasts in the region to shape the future of work and redesign the human experience through sustainability and design thinking.

With the world evolving at a rapid pace, there is a need for professionals to remain up to date with the latest HR trends and technologies to stay relevant, and HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 promises to be an exciting and engaging experience that will deliver value to every attendee. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to be part of HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 this May!

HR Tech Fest Awards 2023: Celebrating Asia’s top HR leaders and organisations

HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 is set to recognise and celebrate the outstanding achievements of the region’s top HR leaders, organisations, and teams from various sectors at the HR Tech Fest Awards 2023.

This year’s HR Tech Fest Awards will see 22 finalists competing for top honours in eight categories, including Employer of Choice, HR Team of the Year, Best HR Leader, Best Workplace Culture & Engagement (above 500 employees) and Best Workplace Culture & Engagement (below 500 employees), Best Use of Technology, Best C-Suite Leader, and the newly added category, Best ASEAN Human Development.

The Best ASEAN Human Development award is presented in partnership with the ASEAN Human Development Organisation (AHDO) to recognise organisations that embrace fair and inclusive development of employees and stakeholders in at least two ASEAN countries.

The finalists are:

Employer of Choice sponsored by CIPD

• Bukalapak

• PT Global Tiket Network

• Reed Elsevier Philippines

HR Team of the Year

• Asia Pacific Breweries Singapore

• Orica Singapore – Philippines Branch

• PT Wismilak Inti Makmur Tbk

Best HR Leader sponsored by IBM

• Ingo Laubender, Head of People, foodpanda

• Ma. Theresa Llamas, Chief Human Resources Officer, Newport World Resorts

• Sasiwimol Arayawattanapong, Executive Director, Head of Human Resources, United Overseas Bank Limited

Best Workplace Culture & Engagement (above 500 employees)

• Employment Hero

• Marriott International

• Vale

Best Workplace Culture & Engagement (below 500 employees)

• Best World International

• Hummingbird Bioscience

• Flywire

Best Use of Technology sponsored by Androgogic

• PT Kilang Pertamina International

• PT Telekomunikasi Selular

• Public Service Division

• Thai Beverage

Best C-Suite Leader

• Rick Hammell, Founder and CEO, Atlas

• Dr Amor B Calayan, Nurse Director, Batangas Medical Centre

• S Ramann, Chief Managing Director, Small Industries Development Bank of India

Best ASEAN Human Development

• Mewah Group

• Shell Eastern Petroleum

• PT Kilang Pertamina International

The winners of the HR Tech Fest Awards 2023 will be chosen by a distinguished panel of judges that includes Elisa Mallis, Managing Director, Asia-Pacific, Centre for Creative Leadership; Rachele Forcadi, Founder, XYZ@Work; Philippa “Pip”

Penfold, Managing Director, Integrating Intelligence; Dr Bob Aubrey, Founder and Chair of the Advisory Board, ASEAN Human Development Organisation (AHDO); and Nadiah Tan Abdullah, Regional Chair of AHDO for 2023 and CHRO, S P Setia

The winners will be announced live and in-person at the award presentation on 10 May 2023 at Suntec Singapore Exhibition and Convention Centre. It promises to be an exciting event where attendees can learn about the best HR practices in Asia and find out who will be crowned the best of HR in the region. Join us at HR Tech Fest Awards 2023 to celebrate the achievements of the top HR leaders, organisations, and teams in Asia!

ASEAN Future of Work: Strategies for post-pandemic workplace recovery with a people-first approach

The pandemic has fundamentally altered the business landscape for organisations, requiring their workforce to quickly adapt to new modes of work. As the world emerges from the pandemic, the workplace is likely to continue evolving. Against this backdrop, ASEAN Future of Work, which is taking place during HR Tech Festival Asia 2023, aims to provide a high-level platform for regional governments, unions, and private sector leaders to discuss strategies to recover from the pandemic while putting people first.

The conference will host two panel discussions focusing on two key aspects of the future of work, navigating flexible work arrangements (FWAs) and cross-border remote work.

The first panel discussion, titled Navigating Flexible Work Arrangements – A Key Strategy in a Post-Pandemic Economy, will delve into the growing demands for FWAs since the pandemic and how organisations can implement these arrangements correctly to support business goals. Although FWAs have become more prevalent, there are many roles that might not be suitable for telecommuting, requiring HR practitioners and line managers to explore other ways of providing flexibility in working arrangements.

During the discussion, panellists will share best practices for implementing different types of FWAs, managing employees on FWAs, performance management, job redesign to attract talent, and maintain workplace harmony and organisational culture. They will also discuss how employers and employees can build mutual understanding and

trust for FWAs to work, the HR capabilities needed to support FWAs, and resources available for organisations to build these capabilities.

The second panel discussion, titled Navigating Opportunities and Challenges in the War for Talent Through Cross-Border Remote Work, will examine the concept of cross-border remote work (CBRW) and its relevance to job functions that involve business travel or overseas assignments. With the transformative nature of remote work during the pandemic, according to research by the Human Capital Leadership Institute, more than 70% of respondents have indicated that their organisation has adopted or intends to adopt CBRW.

Panellists will discuss how the concept of remote work is evolving as a talent attraction and retention strategy and how the role of HR needs to evolve to support such approaches. They will also explore the types of organisations best positioned to leverage CBRW, the strategies available for those that find it more challenging to do so, and the successes and challenges of organisations that have leveraged CBRW to meet talent needs.

ASEAN Future of Work is an opportunity for attendees to learn about the strategies and best practices for putting people first in their organisation as these discussions will be vital in navigating the postpandemic business landscape. Attendees can also gain insights in addressing the challenges of the new normal in the workplace. Join ASEAN Future of Work on May 10, from 10.15am-12.30pm (SGT), during the HR Tech Festival Asia 2023.

AHDO Human Development Summit: ASEAN’s paradigm shift to human development

After a successful debut at HR Tech Festival Asia 2022, the ASEAN Human Development Summit will be making a first in-person appearance at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023. Themed The Paradigm Shift to Human Development, this year’s edition will aim to bring together various stakeholders to establish a balance between economic and human development (HD) in ASEAN’s workplaces.

Welcoming attendees to join him at the ASEAN Human Development Summit on May 11, Dr Bob Aubrey, Founder and Chair of the Advisory Board, ASEAN Human Development Organisation (AHDO), said, “ASEAN is no longer an economy where the traditional paradigm of managing people as a resource or as economic capital is adequate. With the pandemic, people had to become the priority and HR managers in every country did a great job of ensuring health and safety first, then adapting to remote working and dealing with the human issues of working from home.”

“AI is also having a major impact on organisations and jobs. For organisations, digital transformation and use of AI tools is necessary for competitiveness. For jobs, AI is replacing some jobs and creating new ones, with many jobs requiring a redesign to integrate the power of AI.”

Besides Dr Aubrey’s Measuring Human Development at Work session, Gaston Carrion, Strategy & Consulting, Managing Director T&O/ Human Potential APAC Lead & Global Employee Experience Lead, Accenture, will deliver the morning keynote titled The Shift to Human Development by Companies, Investors and Workers (ESG, Employee Experience, Net Better Off); while Fong Tuan Chen, Senior Executive Vice President of Group Human Capital at Maybank, will share his experience and perspectives in his How Human Development Changed My HR Career and Why It Will Change Yours session.

The AHDO Human Development Summit will include a number of thought-provoking panel discussions, including the Is HR Ready to Redefine the Profession? session. Moderated by Shree Mogan, Council Member

of AHDO, the panel will include Alvin Goh, Executive Director of the Singapore Human Resources Institute; Yeni Pereira, Human Resources Director of CARE International in Timor-Leste; and Ihsanuddin Usman, Human Resources & General Affairs Director of PT Pelabuhan Indonesia (Persero), who will explore the reasons for HR’s shift to HD in ASEAN.

To offer more insights into the shift from HR to HD, particularly from a leadership perspective, Farid Basir, CPO of MBSB Bank, will be moderating a panel discussion titled Leadership Shift: Are Business Leaders Ready? He will be joined by Elisa Mallis, Managing Director, Asia Pacific, Centre for Creative Leadership; Federico Donato, President, Eurocham Singapore; and Welyne Jeffery Jehom, Researcher/Senior Lecturer, Department of Anthropology & Sociology, Universiti Malaya.

To better understand the career opportunities offered by HD, be sure to join the panel discussion, HR Career Opportunities: Winners and Losers, which will be moderated by Yulius Bulo, Vice Chairperson of AHDO Indonesia. Joining him to discuss the growth areas in HD are Philippa “Pip” Penfold, Managing Director, Integrating Intelligence; Renée Tan, Director, Research Division, Institute for Adult Learning Singapore, Singapore University of Social Sciences; and Nadiah Tan Adbullah, Regional Chair of AHDO for 2023 and CHRO, S P Setia.

Also speaking at the AHDO Human Development Summit are Nissi Taruli Felicia Naibaho, Co-Founder, FeminisThemis, who will address the challenges deaf people in ASEAN face in accessing education and careers; and Thomas Bertels, Founder and President, Purpose Works Consulting, who will describe the shift in the HR paradigm from an American perspective.

As part of HR Tech Festival Asia 2023, the AHDO Human Development Summit is taking place on May 11, from 10am-5pm (SGT).

Great expectations. Greater experiences.

HR is one of the most technologically disrupted domains. Ready or not, bots and AI has totally changed the way we use technology to work, learn and communicate with each other. Employee experience and skills intelligence is the new core.

Thrive in the accelerated modern workplace with IBM where we will lead you on this journey to true talent transformation and high value work. Wherever you are on your journey, we can meet you and take you to the next level.

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HR Reinvention

Reinvent HR and transform employee experiences across the employee lifecycle, modernise HR service delivery with digital tools like IBM Watson

Digital Change

Enable organisational transformation in today’s digital era through an employee-centric approach

HR

Shift to Cloud

Accelerate journey to the cloud and reimagine HR through IBM Watson

Skills Transformation

Build a skilled workforce and culture of continuous learning using IBM Talent Framework

Read the Accelerating the journey to HR 3.0 report to explore the 10 action areas that will transform talent management.

Catch us at the HR Tech Theatre on 11 May, 11 AM to discover the ways to transform the hybrid workforce!

Visit IBM @ Booth #28 to chat with our Talent Transformation experts!

Suntec Convention & Exhibition Centre | 10 - 11 May 2023

IBM @ HR Tech Festival Asia 2023

Gaston Carrion, Managing Director, Talent and Organisation Lead, Growth Markets, Accenture

Session Title: Unveiling the New Paradigm of People and Work – Strategic Initiatives HR Leaders Should Be Prioritising In 2023 @ CHRO Symposium Powered by Workday (May 10, 9.40am-10.10am, SGT)

This session explores the top priorities for HR leaders in 2023 and beyond, as organisations face disruption and a shortage of talent.

Carrion will share insights from Accenture’s latest research on CHRO as a growth executive and discusses strategic initiatives HR leaders can implement to tackle the changing paradigms of people and work.

Elisa Mallis, Managing Director, Asia Pacific, Center for Creative Leadership

Session Title: The Evolving Roles of CHROs In The Region – What’s Ahead for HR Leaders Across Asia-Pacific @ CHRO Symposium Powered by Workday (May 10, 10.10am-10.40am, SGT)

Mallis will discuss how the role of CHROs in the Asia-Pacific region is evolving to meet the changing ways of working and employee expectations. She will explore how CHROs are guiding their workforce to adapt to the new normal and tackling talent attraction and retention. Attendees will gain insights into the future of HR leadership in the region.

Diana Wu David, Work Futurist and CEO, Future Proof Lab

Session Title: Human Potential in an Age of AI @ Reimagine Theatre (May 10, 11.30am-12pm, SGT)

The session explores the impact of AI on the workforce and the changing nature of work in the age of technology. David will discuss how organisations are using AI to augment human potential and the role of empathy, collaboration, and creativity in the future of work.

Josh Bersin, Global Industry Analyst & CEO, The Josh Bersin Company

Session Title: HR Technology Disruption

2023: How the Market is Radically Changing @ Engage Theatre (May 10, 10am-11am, SGT)

Speaking live from the US, Bersin will provide updates on the rapidly changing HR tech marketplace, including the role of AI and talent intelligence. He will discuss how organisations are seeking better solutions for recruiting, retention, development, wellbeing, and productivity, as well as new vendors that are transforming the market.

Dr Tanvi Gautam, HR Influencer, Keynote Speaker, Best Selling Author and Transformational Leadership Expert, LeaderShift

Session Title: Built for Humans: The Quest for High-Performance HumanCentric Cultures @ CHRO Symposium

Powered by Workday (May 10, 10.40am-11.20am, SGT)

Dr Tanvi’s keynote focuses on the importance of approaching culture transformation and talent with a human-centric lens in the postpandemic world. She will share her insights on building change practices that keep the human element at the core and explores the barriers to building high-performance cultures. Additionally, she will discuss the role of narrative and storytelling in keeping people engaged and invested in the path ahead.

Roop Kaistha, Regional Managing Director, APAC, AMS

Session Title: Running Out of Talent? Break the Cycle @ CHRO Symposium Powered by Workday (May 10, 11.40am-12.10pm, SGT)

Kaistha will discuss the ongoing skill shortages and how organisations can strategically hire talent from other fields based on skills and potential. She will emphasise the importance of skills-based hiring, sourcing strategies to overcome the skills shortage, and how to combine technology and human touch to build an agile talent acquisition team.

Goki Muthusamy, SVP, Head of People, Asia Pacific, Visa

Session Title: Why Talent Mobility Must Be at The Heart of Your 2023 People

Strategies @ Reimagine Theatre (May 10, 12pm-12.30pm, SGT)

Muthusamy will talk about why talent mobility is essential for people strategies in 2023. When employees have opportunities to improve their knowledge and skills, it promotes talent retention and creates an environment that fosters their growth.

Eric Ng, Executive Director and General Manager, Amgen South East Asia (Region), Hong Kong and India and Chris Chan, Regional Counsel, Japan Asia Pacific (JAPAC), Amgen JAPAC

Session Title: Building an Equitable DEIB Workforce in 2023 @ Innovate Theatre (May 10, 12pm-12.30pm, SGT)

Amgen believes that building a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workforce is essential for fostering innovation and better science, driving their ability to serve patients. In this session, Ng and Chan will discuss the importance of building an equitable DEIB workforce and inclusive culture, and how this has helped their employees thrive in fulfilling the mission to serve patients.

Will Eadie, Chief Revenue Office, WorkJam

Session Title: Boosting the Frontline Boosts the Business @ HR Tech Theatre (May 10, 1.45pm-2.15pm, SGT)

The impact of the pandemic on frontline employees has resulted in many quitting or thinking of leaving their jobs, and this is having a trickle-down effect on field managers. Eadie will share insights on building an engaging employee experience for the frontline, including unlocking scheduling, training, task management, and employee communications.

Paul Rubenstein, CPO, Visier

Session Title: Using Data Like a CFO: A Guide for Today’s CHRO

@ CHRO Symposium Powered by Workday (May 10, 2pm-2.30pm, SGT)

CEOs, CFOs, and investors now expect CHROs to be data-driven, delivering analytics, insights, and predictable talent outcomes. People analytics is no longer a specialty but a capability that everyone must have. In this session Visier’s CPO will share practical examples of building and scaling a people analytics practice, using data for talent decisions, bending attrition curve, diversifying the workforce, and integrating productivity and financial data with people data.

Philippa “Pip” Penfold, Managing Director, Integrating Intelligence Session Title: What Does A HR Job of the Future Look Like? @ Reimagine Theatre (May 10, 2pm-2.30pm, SGT)

Scott Harrison, Chief People and Culture Officer, coto

Shruti Jana, Vice President, Global People Partners and Organisational Effectiveness, and Wong Pei Woan, Director, oCHRO and oCIO Solutions, Asia, Workday

Session Title: Manage Change and Navigate Uncertainty Through Meaningful Employee Experiences @ CHRO Symposium Powered by Workday (May 10, 12.10pm-12.40pm, SGT)

The current world is turbulent, leading to changes in employee expectations. Loyalty does not guarantee engagement and productivity, and burnout and disconnection are risks even for high performers. This session focuses on leveraging data-infused personalised employee experience to improve engagement and productivity.

This session will explore how global megatrends and technology will shape and influence the future of the HR function, and what skills the future HR professional may need. The discussion will cover underlying trends such as climate change, ageing societies, and human-centricity, and how they could impact HR jobs. Attendees can also download a QR code to access the HR job description of the future.

Session Title: Don’t Believe the Hype: Remote Work Is Still of Central Importance @ Reimagine Theatre (May 10, 2.30pm-3pm, SGT)

Harrison will share his experience of how the tech start-up fully embraced the remote model and built a successful remote team across 14 countries. He will talk about the advantages of remote work, including hiring the best talent regardless of location, providing flexible working arrangements, and reducing overall talent acquisition costs. He will also discuss the initial communication difficulties and the need to establish clear guidelines and expectations for employees, as well as building trust among team members.

Russell Flint, Senior Manager, Commercial Partnerships, O.C.

Tanner

Session Title: How Integrated Employee Recognition Can Help You

With the Battle for Talent @ HR Tech Theatre

(May 10, 3pm-3.30pm, SGT)

This session will discuss the importance of integrated recognition in creating a fulfilling employee experience and fostering a sense of connection, belonging and appreciation at work. It will cover the definition of integrated recognition, examples of organisations in Asia-Pacific who create meaningful recognition moments, and how to provide leaders and employees with the tools and knowledge to give meaningful recognition.

Dr Fermin A. Diez, Adjunct Professor of Human Resources, NUS

and SMU

Session Title: The Future of RewardsHow to Ensure Your Reward Strategies

Match You Future Workforce Plans

@ HR Tech Theatre

(May 10, 3.30pm-4pm, SGT)

This session discusses the need for organisations to change their approach to pay and benefits to attract and retain talent in the transformed workplace. Despite the shift in expectations and requirements from the workforce, organisations continue to adhere to outdated reward strategies. The session will offer new frameworks and models to ensure that the reward strategies are suitable for the changed workforce and attract talent in the future.

R “Ray” Wang, Founder, Chairman and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

Session Title: The Great Refactoring

@ Reimagine Theatre

(May 10, 4pm-5pm, SGT)

The rapid changes in the business landscape require HR leaders to adapt their people and work strategies accordingly. In this session, attendees will gain insights into macro trends and steps to build resiliency, attract and retain talent, improve engagement, and plan for the future of work amidst unprecedented disruption and chaos caused by forces like interest rates, inflation, inventory, infection, and invasion.

Talent is our world

We enable business success and progress future careers.

the talent you have and the talent you need.

a holistic approach to the HR value chain.

the latest digital innovations, expertly.

and selecting the right people for the right jobs.

If your people aren’t growing, how’s your business supposed to?

Rob Squires, VP, Regional Head of Asia and Japan, Ceridian

Session Title: The Rise of the Flexible Career

Experience @ CHRO Symposium Powered by Workday

(May 11, 9.35am-10.05am, SGT)

Ceridian’s 2023 Pulse of Talent revealed that despite job flexibility gains, many employees feel stuck in their current roles. This session explores career flexibility to enhance employee engagement, resilience, and productivity. Attendees will learn what employees value and want from their careers, how to empower middle managers with tools to support team growth, and actionable steps to reimagine career experiences and nurture talent.

Eleanor Vajzovic, Global Head of Strategic Solutions, Paradox

Session Title: TA as a Revenue

Driver: How Global Brands Use Conversational AI to Save Money, Do More with Less, and Create WorldClass Experience @ CHRO Symposium Powered by Workday (May 11, 10.40am-11.10am, SGT)

Day 2 - 11 May

Martin Laschkolnig, Founder and CEO, Institute for the Development of Potential

Session Title: Serenity in Times of Crisis @ Engage Theatre

(May 11, 10.15am-10.45am, SGT)

The world is currently in crisis, making it difficult for people to stay calm and composed. In this session, Laschkolnig will discuss practical techniques and mindset changes that can help individuals remain calm and resilient even in difficult situations. The talk will cover how to deal with daily stressors and quickly regain composure at work and at home.

This session explores how HR and TA leaders can position themselves as revenue drivers by automating repetitive hiring tasks. Attendees will learn how automation is transforming organisations by helping them hire faster and create better experiences for everyone. The session will also discuss success stories from organisations like General Motors, McDonald’s and Nestlé, who have returned millions of their bottom line by reducing cost per hire by 30% and achieving hiring targets ahead of schedule.

Shree Mogan, Council Member, ASEAN Human Development Organisation (AHDO); Alvin Goh, Executive Director, Singapore Human Resources Institute; Yeni Pereira, Human Resources Director, CARE International in Timor-Leste; and Ihsanuddin Usman, Human Resources and General Affairs Director, PT Pelabuhan Indonesia (Persero)

Session Title: Is HR Ready to Redefine the Profession?

(May 11, 11.30am-12.15pm, SGT)

Nick Huang, Director, General Manager of Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong, goFluent; and Max Yawata, Director, Talent Experience, Salesforce

Session Title: Salesforce Formula of Engagement and Development: Learning and Growth Opportunities for Every Employee (May 11, 10.30am-11am, SGT)

This session will discuss the importance of creating an engaging workplace with growth opportunities for employees, as remote work can make employees feel less connected. goFLUENT and Salesforce will share their experiences in promoting equity and providing learning opportunities to benefit both employees and company success.

Christopher McNamara, Chief Revenue Officer, Remote Session Title: Salesforce Formula of Engagement and Development: Learning and Growth Opportunities for Every Employee @ HR Tech Theatre (May 11, 10.30am-11am, SGT) This session will cover how HR teams can respond to high inflation and an uncertain macroeconomic environment. With low unemployment rates and a shortage of highly skilled talent in many Asian countries, recruitment is a real challenge. McNamara will share insights from Remote’s 2023 Global Workforce Report and provide tips on finding cost efficiencies, accessing remote-working talent, and preparing competitive compensation packages without compromising the budget.

This panel discussion features HR practitioners from various ASEAN countries sharing their insights on why the HR focus is shifting to human development in the region. They will discuss the drivers of this change, the significance of human development in both advanced and development ASEAN economies and provide strategies for HR professionals to succeed in this new paradigm.

Bala Murali, Business Consultant, Androgogic Singapore

Session Title: How Generative AI Is Accelerating The Digital Transformation of Learning and Workforce Developing @ HR Tech Theatre

(May 11, 12.45pm-1.15pm, SGT)

Murali will discuss how AI is accelerating digital learning and workforce development. He will explore how generative AI is transforming the way learning occurs in the workplace and enhancing the learner experience.

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You’ll have access to blended, multimodal learning that combines best-in-class content, the award-winning Percipio platform, and a broad ecosystem of partners. Skillsoft drives continuous growth and performance for you and your employees by overcoming critical skills gaps and unlocking human potential.

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Joanne Flinn, Author of Greensight, the Sustainability Guide for Company Directors and Chairwoman of The ESG Institute

Session Title: ESG and the Roles of the CHRO @ CHRO Symposium

Powered by Workday

(May 11, 12pm-12.40pm, SGT)

This workshop for CHROs will address the role of the CHRO in addressing sustainability and ESG challenges. The session will feature exclusive HRM Asia data from the State of Sustainability Survey, and CHROs will complete their Sustainability Readiness Profile to understand their readiness for sustainability initiatives. The workshop will focus on unlocking results and improving sustainability efforts in organisations.

Farhan Mahmood, Associate Client Partner, Korn Ferry Digital

Session Title: How You Can Synchronise Strategy and Talent to Drive Superior Performance @ CHRO Symposium Powered by Workday (May 11, 2pm-2.30pm, SGT)

Mahmood and his clients will share their strategies in hiring the right talent, designing optimal organisation structure, roles and responsibilities, as well as a reward ad motivate strategy that can help organisations develop professional who are navigating and advancing through their careers.

Yulius S. Bulo, Vice Chairperson, AHDO Indonesia; Reneé Tan, Director, Research Director, Institute for Adult Learning Singapore, Singapore University of Social Sciences; Nadiah Tan Abdullah, Regional Chair for AHDO for 2023 and CHRO, S P Sertia; and Philippa “Pip” Penfold, Managing Director, Integrating Intelligence

Chew Siew Mee, Managing Director, JobStreet Singapore

Session Title: What Jobseekers

Wish Employers Knew: Unlock the Future of Recruitment @ HR Tech Theatre

(May 11, 1.45pm-2.15pm, SGT)

Talent is a top priority business challenge in the post-pandemic world. Understanding evolving candidate preferences is crucial to winning the war for talent. Join the discussion as Chew shed light on how employment has changed and how employers can keep up to meet the demands with insights directly from the jobseekers.

Rashim Mogha, Customer Market Leader, Leadership and Business Solutions, Skillsoft Session Title: Transformative Leadership: Build, Coach, Reinforce @ Reimagine Theatre (May 11, 3.30pm-4pm, SGT)

Organisations struggle to develop successful leaders, and most leaders feel unprepared for their new roles. To be effective, leaders need the ability and confidence to apply their knowledge to their jobs. This session introduces the model of transformative leadership, focusing on real-world application to develop leaders at all levels effectively. Attendees will learn about the skills transfer gap, transformative leadership, and preparing leaders for future business challenges.

Session Title: HD Career Opportunities: Winners and Losers (May 11, 4pm-4.45pm, SGT)

The changing landscape of technology, the pandemic, ESG, and work-life balance have led to new jobs and made some roles redundant for HR professionals. This panel will discuss the growth areas in human development, the skills needed to thrive, and how HR careers will evolve in the future.

Rick Hammell, Founder and CEO, Atlas Session Title: Unlocking Global Talent: Grow Your Business with Employer of Record

@ CHRO Symposium Powered by Workday (May 11, 4pm-4.30pm, SGT)

The session will address the challenges CHROs face in hiring and managing remote and global talent for business growth and expansion. Attendees will learn how an Employer of Record can provide compliant solutions for hiring and managing employees in multiple countries and provide actionable insights and strategies to quickly get the right talent onboard while offering an excellent employee experience. Additionally, tips and advice on managing global teams for success will also be discussed.

Session Title: The Future of Employees

- If Robots Do All The Work, What Will Humans Do? @ Reimagine Theatre (May 11, 4pm-5pm, SGT)

Sackett will explore the evolution of the human component of work and its impact on the future of work. As technology continues to automate many functions performed by employees, Sackett will discuss what employers can expect from future employees and whether the future of work will be amazing for humans.

Tim Sackett, President, HRU Technical Resources

www.hrtechfestivalasia.com

HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 Festival Agenda Day

Engage Theatre

09:45 - 09:50 HRM Asia Welcome

09:50 - 10:00 Opening By Guest Of Honour

Zaqy Mohamad, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Defence & Ministry of Manpower, Singapore

10:00 - 11:00

Opening Keynote

Josh Bersin, Global Industry Analyst & CEO, The Josh Bersin Company

Innovate Theatre

11:30 - 12:00 The Importance of HR in enabling ESG outcomes in Your Organisation

Jonathan Cheung, Chief Executive Officer, The ESG Institute

12:00 - 12:30 Building an equitable DEIB Workforce in 2023

Eric Ng, Executive Director & General Manager, Amgen South East Asia (Region), Hong Kong and India

Chris Chan, Regional Counsel, Japan Asia Pacific (JAPAC), Amgen

JAPAC

14:00 - 14:30

Presentation by Cornerstone

14:30 - 15:00 Why People Data Analytics Is Poised To Drive Big Changes In 2023

Jelvie Grech, People Systems Lead, REA Group

Reimagine Theatre

11:30 - 12:00

Exclusive Keynote

Diana Wu David, Work Futurist & CEO, Future Proof Lab

12:00 - 12:30 Why Talent Mobility Must Be at The Heart Of Your 2023 People Strategies

Goki Muthusamy, SVP, Head of People, Asia Pacific, Visa

14:00 - 14:30

What does a HR job of the future look like?

Philippa “Pip” Penfold, Managing Director, Integrating Intelligence

1 - 10 May

CHRO Symposium Powered by Workday

09:30 - 09:40 Welcome & Conference Overview

09:40 - 10:10 Unveiling The New Paradigms of People and Work –Strategic Initiatives HR Leaders Should Be Prioritising In 2023 Gaston Carrion, Strategy & Consulting, Managing Director T&O/ Human Potential APAC Lead & Global Employee Experience Lead, Accenture

10:10 - 10:40 The Evolving Role of CHROs In The Region – What’s Ahead For HR Leaders across Asia Pacific

Elisa Mallis, Managing Director, Asia Pacific, Center for Creative Leadership

10:40 - 11:20 Exclusive CHRO Keynote by Dr Tanvi Gautam

Dr Tanvi Gautam, HR Influencer, Keynote Speaker, Best Selling Author & Transformational Leadership Expert, LeaderShift Inc

11:40 - 12:10 Running Out Of Talent? Break The Cycle.

Roop Kaistha, Regional Managing Director, APAC, AMS

12:10 - 12:40 Manage Change And Navigate Uncertainty Through Meaningful Employee Experiences

Shruti Jana, Vice PreShruti Jana, Vice President, Global People Partners and Organisational Effectiveness, Workday

Pei Woan Wong, Director, oCHRO and oCIO Solutions, Asia, Workday

14:00 - 14:30 Using Data Like A CFO: A Guide For Today’s CHRO

Paul Rubenstein, Chief People Officer, Visier

14:30 - 15:30 CHRO Exclusive Workshop:

The Future of Talent Isn’t What You Think!

Tim Sackett, President, HRU Technical Resources

16:00 - 16:30

Presentation by Cornerstone

16:30 - 17:00 Transform Your L&D Strategy To Ramp Up Your Organisational Performance

Dr Jennifer Pei-Ling Tan, Vice President (Head, Learning Design and Technology), Learning & Development, Group Human Resources, OCBC Bank

ASEAN Future of Work

14:30 - 15:00

Don’t Believe the Hype: Remote Work Is Still of Central Importance

Scott Harrison, Chief People & Culture Officer, coto

15:30 - 16:00

16:00 - 17:00

Presentation by Culture Amp

Closing keynote: The Great Refactoring

R “”Ray”” Wang, Founder, Chairman and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research, Inc.

10:15 - 11:15

Panel Discussion:

Navigating Flexible Work Arrangements (FWAs) – A Key Hr Strategy In A Post-Pandemic Economy

11:15 - 12:15 Panel Discussion:

Navigating Opportunities And Challenges In The War For Talent Through Cross-Border Remote Work

HR Tech Festival

Asia

2023 Festival Agenda Day 1 - 10 May

HR Tech Theatre

10:00 - 10:30 Future of HR Technologies: Top HR Technologies in AI, Machine Learning, Data Analytics And Blockchain To Enhance Work Productivity And Employee Welfare

10:30 - 11:00 Presentation by Axonify

11:00 - 11:30 Is Chatgpt Really Worth All The Hype? How Conversational Experiences Will Change The Way We Hire And Work — For The Better

Eleanor Vajzovic, Global Head of Strategic Solutions, Paradox

11:30 - 12:00 Exploring the Potential Impact of the Metaverse on the Future of HR: Opportunities and Challenges

SIkhram Merican, Regional Director, Hexa Business

12:45 - 13:15 Presentation by Darwinbox

13:15 - 13:45 Employee Wellbeing Is Going Virtual – How To Lower Your Costs But Offer Maximum Support

13:45 - 14:15 Boosting the Frontline Boosts the Business Will Eadie, Chief Revenue Officer, WorkJam

14:30 - 15:00 Discover the Latest Hybrid Workplace Technologies to Power Your Organisation For The Future of Work

15:00 - 15:30 How Integrated Employee Recognition Can Help You Win the Battle for Talent

Russell Flint, Senior Manager, Commercial Partnerships, O.C. Tanner

15:30 - 16:00 The Future Of Rewards - How To Ensure Your Reward Strategies Match Your Future Workforce Plans

Dr Fermin A. Diez, Adjunct Professor of Human Resources, NUS and SMU

16:00 - 17:30 HR Fest Awards Presentation

Power Talk Stage

10:00 - 10:20 Key employment law updates across APAC and what you can expect in 2023

Jason De Souza, Sales Manager, Research Subscriptions and Books, Wolters Kluwer CCH Asia Pte Ltd

10:20 - 10:40 Presentation by Cornerstone

10:40 - 11:00 Decoding Global Talent: Asia Perspective

Richard Farmer, Managing Director, Asia, CXC

11:00 - 11:20 Content Driven Technology To Create And Drive Pathways To Success For Employees

Guillaume Jeanpierre, Associate Director, ASEAN, Korn Ferry Digital Edric Lin, Head of Sales & Service, ASEAN, Korn Ferry Digital

11:20 - 11:40 Reimagining Career Paths For Resilience And Retention

Evelyn Lim, Director for Enterprise Sales, Ceridian

Joshua Ooi, Solutions Advisor for Asia, Ceridian

View the complete agenda at a glance with the QR code below

11:40 - 12:00

Decentralising Culture Change: How Empowering Managers To Drive Change Can Transform Your Organisation

Dr Joel Davies, Senior People Scientist, Culture Amp

12:20 - 12:40 How Asia-Based Companies Can Find And Attract Top Remote Performers

Jane Lee, Director of Sales APAC, Remote

12:40 - 13:00

Staying Competitive In An AI-Driven World

Sheera Low, CS Manager and Head of Commercial CS, APAC, Udemy

13:00 - 13:20 How People Analytics Changes HR Forever

Paul Rubenstein, Chief People Officer, Visier

13:20 - 13:40

Unlocking Global Talent: The Power of an Employer of Record (EOR) for HR Leaders of Tomorrow

Vamsi Krishna, Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder, Multiplier

13:40 - 14:00

Beyond the Hype - Meaningful Innovation in HR

Gordon Enns, Group Chief Technology Officer, Humanica

14:00 - 14:20

Customisable Learning: Implementing a MultiExperience UI in your LMS

Mike Warren, RVP Sales, Asia Pacific, Docebo

14:40 - 15:00 How To Deploy Ethical AI In The Hiring Process –Getting The Balance Right Between Science Based And Technology

Enabled Hiring Solutions

Grant Meyer, Managing Director, Modern Hire APAC

15:00 - 15:20 What is a Fair & Progressive Employer

James Pang, Industry Lead, Industry Outreach & Marketing, Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices

15:20 - 15:40 Role Of Hr In Driving Sustainable Practices Through Events

Veemal Gungadin, Founder & CEO, Gevme

HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 Festival Agenda Day 2 -

Engage Theatre

10:00 - 10:15 Opening Comments

10:15 - 10:45 Opening Keynote: Serenity In Times Of Crisis

Martin Laschkolnig, Founder and CEO, Institute for the Development of Potential

10:45 - 11:15 Exclusive Research Report: Productivity Secrets of High-Performance Organisations

Kevin Oakes, Chief Executive Officer, Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp)

Innovate Theatre

11:30 - 12:00 Why It’s Time to Focus on Total Wellbeing

Shaun Ee, Cluster Head of People, Asia Pacific Breweries Singapore, HEINEKEN Myanmar

12:00 - 12:30 How The World of Total Rewards Has Totally Changed - Let’s Broaden The Concept Of ‘Rewards’ Beyond The Conventional

Fabienne Enderlin, Chief People Officer Zuhlke Asia, Zuhlke Engineering Pte Ltd.

14:00 - 14:30 5 Things I Learned About Implementing A Global Organisation Developmen5 Things I Learned About Implementing A Global Organisation Development & Learning Solution

Steven Businovski, Organisational Development & Learning, BHP

11 May

AHDO Human Development Summit

10:00 - 10:05

Welcome And Overview Of The Day’s Activities

Eddie Lee, HR Consultant (Chief People Officer), Mewah Group & Executive Director, ASEAN Human Development Organisation (AHDO)

Mallory Loone, Co-founder, Work Inspires

10:05 - 10:15

AHDO Welcome By 2023 Regional Chair

Nadiah Tan Abdullah, Regional Chair of AHDO for 2023 & Chief Human Resources Officer, SP Setia

10:15 - 10:40

Morning Keynote:

The Shift To Human Development By Companies, Investors And Workers (ESG, Employee Experience, Net Better Off)

Gaston Carrion, Strategy & Consulting, Managing Director T&O/ Human Potential APAC Lead & Global Employee Experience Lead, Accenture

10:40 - 11:00

Introduction To Panel HR To HD: How Human Development Changed My Career And Why It Will Change Yours

Fong Tuan Chen, Senior Executive Vice President (Group Human Capital), Maybank

11:30 - 12:15

Panel HR to HD: is HR ready to redefine the profession?

Moderator: Shree Mogan, Council Member, ASEAN Human Development Organisation (AHDO)

Panellists: Alvin Goh, Executive Director, Singapore Human Resources Institute

14:30 - 15:00

Panel Discussion: Business Trends For 2023/4 And Forecasts for The HR Industry

Moderator: Saikat Chatterjee, Senior Director, People Advisory, Gartner

Panellists: Angelina Chua, Head of People & Culture, Asia Pacific South, SIG Group

Eugene Lam, Senior Vice President Human Resources, ST Engineering

Wendy Weehuizen, VP People Experience, Asia and Middle East, Sony Music Entertainment

Reimagine Theatre

Yeni Pereira, Human Resources Director, CARE International in TimorLeste

Ihsanuddin Usman, Human Resources & General Affairs Director, PT Pelabuhan Indonesia (Persero)

12:15 - 12:35 ASEAN inclusivity challenge: access to education and careers for Deaf people

Nissi Taruli Felicia Naibaho, Co-founder, FeminisThemis

13:30 - 14:15

Purpose of Work: Shift in the American HR Paradigm

Thomas Bertels, Founder and President, Purpose Works Consulting

14:15 - 15:00

Panel: Leadership Shift: are business leaders ready?

11:30 - 12:00

Next Generation Mobility – Building the Workforce of The Future

Rachele Focardi, Founder, XYZ@Work

12:00 - 12:30

Keynote on HR in the Metaverse

Moderator: Farid Basir, Chief People Officer, MBSB Bank Berhad

Panellists: Federico Donato, President, Eurocham Singapore

Elisa Mallis, Managing Director, Asia Pacific. Center for Creative Leadership

14:00 - 14:30

Design Thinking to Engage, Retain, And Attract Great Talent In the New Era of Work

Dr CJ Meadows, Director - i2e, The Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Centre, S P Jain School of Global Management

Welyne Jeffrey Jehom, Researcher/Senior lecturer, Dept. of Anthropology & Sociology, Universiti Malaya

15:30 - 16:00

Measuring Human Development at Work

Dr. Bob Aubrey, Founder & Chair of the Advisory Board, ASEAN Human Development Organisation (AHDO)

14:30 - 15:00

Organisational Design and Change Management –Stopping Fatigue From All The Change

Jean Lua, CHRO, FinAccel

15:30 - 16:00

Transformative Leadership: Build, Coach, Reinforce

Rashim Mogha, Customer Market Leader, Leadership and Business Solutions, Skillsoft

16:00 - 17:00 Closing Keynote: The Future of Employees – If Robots Do All The Work, What Will Humans Do?

Tim Sackett, President, HRU Technical Resources

16:00 - 16:45

Panel HD Career Opportunities: Winners And Losers

Moderator: Yulius S. Bulo, Vice Chairperson, AHDO Indonesia

Panellists: Assoc Prof Renée Tan, Director, Research Division, Institute for Adult Learning Singapore, Singapore University of Social Sciences

Nadiah Tan Abdullah, Regional Chair of AHDO for 2023 & Chief Human Resources Officer, SP Setia

Philippa “Pip” Penfold, Managing Director, Integrating Intelligence

16:45 - 16:50

Key Takeaways for Participants

Eddie Lee, HR Consultant (Chief People Officer), Mewah Group & Executive Director, ASEAN Human Development Organisation (AHDO)

Mallory Loone, Co-founder, Work Inspires

HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 Festival Agenda Day 2 - 11 May

CHRO Symposium Powered by Workday

09:30 - 09:35 Overview For The Day

09:35 - 10:05 The Rise Of The Flexible Career Experience

Rob Squires, VP, Regional head of Asia and Japan, Ceridian

10:05 - 10:40 Asia Pacific CHRO Discussion: Accelerate Business Growth With Creative Leadership In A Hybrid Work Environment

Dickson Tang, Keynote Speaker & Author of Leadership For Future Of Work, DicksonTang. me

10:40 - 11:10 TA as a Revenue Driver: How Global Brands Use Conversational AI To Save Money, Do More with Less, and Create World-Class Experiences

Eleanor Vajzovic, Global Head of Strategic Solutions, Paradox

11:30 - 12:00 Sustainable Global Hiring In A Tough Economic Climate

Christopher McNamara, Chief Revenue Officer, Remote

HR Tech Theatre

10:00 - 10:30 Let Internal Mobility Be Your Best Talent Investment

Christina Tan, Founder and Director, Sales Symphony

10:30 - 11:00 Salesforce Formula Of Engagement And Development: Learning & Growth Opportunities For Every Employee

Nick Huang, Director, General Manager of Singapore, Taiwan & Hong Kong, goFLUENT

Max Yawata, Director, Talent experience, Salesforce

11:00 - 11:30 Presentation by IBM

11:30 - 12:00 Generative AI For HR – Doing More With Less

Koljit Singh (Ajit), HR Director, APAC, Flexsys (M) Sdn Bhd

12:45 - 13:15 How Generative A.I Is Accelerating The Digital Transformation Of Learning And Workforce Development

Bala Murali, BusinessBala Murali, Business Consultant, Androgogic Singapore

13:15 - 13:45 How Can You Prepare Managers At All Levels to Sustain Productivity, Engagement, And Retention?

13:45 - 14:15 What Jobseekers Wish Employers Knew: Unlock the Future of Recruitment

Chew Siew Mee, Managing Director, JobStreet Singapore

14:30 - 15:00 Bridging the Skills Gap in the Era of IR4.0 and Beyond

Rony Ambrose Gobilee, Chief Strategy and Programmes Officer, Human Resource Development Corporation (HRD Corp)

15:30 - 16:00 Work From Anywhere: How Technology is Changing the Ways Organisations

Work

12:00 - 12:40

CHRO Exclusive Workshop: ESG And The Roles Of The CHRO

Joanne Flinn, Author of Greensight, the Sustainability Guide for Company Directors & Chairwoman of the ESG Institute

14:00 - 14:30 How You Can Synchronise Strategy And Talent To Drive Superior Performance

Farhan Mahmood, Associate Client Partner, Korn Ferry Digital

Razman bin Radzi, Group Chief Human Capital Officer, FGV Holdings Berhad & Research Fellow, National Human Resource Centre (NHRC)

Power Talk Stage

10:00 - 10:20 The Importance Of Coaching In Building Transformative Leaders

Rashim Mogha, Customer Market Leader, Leadership and Business Solutions, Skillsoft

Sam Chia, Coach, Skillsoft

10:20 - 10:40 Leading at Work: Thriving in the Face of Global Headwinds

Charles Ferguson, General Manager, APAC, G-P

14:30 - 15:30

CHRO Exclusive Masterclass: Impactful Communication for the Successful CHRO

Glenn van Zutphen, Founder & Executive Coach, VanMedia Group Pte Ltd

John Antos, Vice President, Strategy & Marketing, Asia Pacific, ADP

10:40 - 11:00 How Belonging At Work Boosts Everything

David Bator, Managing Director, Achievers Workforce Institute

11:00 - 11:20 In A BANI World, Are Job Descriptions A Thing Of The Past?

16:00 - 16:30

Unlocking Global Talent: Grow Your Business with Employer of Record

Rick Hammell, Founder and CEO, Atlas

16:30 - 17:00

Closing Panel Discussion:

The next big thing for HR: Business Trends For 2023/4 And Forecasts for The HR Industry

Moderator: Alvin Goh, Executive Director, Singapore Human Resources Institute

Panellists: Low Peck Kem, CHRO & Advisor (Workforce Development), Public Service Division, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore

Carolyn Chin-Parry, Digital Innovation Leader, PwC Singapore

Steven Businovski, Organisational Development & Learning, BHP

Gail Matthey, CS Manager and Head of Enterprise CS, APAC, Udemy

11:20 - 11:40 Turning Adversity into Advantage: Building a Resilient and Adaptable Workforce in Times of Scarcity

Yeo Puay Lim, Commercial Director, Glints

11:40 - 12:00 Making Online Learning Impactful

Kate Sullivan, Global Head of Services and Talent, British Council Corporate English Solutions

12:20 - 12:40 5 Profitable Strategies for Leveraging Mobile Frontline HCM Technologies to Improve Employee Engagement and Reduce Turnover

Andrew Myers, Managing Director, APAC, WorkJam

12:40 - 13:00 Driving an Effective People Sustainability Strategy

May Leng Kwok, Regional Head APAC, CIPD

13:00 - 13:20 Government Support for Businesses

Rafael Lim, Manager, Workforce Singapore Agency (WSG)

Glints is the better way to hire the right talent for your business. Experience a simpler and more cost-efficient solution for all your hiring needs today.

“The service provided by Glints is full-suite, holistic and seamless. It feels more like a partner than a service provider.”

8nalytics

8analytics is an AI-powered analytics and performance management platform that leverages AI technology to enable employees to become more articulate, competent, and performing at their best. Furthermore, 8nalytics designs industry-based career paths and develops succession planning strategies that align with the individual’s role transition in the career path.

Achievers

Great culture is the ultimate driver of organisational success. Achievers’ employee voice and recognition solutions bring organisation’s values and strategy to life by activating employee participation and accelerating a culture of performance. It leverages the science behind behaviour change, so organisations and their people can experience sustainable, data-driven business results anywhere in the world. Integrated insights fuel smarter solutions that deliver timely nudges to the organisation and a customer success and support team guides organisation on every step of the journey.

Akrivia HCM

Akrivia HCM is a new-age hireto-retire platform designed with enterprise-grade architecture and functionality, and a digital native-focused user experience. The human capital management (HCM) suite covers all aspects of employee management, including payroll, recruitment, onboarding, compliance and legal issues, time recording, policies, and procedures, coaching and appraisal, timesheets, holiday entitlement, and leave management, providing a streamlined approach for managing employees.

AMS

AMS is a global talent solutions business that understands the importance of talent acquisition, retention, and management in creating a high-performing employer. To achieve this, AMS possesses expertise in digital innovation and understands the intricate requirements of talent, whether internal or external. By adopting a holistic approach to the HR value chain and attracting and retaining top-tier employees, AMS facilitates business success.

Androgogic

Androgogic is a learning experience platform (LXP) provider, specialising in enterprise-wide LXP deployments and e-learning courseware development. It partners with Totara to provide the Talent Experience Platform (TXP) and offers products and services such as learning management systems (LMS), learning content management systems (LCMS), xAPI Learning Record Store (LRS), courseware production and authoring, and managed services and SaaS platform provision.

Atlas

Atlas is a global HR technology organisation and direct Employer of Record (EOR), owning and managing local entities in over 160 countries to provide payroll, benefits, human capital management (HCM), HR outsourcing, local regulatory and employment compliance, and visa and mobility support for clients.

Atlas’ direct EOR model solution acts as the legal employer for a new global workforce, eliminating the need for additional outsourcing, and streamlining global expansion for clients. Its solutions are powered by the Atlas platform, a HCM and global payroll platform that simplifies HR admin, employee management, and payroll management processes.

Avidity International

Avidity International specialises in humanising performance through contemporary leadership models, disruptive mindsets, and approaches. It anchors its offerings through Leadership Avidity, which consists of five mindset affinities, namely The EQolution Mindset, Mental Toughness, Coaching Mindset, Solution Building Mindset, and Impact Driven Mindset. These mindsets are part of its guiding principle where leaders are first inspired through their heart and emphasise that performance must be driven through collaboration and engagement of stakeholders.

Axonify

Axonify is a frontline enablement solution that gives employees everything they need to learn, connect, and get things done to drive to next-level CX, higher sales, improved workplace safety, and lower turnover. With an industry-leading 83% engagement rate, Axonify enables over 3.5 million frontline employees in 160-plus countries, in over 250 organisations including Lowe’s, Kroger, Walmart, and Citizens Bank. Axonify is brought to the Asia market by Capability Group.

BetterPlace

BetterPlace is a technology platform that enables enterprises to manage the entire lifecycle of their frontline employees. With operations across 500 cities spanning across India, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, BetterPlace manages over a 3.5 million workforce annually for about 1,200 enterprises. Being a full suite HRMS solution, BetterPlace caters to the entire value chain of frontline workforce management from discovery, hiring, onboarding, background verification, payroll to upskilling, staffing solutions and benefits transfer.

BIPO

At BIPO, businesses across the global are empowered with increased efficiency and convenience through its passion for technology and innovation. The human capital management (HCM) solution automates HR processes, simplifies workflows, and delivers actionable insights to create the best employee experience. Its global payroll outsourcing and Employer of Record (EOR) services further support organisations in managing the global workforce.

British Council

With nearly 90 years of experience, the British Council’s mission is to build connections, understanding, and trust between the UK and other countries through education, the English language, arts, and culture. Working with some of the world’s leading organisations, the British Council designs and delivers English language skills, professional communications skills, and assessments.

Ceridian

Ceridian is a global human capital management (HCM) software company. Dayforce, its flagship cloud HCM platform, provides human resources, payroll, workforce management, and talent management functionality to more than 5,000 customers across the globe. Today, Ceridian is the most comprehensive HCM and payroll solution in Asia Pacific Japan, bolstered by the acquisitions of Australiabased Ascender and RITEQ, and Singapore-based Excelity. Its platform is used to optimise management of the entire employee lifecycle, including attracting, engaging, paying, deploying, and developing people. Ceridian has solutions for organisations of all sizes.

CHANGELEADER

Leadership readiness is crucial for successful organisational transformation, but it is often the biggest internal barrier. The middle core of managers and supervisors require support to cope and adapt to change.

CHANGELEADER is a mobile appbased platform that provides consulting-grade support to train and upgrade middle managers into confident adaptive team leaders within 8-12 months. It is customisable and provides data and insights for better human capital readiness assessment. It is three times more cost-effective and three times more effective in demonstrating manager leadership readiness and growth than traditional training.

CIPD

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) is a professional body for experts in people at work, setting professional standards for HR and people development, as well as driving positive change in the world of work. With almost 160,000 members globally and hubs in the UK, Ireland, Middle East, and Asia, CIPD is the only body that can award Chartered status to individual HR and L&D professionals. Their Singapore office is the central hub for the people professional community across Asia, working with individuals, organisations, and governments to build the capability of the profession and shape the world of work in Asia.

Cornerstone

Cornerstone powers the futureready workforce with adaptive HR solutions designed to unite technology, data and content and inspire a work environment of growth, agility and success for all. With an AI-powered, skillsforward, experiential system designed for the contemporary workforce, Cornerstone helps organisations modernise their L&D experience, deliver the most relevant content from anywhere, accelerate talent and career mobility and establish skills as the universal language of growth and success across their business.

Culture Amp

Culture Amp revolutionise how over 25 million employees across over 6,000 organisations create a better world of work. As the global platform leader for employee experience, Culture Amp empowers organisations of all sizes and industries to transform employee engagement, develop high-performing teams, and retain talent via cutting-edge research, powerful technology, and the largest employee dataset in the world. The most innovative organisations across the globe, such as Salesforce, Unilever, PwC, KIND, SoulCycle, and BigCommerce depend on Culture Amp every day. Culture Amp is backed by 12 years of innovation, leading venture capital funds, and offices in the US, UK, and Australia.

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Mark Ash, CEO, Totara

CXC

With the rapid change in workforce dynamics and contingent workers now playing a pivotal role in organisational growth and prosperity, CXC simplifies how organisations and contingent workers connect compliantly and efficiently. Established in Australia in 1992 to provide contractor vetting, compliance and payroll, the contingent workforce market has continued to be its core, with services now delivered in over 50 countries internationally by local specialists. Its corporate offering has evolved over the past decade due to increasing market complexity, regulation, technology and ever changing client need.

CXC’s mission is to be the best at simplifying the world of work with innovative and equitable employment solutions so that everyone succeeds; anywhere, easily and compliantly. CXC is here to reduce the complexity and friction so everyone can focus on their business.

Darwinbox

Darwinbox is a provider of cloud-based human resource management software (HRMS). It is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that engages and empowers employees across the entire lifecycle, from hire-toretire, with a smarter, simpler, and mobile-first HR tech experience powered by AI and ML.

Deel

Deel simplifies global workforce management for organisations with an all-in-one HR platform, ensuring compliance in over 150 countries. From culture to onboarding and payroll, it works for contractors and full-time employees, and has served over 15,000 customers, from smalland medium-sized businesses to publicly traded organisations.

Defence Collective Singapore

Defence Collective Singapore manages two museums in Singapore, namely the Singapore Discovery Centre and the Singapore Navy Museum. The former offers fresh insights into Singapore’s history and culture through its Permanent Exhibits Gallery, Through the Lens of Time and Sandbox. The refreshed Navy Museum, scheduled to open in mid-2023, aims to inform visitors on Singapore’s maritime heritage and the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN)’s evolution from its humble beginnings to the competent maritime force.

Degreed

Degreed is a learning platform used by employees of hundreds of global organisations to develop skills for today and the future. The platform combines self-directed learning, deep skilling, and required training to help organisations meet goals and adapt to changes quickly. It also provides employees with personalised learning experience based on their skills and interests, helping them own their upward mobility.

Docebo | aTalent

Docebo is redefining the way organisations leverage technology to create and manage content, deliver training, and understand the business impact of their learning experiences. With comprehensive learning solutions, Docebo equips organisations worldwide to tackle any learning challenges and create a learning culture within their organisation. Partnering with Docebo is aTalent, a HR technology and services company with a focus in Asia. With offices in Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and India, aTalent designs and develops talent management products focused on employee experience such as performance management, succession planning and onboarding, and more. Docebo and aTalent are committed to helping organisations bring their learning vision to life and develop solutions that drive growth, revenue, and learner engagement.

Dunn & Partners

Dunn & Partners, a financial services consulting organisation under Manulife Financial Advisers, offers specialised services in business insurance, corporate employee benefits, personal health insurance, and wealth planning. Its partner organisation, Whyze Solutions, a HR and payroll provider, has served over 2,000 organisations in Singapore, including start-ups, SMEs, nonprofit, and MNCs.

Employment and Employability Institute (e2i)

e2i is the empowering network for employees and employers seeking employment and employability solutions. It serves as a bridge between employees and employers, connecting them with employees to offer job security through job-matching, career guidance, and skills upgrading services, and partnering employers to address their manpower needs through recruitment, training, and job redesign solutions. e2i is a tripartite initiative of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) set up to support nation-wide manpower and skills upgrading initiatives.

Employment Hero

Employment Hero is a HR, payroll, and benefits platform that drives productivity for organisations. Its services over 90,000 organisations and 850,000 employees, with its core platform reducing admin time by up to 80%. By simplifying people management, Employment Hero empowers employers to confidently grow their teams and businesses.

Expat Insurance

Established in 2009, Expat Insurance is an insurance broker in Singapore that offers a wide range of employee benefits solutions to some of the most recognised brands in the Singapore market.

Frontier e-HR

Frontier e-HR offers comprehensive HR solutions through their flagship product, leapsUP. It includes foundational functions like payroll and leave, and advanced features like performance appraisal, learning management, time and attendance, and surveying. Besides providing systems, Frontier e-HR offers payroll outsourcing services to meet customer needs.

Fuzzie

Fuzzie supports hundreds of leading organisations to revolutionise their social wellbeing to a world-class level, from bringing thousands of fun welfare benefits to organising game-changing employee engagement events all for less than a cup of coffee a month with proven results.

Giftano

Giftano is a digital gifting platform that offers versatile employee rewards in Singapore. The platform ensures a seamless corporate gifting experience for corporate clients, enabling them to reward employees, partners, or clients with ease. The Giftano Gift Card is a customisable gift card that allows recipients to redeem gifts from over 250 premium brands in Singapore.

Glints

@Glints bridges the gap between education and employment by being a professional platform for young people focused on career discovery and development. @Glints help young people discover their passions and develop the relevant career skills, while empowering employers to attract the right talent more effectively.

Glocoach

Glocoach leverages AI to guide professionals to peak performance with measurable results in as little as three months. Glocoach delivers a highly customised, laser-focused journey with business-savvy coaches and consultants.

Our expertise for your HR projects

HR Path is a global Human Resource leader, that supports you in every aspect of your organization’s HR digital transformation. www.hr-path.com

goFLUENT

goFLUENT, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, is a provider of hyper-personalised solutions that accelerate language skills by blending technology, content, and virtual human interaction on any device. Its digital language learning solutions are designed to speed up the acquisition of language skills needed to build confidence, empower career growth, and establish a more inclusive global culture.

Gojek

Gojek is a leading multi-service tech platform in South-East Asia offering services from payments to logistics, and more. In Singapore, it offers various transport options, including GoCorp for managing work travel.

G-P

G-P helps growing organisations

unlock their full potential by making it possible to build highly skilled global teams in days instead of months. Its software-as-a-service (SaaS)based platform helps find, hire, onboard, pay, and manage team members quickly and compliantly, to expand growth opportunities for everyone, everywhere, without the hassle of setting up local subsidiaries or branch offices.

Grab For Business

Grab For Business brings the best of Grab’s services and technology to organisations of all sizes across South-East Asia. Organisations across the region already easily customise, budget, manage and track spends across corporate rides, employee food programmes and more using Grab’s platform. These solutions improve employee engagement and enable their workforce to save countless hours on tedious manual processes so that they can focus on what is most important. Grab For Business also offers digital gifting solutions for loyalty and reward programmes.

Howden Insurance Brokers

Howden is an independent insurance broker with an international focus. It combines the knowledge of a specialist broker, the agility of a start-up, and the scale and experience of an international business, to deliver specialist insurance solutions to clients internationally. Howden’s Employee Benefits specialists have over 20 years of experience in designing and delivering sustainable Employee Benefits programmes.

HR Path

HR Path is a global human resource leader that provides support in every aspect of an organisation’s HR digital transformation. Understanding the needs of the clients and assisting in the overall performance and evolution of their HR function is the basis of HR Path’s Advise to Run strategy. A complete range of services, from consulting to the implementation of HR solutions to support and maintenance services, is offered to clients.

Humanica

Humanica is one of the largest business solution ecosystems in South-East Asia. Following its vision to help the employees of its clients work better and live happier, Humanica offers innovative technology and services that are designed to get them ready for what is next in their transformational journey. Humanica’s ecosystem comprises of human capital solutions, finance and accounting, payroll outsourcing, multicountry payroll, flexible benefits managements, and enterprise resource planning.

IBM

IBM is the global leader in business transformation through an open hybrid cloud platform and AI, serving clients in more than 170 countries globally. Today, 47 of the Fortune 50 Companies rely on the IBM Cloud to run their business, and IBM Watson enterprise AI is hard at work in more than 30,000 engagements. IBM is also one of the world’s most vital corporate research organisations, with 28 consecutive years of patent leadership. Above all, guided by principles for trust and transparency and support for a more inclusive society, IBM is committed to being a responsible technology and a force for good in the world.

iHRos

iHRos is a HR solutions organisation that is embarking on a journey to reinvent the way HR technology and services are delivered by providing solutions that are client-focused, flexible, and easily integrated across the global HR value chain. iHRos provides solutions through iHR software-as-a-service (SaaS) HR platform and Asia outsourcing solutions.

Institute for Human Resource Professionals (IHRP)

The Institute for Human Resource Professionals (IHRP) is set up by the tripartite partners: the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), and Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) to professionalise and strengthen the HR practice in Singapore. IHRP sets the standards of excellence for HR and human capital development in organisations. Through a range of national human capital programmes such as the IHRP Certification, Human Capital Diagnostics Tool and IHRP Knowledge Partner Programme, IHRP aims to develop HR as a strategic enabler of business and workforce transformation and foster a vibrant HR services ecosystem to drive innovation and change.

Int Labs

Int Labs develops corporate intrapreneurs by bridging the best practices from the startup and corporate world and is an active entrepreneur who is passionate about developing innovative cultures and leaders.

Intellect

Intellect’s mental health platform is a research-proven solution for HR professionals seeking to safeguard employee wellbeing. The platform personalises the right care for employees and has already served over three million users and leading organisations.

JobStreet

JobStreet by SEEK is a diverse group of companies, comprised of a strong portfolio of online employment, educational, commercial, and volunteer businesses. SEEK is helping people live more fulfilling and productive working lives and helping organisations succeed. In Asia, SEEK attracts over 500 million visits a year across the six markets in operates in, namely Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.

JustLogin

Founded in 1999 in Singapore, JustLogin is a cloud-based HR software that specialises in payroll, leave, time and attendance, benefit, and expense claim applications. It aims to provide the best employee experience for small to mid-sized businesses and has grown to over 2,500 customers based on over 25 countries today.

Keka

Keka is a SME HR tech platform. Serving organisations with employee count 20-2000 across India, the Middle East, SouthEast Asia, UK, and US regions. Keka is driven by a mission to create an employee experience by dumping clunky interfaces and offering easy and simple software solutions. From automating people processes to creating an engaged and driven culture, Keka has everything businesses need to build a good-to-great company. The software helps HR teams spend less time on mundane tasks and focus more on the vital assets of any organisation.

Korn Ferry

Korn Ferry is a global organisational consulting firm that specialises in synchronising strategy and talent to drive performance. Its services include designing optimal organisation structures, roles, and responsibilities, advising clients on how to hire the right people and reward and motivate their workforce, and developing professionals as they navigate their careers. Korn Ferry combines technology and expertise to create pathways to success for people at work. The technology platform is built on years of data insights, informing action for Korn Ferry’s partners, and touching evert part of the business.

Links International

Links International is a HR services provider known for its commitment to providing in-country services. With an extensive coverage of 19 locations throughout Asia, Links is dedicated to delivering HR solutions that cater to the diverse needs of clients.

Mercu

Mercu is a chat-based employee enablement platform for the deskless workforce. Employers use Mercu to boost the productivity and retention of their workforce at scale. This is done through automated communication, development, and engagement, all via the existing apps which the teams are already adopting. This means no additional app or login is required, simplifying the use of Mercu for users.

MindFi

The MindFi platform delivers a complete spectrum of mental health and wellbeing support to corporate clients and individual users. Anyone can access 24/7 self-care tools and resources, intelligent matching with therapists and coaches, and community-driven features like forums and group therapy in a single cross-platform mobile app. Employer insights are completely anonymised, and app activity is confidential so that users can enjoy a completely safe space of their own.

Modern Hire

Modern Hire offers an intelligence hiring platform that offers a formula for quality hiring and quality of hire. The platform sets the standard for organisations hiring worldwide, providing scheduling and science-based interviews and assessments that are poised to make hiring effective, efficient, ethical, and engaging.

Multiplier

Multiplier was founded in 2020 to simplify how organisations hire, pay, and manage employees in countries without a local legal entity. With over 150 entities and partnerships established worldwide, Multiplier’s platform simplifies the employment process by taking charge of the complexities involved in expanding and employing in new markets. Its main product is an Employer of Record (EOR) solution that allows Multiplier to partner with clients, acting as the legal employer and managing the risk and compliance of new and existing employees.

Neufast

Neufast is an AI enterprise SaaS platform for multilingual video interview and talent assessment with world leading patent-pending debiased AI. Its virtual recruiter powered by proprietary Large Language Models transcribes the audio and analyses transcription for scoring 27 competencies of job candidates. Neufast has analysed over 100,000 videos and 10 million spoken words collected from job candidates with AI/ML classification accuracy of 95%.

Neurowyzr

Neurowyzr is a Singaporebased Deep Neuroscience and Brain Capital organisation using the latest discoveries in neuroscience to optimise corporate and population brain health and performance. Built by neuroscientists and powered by advanced analytics and AI, Neurowyzr offers corporate suite and medical packages for organisations in various sectors and medical institutions. On the corporate side, Neurowyzr has supported leading organisations in Asia in growing their brain capital to build stronger, more resilient, and innovative teams.

O.C. Tanner

O.C. Tanner is a leader in software and services that improve workplace culture through meaningful employee recognition experiences. Its Culture Cloud employee recognition platform helps people thrive at work. The O.C. Tanner team creates the technology, tools, and awards that help its clients shape productive work environments, drive innovation, and fuel positive business results.

Octomate

Octomate is a one-stop workforce management solution enabling organisations to manage and pay their workforce from anywhere. Beyond standard HR modules such as onboarding, claims, leave, time and attendance to payroll, Octomate also offers modules like appraisal, field force management and instant payments.

Omni HR

Omni HR is an all-in-one HR software that streamlines the employee journey from recruitment to offboarding. It simplifies complex and manual processes into automated workflows, allowing HR managers and business owners to focus on people instead of paperwork. The software is designed to be simple, intuitive, and easy to use, enabling organisations to automate their employee lifecycle. From recruitment to onboarding, time off to performance management and engagement, Omni HR supports organisations to enhance their HR operations and create a seamless and efficient employee experience.

Paradox

Launched in 2016, Paradox is building the world’s leading conversational recruiting software to drive automation with a human touch. Serving global clients with hiring needs across high-volume hourly and high-skilled professional roles, Paradox’s conversational assistant Olivia does the work talent teams do not have time for—streamlining tasks like screening, interview scheduling, and more through fast, easy, mobile-first interactions.

Payboy

Payboy is a cloud-based payroll and HR management software that simplifies essential HR processes by automating them through a unified ecosystem. Employers can sync employee leaves, shift schedules, payroll, and submit claims using the mobile app. Furthermore, Payboy Benefits, a recent addition to the platform, offers a wide range of healthcare options to ensure the wellbeing of employees in organisations.

Profiles Asia Pacific

Profiles Asia Pacific is a provider of assessments and tools that help organisations identify, develop, and retain top talents throughout the Asia-Pacific region. It offers a wide range of products and services that are designed to meet the diverse needs of its clients. Its flagship solutions include talent management assessment, leadership assessment, performance management tools, succession planning tools, education and training materials, recruitment and selection solutions, career management tools, and behavioural and personality assessments.

Qualee

Qualee is an employee experience platform that facilitates organisational alignment and a sense of belonging. The platform simplifies the process of keeping talent engaged during the entire employee lifecycle, which includes onboarding, learning, eNPS micro-surveys, and offboarding. The solution employs AI technology to create interactive workflows, automate compliance requirements, and improve engagement levels measurably. Furthermore, Qualee is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion, and as such, the platform is offered in 19 languages.

Ramco

Ramco global payroll offers a comprehensive multi-country payroll solution that covers more than 100 countries across Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Organisations can deploy the solution on cloud or on premises or leverage as a managed service. With the latest innovations involving robotic process automation, AI and machine learning is embedded in the product, Ramco global payroll also leverages chatbots, voice, and facial recognition-based workforce management.

Science Centre Singapore

Science Centre Singapore is an interactive science playground. Join Science Centre Singapore’s corporate membership or organise corporate events to discover over 1,000 interactive exhibits in themed exhibition galleries, immersive Omni-Theatre movie and more.

Skillsoft

Remote Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. Remote closes the gap by enabling employers to hire anyone from anywhere, providing access to opportunity so people everywhere can build better lives. Remote helps organisations become global powerhouses by expanding their access to talent beyond their borders. Many organisations rely on Remote’s modern platform and legal, financial, and cultural expertise to onboard, pay, and manage employees and contractors worldwide.

Rizing

Rizing HCM is the human capital management practice of Rizing, a Wipro Company, specialising in SAP SuccessFactors consulting services. As a global leader in this area, Rizing is committed to providing its clients with a personalised and engaging human experience that drives both individual and organisational performance. Its expertise in SAP’s Business Technology Platform, combined with its knowledge of HR and payroll, enables the transformation of clients’ ideas into reality.

At Skillsoft, everyone has the potential to be amazing. For organisations ready to unleash their edge, Skillsoft delivers online learning across a broad variety of in-demand topics combined with a flexible and engaging platform. Inclusive options for all are available, offering effectiveness and variety. Skillsoft empowers 36 million people worldwide, helping organisations build better leaders, stay safe, and follow critical regulations. IT skills and essential certifications can be increased, and learners develop skills and organisations build teams they need to stay ahead in a rapidly changing world.

The ESG Institute

The initiative to help business leaders accelerate action to Net Zero and beyond through collaboration across countries, organisations and professional associations. The ESG Institute is founded in Singapore to support Asia’s action for sustainability, the SDGs and Net Zero through practical action, aligned to global standards and goals.

The Health Collective

The Health Collective offers a suite of corporate wellness programmes, including health and wellness talks, on-site screenings, in-office treatments, and corporate discount to suit organisations’ corporate needs.

Top Employers Institute

Top Employers Institute serves as the global authority on recognising excellence in People Practices. Its mission is to accelerate these practices to enrich the world of work. Through the Top Employers Institute Certification Programme, participating organisations can be validated, certified, and recognised as an employer of choice. Top Employers Institute has certified over 2,053 organisations in 121 countries and regions. These certified Top Employers impact the lives of over nine million employees globally.

Totara

Totara enables learning technology solutions that connect upskilling and performance management to clear organisational outcomes. Multinational corporations, government entities, and midmarket organisations choose Totara for their ongoing talent development needs, building on the organisation’s expertise and flexible technology platform. With over 20 million users in 140 countries, Totara is the solution of choice for empowering people to do their best work.

Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP)

Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) promotes the adoption of fair, responsible, and progressive employment practices among employers, employees, and the public. Leveraging its tripartite identity, TAFEP works in partnership with employer organisations, unions, and the government to create awareness and facilitate the adoption of fair, responsible, and progressive employment practices. TAFEP provides tools and resources, including training workshops, advisory services, and educational materials, to help organisations implement these employment practices.

Udemy

Udemy improves lives through learning by providing flexible, effective skill development to empower organisations and individuals. The Udemy marketplace platform, packed with courses in several languages, offers the tools learners, instructors, and enterprises need to achieve their goals and reach their full potential. People learn on the Udemy platform from experts in topics ranging from programming and data science to leadership and team building. Udemy Business enables employers to offer on-demand learning for all employees, immersive learning for tech teams, and cohort learning for leaders.

Veremark

Veremark is an employment screening and reference checking solution that provides fast, accurate, secure, and scalable employment background screening services. It utilises state-of-the-art technology to verify the credentials and integrity of existing or prospective employees, enabling employers to deliver the best candidate experience without the need to commit to long-term contracts.

Visier

Visier’s purpose is to reveal the human truth about the workforce and contribute to a better future. It was founded to focus on what matters to people, answering the right questions, even the ones a person might not know to ask. Questions that shape business strategy, provide the impetus for taking action, and drive better business results. Visier delivers insight by using all the available people data. With best-practice expertise built in, decision makers can confidently act.

Wolters Kluwer

Wolters Kluwer is a global provider of professional information, software solutions, and services for personal and corporate tax, accounting, governance, risk and compliance, and legal sectors. A range of solutions combine deep domain knowledge with advanced technology and services to deliver better outcomes, analytics, and improved productivity for customers. The priority is to provide timely, actionable insights in an end-to-end digital environment that empowers users to make informed decisions and deliver impact when it matters most.

Workforce Singapore (WSG)

Workforce Singapore (WSG) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Manpower that oversees the transformation of the local workforce and industry to meet ongoing economic challenges. WSG promotes the development, competitiveness, inclusiveness, and employability of all levels of the workforce to ensure all sectors of the economy are supported by a strong, inclusive Singaporean core. WSG, in partnership with key stakeholders, also addresses the needs of enterprises by providing support to help them transform and remain competitive, while developing a future-ready talent pipeline to support industry growth and match the right people to the right jobs.

Workday

Workday is a global provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources that enable organisations to adapt and thrive in a rapidly evolving world. With AI and machine learning at the core of its applications, Workday offers solutions for financial management, human resources, planning, spend management, and analytics. These cutting-edge tools empower organisations of all sizes and industries to embrace the future of work

WorkJam

WorkJam’s mission is to revolutionise the way HQs and their frontline work together. As a provider of digital frontline workplace solutions, WorkJam combines two-way communication, task management, learning, scheduling tools, and more to drive efficiencies and productivity. Available in over 45 languages, WorkJam enables workforce orchestration, turning workflow chaos into a seamless experience. The app provides a comprehensive solution to improve the lives of employees in the frontline, including upskilling, shift scheduling, and streamlined processes, all in one place.

Xpath.Global

Xpath.Global’s software-asa-service (SaaS)-enabled marketplace offers a streamlined and seamless solution for simplifying international assignment processes. Bringing together HRs, expats, and service providers for immigration, tax, relocation, Employer of Record (EOR), XPath.Global’s platform offers solutions to complex global mobility management.

Zapkad

Zapkad is a next-generation smart business card with customer relationship management (CRM) analytics to manage employee business cards and customer leads.

Zoho People Plus

Zoho People Plus, an integrated human capital management (HCM) suite, complements the HR space in Zoho’s suite of software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications. With Zoho People Plus, managing talent acquisition, talent management, core HR and employee engagement is easier than ever before. Zoho People Plus ensures HR is run smoothly and employees have a great experience. From recruitment to onboarding, performance and advanced analytics, Zoho People Plus allows users to streamline their HR processes, and develops a productive, collaborative, and engaged workforce to help businesses drive success.

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Coping with change management plans without burning out

Are you leading change or being asked to implement change in your organisation? Or are you bearing the brunt of change in your organisation?

With the pandemic causing disruption in the global economy, leading to budget cuts, reassignment of portfolios, and the threat of layoffs, no organisation is not experimenting with change at some level.

While some are doing a strategy change or revisiting their business models and structure, others are looking at overhauling their culture to keep up with the demands of our times. No matter what the plan, it leads to stress and risks overwhelming and burning out everyone involved at all levels, including HR professionals and their teams. Here are some actionable tips and strategies to upgrade the way you navigate this change that is here to stay. When faced with stress (and might I say opportunity of) change management programmes, here are some frameworks that you might find useful:

1. Stay informed as the landscape can shift quickly.

Stay up to date with company announcements and changes to better prepare for what is to come. It is easy to disconnect as soon as we start to feel defeated, but a commitment to staying present will keep you in tune with your team and benefit you in the long run. In times of change, leaders need to signal their willingness to change along with the plans. Depending on how robust the approach of the leadership team is to change the path ahead, it may look well planned at one end but totally chaotic at the other.

Either way, you must learn to keep up with it, and it is likely you will need to help your team keep up with it as well. Mostly I find there is an ‘internal logic’ to these changes, but top leadership teams may not have adequately crafted a narrative or storyline that provides the red thread for people to grasp and follow along.

Organisations who have spent time with

me thinking and crafting the storyline of change see it as a powerful investment in building and sustaining the momentum of change but this is often not the case in other organisations. Therefore, asking questions and raising issues at the right time with the right person becomes key.

However, remember that the tone of asking for clarification is key. Sometimes, even best framed questions can be seen as pushback or dissent in a highly charged change management scenario. Your colleagues are likely to be as stressed as you are, so be mindful of the tone, the words and the intentionality being reflective of your intent to help facilitate the change.

Create an environment of inclusivity where everyone feels heard and valued. Chances are that others are feeling overwhelmed as well. By creating a community of people who act as sounding boards to each other, you are also signalling your leadership capability in times of change. Encourage transparency by sharing information and insights across teams. More clarity on the situation reduces the stress and anxiety of the change management plans.

2. Link the company change management plans to your own personal change management plans

Although change can be stressful, try to see this as an opportunity to reassess your career goals and take proactive steps toward professional development. For example, if there are areas where you want to improve your skills or knowledge, seek out training opportunities. Commit to being a lifelong learner, embrace change and find opportunities for growth!

Learn how to be resourceful and creative in finding solutions to problems. This could involve thinking outside the box, looking for unconventional solutions, or collaborating with others. When role or portfolio changes happen, it can be both unnerving and frustrating but keeping a growth mindset and keeping your own north star or purpose in view can provide you with the fuel needed to keep going till things settle down.

I advise organisations to quickly create a learning and action map around what they need to ‘forget’, what they need to ‘learn’ and what they need to ‘bring along’ from the previous version of their role/portfolio. An intentional approach to your learning also helps you cope with the landscape better

and shines a light on the gaps in your own skillset/competencies. A sense of agency and self-leadership allows one to cope with change without feeling like one is at the mercy of the situation, a factor that can be crucial for mental health.

3. Notice systems of care all around you Demands on your mental, emotional, and coping capabilities are high during any change. It is also true that you are likely to pay least attention to refuelling yourself while you are navigating changes. But it does not have to be a long and complicated affair to replenish yourself. Simple acts such as going for a walk, a soothing screensaver, an inspiring quote, or listening to the sounds of animals, or

the breeze in a meditation app can quickly reset our nervous systems.

Eat delicious food and think of the people who grew it or made it. Take care of yourself by getting enough sleep, exercise, and nutrition. Set aside time for relaxation and hobbies that bring you joy. Seek support. Reach out to colleagues, friends, or family members for emotional support. You can also seek out professional counselling or coaching if needed. You need beyond physical rest to be able to have the mental and emotional resources to carry on, particularly if you have to be the leader/face of the change.

All of this change, particularly during the impending warning of a recession, can be stressful and challenging. However,

by taking a proactive approach, you take back your power. As Victor Franknel said, the ultimate freedom available to a human being is the ability to choose your response to a situation - feel free to share this with your teams, your colleagues, and friends who may be going through changes in their company.

Dr Tanvi Gautam is a HR influencer, keynote speaker, best-selling author, and transformational leadership expert. Join her at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 on May 10 at 10.40am (SGT), where she will be giving a keynote address at the CHRO Symposium. Click here to find out more about her work.

“Although change can be stressful, try to see this as an opportunity to reassess your career goals and take proactive steps toward professional development.”

#1 Employee Wellbeing Solution just got a whole lot better.

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Avoiding the negative impacts of algorithmic management through effective job design

Businesses have been busy adopting technology powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and delivering them into the hands of employees. Driven by promises of greater efficiency and effectiveness, improving the employee experience, and yielding previously unknown insights through advanced analytics, these tools have improved the quality of decisions and eliminated many of the mundane activities previously performed by people.

There are many advantages offered by AI tools, but there is also a dark side, one which is often overshadowed by the enthusiastic media narrative surrounding AI. HR is familiar with one potential downside, that AI can mirror and magnify biases embedded in our data. Another far less known but potentially more problematic issue is algorithmic management.

Algorithmic management is the use of AI techniques to manage humans in the workplace. Human involvement is limited when AI takes control, making and executing decisions about labour. You may be familiar with the case of Uber drivers in the USA who resisted being “managed by the App” and said they disliked “working for algorithms”. This case highlights an example

of algorithmic management, that not only affects platform workers, but many whitecollar knowledge workers, whose colleagues and managers are now, in total or in part, a black box. Anywhere AI is the technical part of a sociotechnical system, algorithmic management is likely to exist.

There has been extensive research since 2015, when the seminal article about the algorithmic management of Uber drivers was published. As a topic, algorithmic management has already generated nearly half as many scientific papers since 2020 as

it did in the previous decade.

A recent literature review* suggests that algorithmic management generates more negative outcomes for employees, than positive. A single area seems to produce a positive outcome, the reduction of physical demands. The negative impacts on job design factors of different algorithmic management functions are outlined in the table.

The list of negative impacts is a cause for concern for any HR professional. Many HR programmes, practices and policies are designed to ensure that people have autonomy in their role, and that there is sufficient task variety and significance, because these are central to employee engagement. The prevalence of autonomy being a negative impact arising from many algorithmic management functions is of particular concern. Autonomy increases employee motivation, engagement, creativity, and contributes to overall job satisfaction.

Could the adoption of AI result in the loss of many of the gains made in employee engagement?

Adapted from *Parent-Rocheleau, Xavier & Parker, Sharon. (2021). Algorithms as work designers: How algorithmic management influences the design of jobs. Human Resource Management Review

The consequences of AI in the workplace are usually the result of the choices made during the decision to adopt. To avoid or mitigate the negative impacts

of algorithmic management, awareness during the procurement stage is the first step. This means ensuring that algorithmic management issues that could arise through the adoption of a specific AI tool, are identified, assessed, and considered during the procurement process. Once the decision to adopt has been made, redesigning jobs astutely, so that both the human and technical aspects of the sociotechnical system are enhanced, can ensure many of the negative effects of algorithmic management are eliminated or reduced.

Jobs that are designed to avoid the negative impacts of algorithmic management allow people to retain control, provide transparency and evoke a sense of fairness. Methods to achieve this could include:

• Ensure people have input into system design and the ability to opt out.

• Only collect reasonable information and ensure decisions are participatory (no unilateral decisions made by technology).

• Decisions made by technology are explainable.

• Human influence is important, give people a way to add their voice to decisions and modify and adapt decisions.

The optimisation of a sociotechnical system that includes AI, through the design of work to ensure people and technology operate effectively together, now also includes design strategies to manage algorithmic management. As artificial intelligence is easy to acquire, the optimal design of a company’s sociotechnical system can be a source of competitive advantage.

The need for HR to be involved in conversations across their businesses about the decision to adopt AI is obvious. Without HR highlighting and assessing the risks inherent to algorithmic management, they are less likely to be known, understood, or addressed sufficiently, resulting in engagement and retention issues in the future that will certainly end up at HR’s feet to solve.

“The need for HR to be involved in conversations across their businesses about the decision to adopt AI is obvious.”

Philippa “Pip” Penfold is Managing Director, Integrating Intelligence. Join her at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 on May 10 at 2pm (SGT), where she will answer questions about HR Jobs of the future.

About the Author

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Have you begun building a business-wide approach to people L&D?

The greatest myth about Industry 4.0 – an era that is hallmarked by an incessant, everquickening pace of change due to technological advancements and the emergence of AI – is that it is coming, and when its wave hits us, it is going to hit us hard.

It is a myth because the Fourth Industrial Revolution is not on its way… Industry 4.0 is already here.

What does this actually mean?

To better understand the implications of that question, we first must think about what an unabating and accelerating pace of change means for you.

Think of how much time, money, and effort you have invested in building a specific area of technical knowledge; something that is a source of significant competitive advantage, whether to yourself and/or to your employer. That investment is, of course, enormous – whether measured in years, dollars, or just plain old blood, sweat and tears.

Now imagine the shelf life of those skills, knowledge, and abilities that you have built up over your career. Maybe it is a highly specialised ability of an area of law, or economics, or engineering. Perhaps it is an intimate understanding of all the intricacies, technologies, and personalities that affect and shape an industry or sector of business. Whatever it is, that knowledge must evolve and attain new and even higher levels to remain useful, let alone be competitively advantageous to you. But there will come a time when what you once knew to be true is no longer relevant or applicable.

In the past, you would approach this need to upskill and retrain in a gentle enough manner; every now and then, you would go on a course, gain further experience by working on the delivery of a new challenging project, enrol in further study, or lead a team through previously unchartered territory to define new and better ways of working.

However, the length of time between those rounds of necessary and vital upskilling is contracting – and because of the rapid and dynamic disruption we are now seeing – meaning that the time between some new technology emerging and you having to come to terms with the disruption it causes is getting shorter and shorter.

Why should I care?

According to a study conducted by the World Economic Forum, half the knowledge, skills, and abilities that you held in 2020 will be obsolete by 2030. We are not talking here about a labour force that spans skilled and unskilled workers; we are talking about university educated, professional, ‘white collar’ workers.

Think about what that means. Think about you, as an individual, being about half as effective as you are now in less than seven years’ time. Think about how you must now learn and replace that missing 50% with skills that you have never heard of with capabilities that have not even been invented yet.

Then, think about how this process of retooling your professional, technical, and leadership skillset is now going to be constant and forever. For the rest of your career. Until the day you retire.

Now think about what that means if you zoom out and stop thinking about yourself for a second and begin to think about what it means for your organisation, your industry, and even the global talent marketplace.

How are we going to build the capability of all those people? How are we going to build the capability of your business? How are you going to build your own capability for a very challenging future that is already here?

These are the real questions that we need to be addressing in the context of Industry 4.0, about the skills employers and employees need to meet its demands. Because they are questions about the survival of your business and about your personal ability to stay relevant in the professional job market.

What do we do now?

If you are not already doing it, you need to create a capability strategy, build the tools, processes, and structures to deliver this to your people, and establish a learning and development culture across your organisation.

If you are already doing that, you are ahead of the curve! The next step is to develop and maintain a constant watch on the emerging capability needs of your business and people because this is not something that you can deliver once, tick a box, and satisfy your CEO that it is done and solved forever. You need to be your organisation’s Capability Champion, and you need to recruit others to your cause.

This is what a continuous learning and development culture means

So how do you do that? Well, that is for every business to tackle and solve for themselves. But I can tell you what I do know, and how I did it, and the five things I learned about delivering a global organisational development and learning solution at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023.

See you there!

Steven Businovski works in Organisational Development & Learning at BHP. Join him at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 on May 11 at 2pm (SGT), where he will share tips on how to implement a global organisation L&D solution.

About the Author

“You need to create a capability strategy… and establish a learning and development culture across organisation.”your

The world is changing! Are you and your employees ready?

It seems like every single day there is some major announcement on Generative AI (ChatGPT and similar products). Most of the world still really does not have any idea what any of this is and how it will change the world.

We have become a bit numb to technological announcements and breakthroughs in today’s world. The media portrays every new technology like it is either the greatest thing ever or it is going to end the world. There is no longer any in-between, which makes it very hard for professionals to decipher the meaning of it all.

Let me give you one quote that I hope demonstrates a bit of how important this technological breakthrough might be different: “This (ChatGPT/Generative AI) is every bit as important as the PC, as the internet.” – Bill Gates

I think we all could say Bill Gates knows a thing or two about technology! Basically, you have Steve Jobs and Bill Gates as the two most influential voices over the past three decades when it comes to technology. Bill Gates does not usually say something is big unless it is really big.

How will Generative AI (ChatGPT) change the future of work?

Within the HR industry worldwide, this will be the question we will grapple with for the foreseeable future. At some point in the near future, Generative AI will be built into every single part of the HR technology stack. No area in HR will be untouched by this technology; in reality, for the most part, no area in any organisation will be untouched.

There are some potential concerns with Generative AI in terms of implementation and use within HR. Many are similar to what we had with early versions of Conversational AI and some of the machine learning technology when it was first launched. Will our AI be biased? Will the AI get us in hot water legally? Much of it falls under the lack of control or perceived lack of control we lose when instituting many of these new technologies across our HR tech stack.

My most hopeful analogy around how

Generative AI will change work is to have you imagine a world where you had your own personal assistant. A world where every single person had their own personal assistant. Not just any personal assistant but one that knows everything there is to know and knows everything about you. This personal assistant would have a catalogue of every email and chat communication you have ever had and remember them all. It would know your likes and dislikes. Your dreams and aspirations. Your personal goals and your professional goals, and its sole job would be to help you reach those goals.

Does that not sound amazing?

How much more could you get done in life with this level of support? How much better quality of life would you have, both personally and professionally? This is the potential of Generative AI and models like ChatGPT.

We tend to want to focus on what technology will take away. Yes, Generative AI will take away some work, and that, in turn, will eliminate some jobs. But, like every

other innovation revolution before, it will actually create exponentially more jobs than it reduces. Our fear is we do not yet know what those jobs will be. So, we tend to look at technology, like AI, as bad for work and bad for employees. We fear that which we do not know.

I believe that we are just on the cusp of some significant technological advances in HR technology. We will look back on this time as the beginning of a new way in which we administer HR to our workforce in so many ways. Our workers will have increased access and advantages through technology and produce at all-time levels. For those who embrace change and innovation, it is a great time to be working in HR!

About the Author

Tim Sackett is President, HRU Technical Resources. Join him at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 on May 11 at 4pm (SGT), where in his closing keynote address, Sackett will explain the role of the future employee as AI continues to automate many of the functions employees perform today.

“At some point in the near future, Generative AI will be built into every single part of the HR technology stack.”

The role HR can play to enable ESG outcomes

Not long ago, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) was the concern of investor relations. Today, ESG is the concern of all stakeholders, with CHROs increasingly looking to devise and execute their organisation’s ESG strategy through people interventions. You may already have been given specific responsibility to drive the “S” aspect of ESG.

Business sustainability showed up as a HR challenge through the social issues the pandemic surfaced, with the Great Resignation and more recently, Quiet Quitting. Huge job prospects, higher wages and remote work flexibility helped to address the challenge and for leaders who do not address this well, business performance is reduced as a result of lost productivity.

This has changed the responsibilities of the Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO) and HR/talent management departments as a whole. Reflecting this shift, a recent report from Marsh McLennan found that ESG performance is increasingly important for attracting and retaining employees, a serious consideration during a time when finding and keeping top talent is challenging. The data showed that top employers’ ESG scores are 14% higher than the global average, highlighting a positive connection between employee satisfaction and employer ESG.

HR/talent management teams are in an excellent position to lead the Social component of ESG in any organisation, which has bottom line value.

CHROs can look to S&P Global, who notes how social factors impact a company’s financial performance. In a recent ESG survey, UK firm Berenberg revealed how 47% of investors considered the Social component of ESG the most important when making decisions, overtaking Environmental at 35%.

What your organisation is doing to improve Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) is part of the Social chapter in your ESG story, which creates connection and

passion in your people.

CHROs focusing on Social in ESG create cultures where current and prospective employees want to work, collaborate, and help propel their organisation forward. Shaping an ESG culture through your approach, models, policies and purpose, and supported by employer and employee collaboration, can lead to organisational growth.

As human capital is the greatest asset of any organisation, CHROs must have a seat at the executive committee level of the ESG working group to represent the organisation’s employees. You can also accelerate your impact by distributing copies of Greensight, The Sustainability Guide for Company Directors to all your C-suite leaders and directors.

At the core of our future workforce is Generation Z. A recent Bupa survey revealed that Gen Z are likely to prioritise a potential employer’s commitment to sustainability over what it could pay them. Over half (54%) said that they would be willing to take a pay cut to work for a business that reflected their ethics, while 31% said that they would turn down a job offer from a company if they are not happy with its ESG credentials. Again, the bottom line is value.

Join me at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023,

where I will be sharing further insights, as well as the key challenges and action to take for HR/talent management teams driving and supporting their organisations in meeting ESG requirements and enclosures, as well as maximising ESG opportunities.

Finally, I would like to close the article by sharing the background of the ESG Institute, which was officially launched in Singapore on February 17, 2023. We were honoured to be joined by senior government representatives from Singapore, Australia, US, UK and EU countries, as well as founding members and professional associations such as HRM Asia.

With increasing global pressure for action, compliance, and opportunity creation through sustainability, the ESG Institute works on advancing the transition to a net-zero economy while also advocating for equity and justice in the context of social and governance. The Institute focuses on simplifying the complexity of sustainability standards, creating alignment and action for businesses across their international value chains, and providing tools that support business leadership in this crucial transformation.

The ESG Institute integrates sciencebased insights with business pragmatics, leveraging research initially conducted at HEC Paris (the Harvard of France) and the University of Oxford, to empower leaders and help them report, benchmark, and advance their sustainability goals swiftly and effectively.

Jonathan Cheung is Chief Executive Officer, The ESG Institute. Join him at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 on May 10 at 11.30am (SGT), where he will highlight the importance of HR in enabling ESG outcomes in organisations.

About the Author

Jonathan Cheung, Chief Executive Officer, and Joanne Flinn, Chairwoman, presided over the official launch of the ESG Institute in Singapore this February. The ESG Institute aims to provide leaders and teams in Asia with a better understanding of ESG and what is needed in the region.

Fostering innovation and supporting employees through an inclusive work culture

BY SHAWN LIEW

Serving thousands of patients across South-East Asia, India and Hong Kong, one of the priorities of biotechnology company Amgen is to create a work environment that is diverse, inclusive and equitable.

This, said Eric Ng, Executive Director and General Manager, Amgen South-East Asia, India, and Hong Kong (SEAIHK), empowers employees to express themselves without fear and find a strong sense of belonging in the workplace, in turn enabling them to deliver impactful results and excel in their careers.

Speaking with HRM Magazine Asia, he added, “Amgen is committed to promoting and maintaining an inclusive culture where every team member takes responsibility for creating a welcoming, inclusive, and productive culture, and an environment where employees feel respected, valued, and supported to reach their full potential.”

To help foster a strong diversity, inclusion, and belonging (DI&B) culture, Amgen is constantly driving awareness and channels for safe discussion. Besides participating in global or regional events such as HR Tech Festival Asia 2023, Amgen also actively engages employees on a local level through in-country panel discussions, where discussions are led by local employees and how they define DI&B.

Encouraging employees to take the lead is also a focus, as Ng explained,

“Empowering our people is a key pillar in building, maintaining, and managing a diverse workforce and high-performing culture, where our employees feel driven to take action and kick-start initiatives of their own.”

To better support employees, Amgen has created 11 Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) organised around a primary diversity dimension. Through these ERGs, leaders and managers are provided with the tools to lead a diverse workforce.

In SEAIHK, Amgen’s ERGs include the Women Empowered to be Exceptional (WE2 Group) and Amgen PRIDE, which respectively aims to promote a more inclusive workplace for female employees and employees who identify as LGBTQ+.

In Hong Kong, employees banded together to create a DI&B influencer team, with the objective of creating an inclusive environment where everyone can bring their authentic selves to work and strive for success.

The role leaders play in creating a sustainable DI&B culture

For DI&B strategies to be successful, they need to start from the top, become infused in the middle, and be driven from the bottom up.

To start their organisation on the journey to a sustainable DI&B culture, leaders will have to evolve the way their organisation works, manage and lead

to help create better understanding, alignment and flexibility, and foster stronger connections with employees, said Ng.

He elaborated, “This includes listening actively to our people and learning from outside our organisation, so we can identify the right solutions and experiences for our people. It is also crucial to keep a steady stream of communications with employees to strengthen transparency, empathy, and trust.”

However, while leaders can play a key role in kickstarting DI&B strategies, Amgen believes that creating an inclusive and equitable culture is the responsibility of every employee and it is critical for everyone to do their part, no matter how big or small that is.

“If all employees consider DI&B in their daily work and interactions, these small actions can cascade and collectively make a significant and lasting impact on workplace culture,” added Ng.

Recognising the long-term nature of such an endeavour, Amgen is also constantly looking to nurture the next generation of leaders. For instance, to drive careers with purpose and equip aspiring leaders with holistic leadership skills, initiatives such as the Future Leaders Programme (FLP) have been launched.

Through FLP, Amgen picks the top 10% of talent across different functions and markets in the SEAIHK region. The selected candidates then attend a ninemonth leadership training programme that focuses on leading from the “head, heart, and gut”, and imparting them with the ability to implement, empathise, and task risks as complete leaders.

“Through this programme, our future leaders not only learn how to make strategic decisions and tackle key challenges, but also how to lead teams with compassion and inclusion. This is crucial in nurturing our future leaders with the right set of skills to drive a more inclusive and high-performing culture,” Ng concluded.

Join Eric Ng and Chris Chan, Regional Counsel, Amgen Japan Asia Pacific (JAPAC) and Chair, Amgen JAPAC PRIDE at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 on May 10, 12pm (SGT), where they will discuss the importance of building an equitable DEIB workforce and an inclusive, high-performing culture.

An internal Amgen Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (DI&B) panel discussion conducted with the Thailand team in mid-2022.

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Leading in a hybrid workplace

Workplaces have changed, and so must leaders. While hybrid work has become the norm, leaders are still trying to decode the best way to lead their teams and organisation in the new world of work. Our recent report on WORK 3.0: Reimagining Leadership in a Hybrid World reveals that the adoption of the hybrid work model has nearly doubled in APAC, increasing from 40.8% prepandemic to 80.4% post-pandemic. From working exclusively in physical offices (Work 1.0) to working virtually during the pandemic (Work 2.0), organisations are now transitioning to Work 3.0 where they are trying to strike the ‘right’ hybrid balancing act.

We found that over half of the organisations in APAC either do not have a vision of what the hybrid work model in their context may look like or are still grappling with it. To be successful in Work 3.0, leaders must steer clear of myths about the hybrid work model and focus on key priorities. People and culture emerged as the top two success factors in the hybrid world, four times more so that technology.

So how can leaders ensure hybrid team success?

1. Re-establish the core purpose

Employees who feel a deep sense of purpose each day are naturally more motivated and engaged at work. For example, during the orientation programme at TCS, a global IT company headquartered in India, new employees are paired with a non-profit as their first client, allowing them to see that their contributions go beyond a paycheck, to fulfilling a “bigger” objective. Taking time to ensure the core organisational purpose is connected to individual team members’ personal purpose makes a big difference.

2. Develop a collective mindset with the team

Create a new Work 3.0 environment that works best for the team. Clearly most

workers in Singapore prefer to continue some type of flexible work arrangements, reinforced in a recent study by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS). Leaders must recognise this and make the necessary changes to create a new Work 3.0 environment that can keep team members engaged and motivated. For some people, hybrid is creating a lot of anxiety and complexity in terms of when they should be in the office and when they should work from home. Having to toggle between two workplaces and carve out two different sets of daily work habits can chip away at cognitive resources, creating emotional and mental fatigue. Leaders and managers need to help teams find the right rhythm that decreases these potential drawbacks and maximises more of the opportunities that can come from the hybrid set-up.

3. Rebuild cohesive relationships within teams

One of the greatest trade-offs from the rise in virtual work was the inability to talk to colleagues informally at the office. Our research clearly shows that social wellbeing is negatively impacted when the opportunities to interact with work colleagues are significantly reduced. As a result, employees slip into task mode rather than focusing on relationship building - a key aspect in teamwork and collaboration. Setting weekly “collaboration days” to bring team members together in the office on consistent days each week for team meetings, open discussions and impromptu one-to-one interactions is proving to be one of the most effective approaches to rebuild team cohesion.

4. Rejuvenate the connections between teams

Leaders naturally paid more attention to their internal teams and during the course of the pandemic many organisational networks weakened with the lack of interteam and inter-departmental interaction. Increasing cross-team activities like offsite retreats and activity days, as well as enhancing digital collaboration tools, have been a few of the winning approaches for cross-team connection.

The future of Work 3.0

There is no looking back and no single recipe of success in the Work 3.0 world. During Work 2.0, the pendulum swung all the way to maximum flexibility and virtual work and now in this first phase of Work 3.0 in many cases we are seeing the pendulum rapidly swinging back. Organisations and leaders that re-imagine and re-define their recipe for hybrid team success and where the pendulum needs to center for them will be better equipped for longer term success in Work 3.0.

About the Author

Elisa Mallis is VP and Managing Director, APAC, Center for Creative Leadership. Join her at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 on May 10 at 10.10am (SGT), where she will be discussing the evolving role of CHROs in the Asia-Pacific region and what lies ahead for HR leaders.

Unlocking growth: How high-res CHROs drive long-term success

Current global macro-economic uncertainties are creating a new imperative for companies to continuously reinvent themselves so that they not only remain competitive but also simultaneously pursue new paths of growth.

Our research found that companies that adopt next-generation artificial intelligence and digital tools, in combination with enabling partnerships and ecosystems, are 2.6 times more likely to increase revenue by 10 per cent or more than their peers.

However, Gartner predicts that the current demand for tech talent far outstrips supply, and this will likely remain the case until at least 2026. This tech skills-gap is just one of the many talent trends that will shape businesses over the next decade.

For example, while the rising importance of ESG will drive demand for people who can help companies navigate the new normal of sustainability, pandemic-induced surge in remote work and autonomous work will emphasise the growing significance of soft skills.

As companies embark on the next growth phase in the new digital economy, the need for the right people has never been more intense. For example, in Singapore, over 64% of CHROs say that talent is a key driver of digital transformation.

Our research found that incorporating people into the process of digital transformation driven by data and technology can generate a productivity premium of 11 per cent compared with just four per cent without them. Yet just five per cent of companies are doing so.

The difference? The rise of the highres CHRO – one who operates at the heart of their company’s transformation by putting equal emphasis on people, data, and technology.

A different breed

This new breed of CHROs will be the key conduit to enable total enterprise reinvention and bring a clearer, sharper focus on what is required to succeed in the

new digital economy.

High-res CHROs are differentiated by two key factors. Firstly, their skills. High-res CHROs are more likely to be in the top level of proficiency across six critical skills that include systems thinking, financial acumen, leadership, technology and data, strategic talent development and business acumen.

Secondly, high-res CHROs have strong connections that run across the leadership team. They are four times more likely to have strong relationships across the C-Suite, from the Chief Executive to the Chief Financial Officer, and the Chief Technology Officer.

Creating the right conditions

Finding the right CHRO is just one part of the equation; to unlock their full potential, enabling them in two areas is key.

The first is for leaders to fully appreciate the importance of prioritising people in the company. To find out, CEOs need to ask a simple set of questions. For example, are people better off working for the company than elsewhere? Are they healthy and happy? Are they connected to the company, with a strong sense of purpose and do they have marketable skills that will translate to vibrant careers?

If the answer is yes, then the company is on the right track. Meeting these needs, our research shows, will help boost revenues by five per cent or more.

The second is to place CHROs at the centre of the company’s priorities and processes, involving them in areas outside of the typical HR purview.

Take a leading global financial institution as an example. The company, like many

others, suffered during the pandemic. They doubled down on their digitalisation strategy and retrained their workforce during the pandemic.

The results have paid off: the share price of the company has risen higher than prepandemic levels, bolstered by the results of its digitalisation drive.

As it turns out, it also helps that the company puts people at the centre of its plans. The company’s CHRO sits in the company’s executive management team and has been instrumental to its growth plans.

A clear vision

The above example is not isolated. Our research shows that enabling the conditions for CHROs to thrive is critical to boosting productivity and potential across the entire company.

This is because CHROs can help connect the dimensions of data and technology to unlock new potential while leading reinvention beyond the HR function. For example, empowered high-res CHROs are more likely to effectively connect data and technology, and use innovative technology such as the metaverse to enhance people’s experiences at work.

The bottom line is this: people matter. And the high-res CHRO, enabled by the right conditions and armed with the right skills, can set up the company for success in the long term.

About the Author

Gaston Carrion is Talent & Organisation Lead, Growth Markets, Accenture. Join him at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 on May 10 at 9.40am (SGT), where he will be highlighting the strategic initiatives that HR leaders should be prioritising in 2023.

“Enabling conditionsthe for CHROs to thrive is critical to boosting productivity and potential across the entire company.”

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Accelerating business growth with creative leadership

BY SHAWN LIEW

As many organisations continue to operate in a hybrid work environment, HR and business leaders are being asked to develop new skills and perspectives to lead business transformation and address workforce shifts in their organisation.

To do so effectively, many have been compelled to deviate from previously entrenched practices and demonstrate outof-the-box thinking to introduce their own style of creative leadership.

Speaking with HRM Magazine Asia, Dickson Tang, keynote speaker and author of the book, Leadership for Future of Work, said, “To me, creative leadership is your ability to unlock your team’s ideas and creativity towards future business growth. In a VUCA world filled with volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, figuring out the path to future business growth is one of the priorities for modern organisations.”

To identify creative leaders in your organisation, Tang suggested looking out for individuals who are curious, open to new possibilities, and possess a “why not” attitude. They must also embrace the challenge of generating, organising, and prioritising new ideas, particularly those that support business growth and improvement.

He added, “Creative leaders are also likely to empower their team members with new ways of doing things. They will ask questions such as: Is there something we should stop doing as a team, or is there something we should start doing as a team?”

Developing people and driving business growth with creative leadership

After identifying the creative leaders in their ranks, organisations can leverage on them to embed a “why not” mindset, and encourage employees to come up with new possibilities and eradicating “cannot do” attitudes.

Creative leaders can also turn regular team meetings into ideation sessions by engaging members to express their ideas, rather than routinely going through the

regular agenda items in meeting minutes.

Tang elaborated, “Get your team members to come up with new ideas to enhance the employee experience and to identify new revenue growth opportunities. The small shift from ‘updating’ to ‘ideating’ carries big impact to your team and to your business.”

Lastly, creative leaders must consider current practices and whether they are still relevant and effective as the business environment and organisational needs continue to change rapidly.

“Sometimes, your team might be too comfortable working in the trenches and are repeating the same processes from the past. You may want to get your members to pause and think about the things that they should stop doing as a team,” Tang explained.

Supporting a culture of creative leadership in a hybrid work environment

As creatures of habit, it is perhaps not surprising that many people struggled to adapt to the life changes the pandemic brought, including in the workplace.

Traditionally, employees have been

trained to think in a logical and practical manner that places the focus on ‘feasibilities’ where team members are very comfortable focusing on whether a business idea is practical or achievable based on business constraints.

However, to tap into future growth opportunities, creative leaders must help to build a culture of “possibilities”, where team members are encouraged to brainstorm and visualise a range of potential options, without considering their practicality at the start, Tang said.

“This open-ended approach helps unlock new possibilities related to new products, new services, and new ways of operation,” he explained, while going to highlight how, in a hybrid work environment, creative leadership also entails encouraging the creation of ideas through both synchronous and asynchronous ideation.

While synchronous ideation means getting team members together to brainstorm in real-time, for example, through a live brainstorming session over Zoom, asynchronous ideation is about getting team members to contribute ideas by a deadline.

Tang concluded, “With hybrid team members spreading across multiple time zones and work locations, asynchronous ideation is easier to arrange and allows team members to contribute a diverse range of ideas.”

To find out more about how you can accelerate business growth with creative leadership in a hybrid work environment, join Dickson Tang at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 on May 11, 10.05am (SGT).

“Creative leaders are also likely to empower their team members with new ways of doing things. They will ask questions such as: Is there something we should stop doing as a team, or is there something we should start doing as a team?”

DICKSON TANG, KEYNOTE SPEAKER AND AUTHOR OF THE BOOK, LEADERSHIP FOR FUTURE OF WORK

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Why people data analytics is poised to drive big changes in 2023

Iremember being so excited to start my first full-time job. I had just completed my bachelor’s degree and was fortunate enough to be hired into the role of National Traineeships Coordinator at Linfox. It was not aligned to my degree, but I saw it as a stepping stone and a learning opportunity.

Once I settled in, I started looking at the organisational chart in more detail. I began at the top and worked my way down. All these people with all their titles, so many levels above me. I was curious about where they commenced in their career and how they discovered what they wanted to do. I remember seeing announcements about movements, and promotions, and started looking for the people mentioned. I did not covet what they had, I was just trying to carve my own pathway and I did not really know then what I was interested in doing, and I did not really know who to talk to about my development beyond what I needed to do for my role.

When talent marketplace and employee experience became topics of conversation, I looked back at my journey. Shortly after my first full time role, my manager decided to leave, and this created an opportunity for me to step into her role. From completing incentive forms and filing certificates, my role changed to National Traineeships Manager and soon I was training someone else to fill in my coordinator role. Shortly after that, out of nowhere, I was enrolled into the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment course and became an IT Trainer.

Not long after, I went on parental leave, and when I returned, there was an opportunity for me to become a data analyst which quickly changed into a Senior Business Analyst role. When we implemented a human resources information system (HRIS), I asked for a secondment in the team as I was learning about SAP HCM in my master’s degree, and soon I became a HRIS Analyst.

In the decades that followed, I had changed roles and worked on various projects. I completed a master’s degree in Business ERP Systems. It felt to me like

a giant experiment to discover where my passion lies. For the last 10 years, I have stuck to the people systems space and in the last four years, I ventured into the education industry when I was asked to develop and teach the SAP SuccessFactors curriculum by Victoria University. All this was done mostly because I had put my hand up whenever there was opportunity to challenge myself and learn something new. I knew that I did not want to be static, but except when I stepped into the HRIS Analyst role, I felt like I was waiting for opportunities and most of my movements were reactive. Had I known where my skills and passion could take me, perhaps I would have been more proactive. What were the possibilities?

This is why I want to stir up conversations about people data analytics. For so long, anything to do with people data and insights seem to just sit with HR and for a long time, it made sense. However, I believe we can optimise it if we make it available to the whole organisation. This is where I know we will fully realise the benefits of people systems.

Imagine empowering leaders and individuals with insights that will drive them to make decisions that will move themselves, and their organisation forward. A graduate can see their pathway and where

they can contribute from their first year and beyond. It would create such a sense of belonging and purpose. A leader can be more informed about their resources, to take their team to the next level.

There will be a shift in our conversations, all movements will be intentional and less reactive, each learning experience will result in skills and competencies that will align to people strategy, and every individual will see where they fit in the organisation today and in the years to come. If we are to convince people that they belong, they need to see the possibilities, and this is why people data analytics is poised to drive “big change” in 2023. We are ready!

Lead at REA Group. Join her at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 on May 10 at 2.30pm (SGT), where she will explain why people data analytics is poised to drive big changes for organisations in 2023.

“Imagine empowering leaders and individuals with insights that will drive them to make decisions that will move themselves, and their organisation forward.”

Jelvie Grech is People Systems

About the Author

To request a demo please logon to achievers.com/sg/demo/ or to speak to a sales representative call us on +65-98321426

Why remote work is still of central importance

Our journey of building a fully remote tech start-up across twelve countries started in November 2021 and solely tasked with building the team, I faced some major challenges.

Prior to starting up coto, I had worked with two friends who had set up Agile HRO, a specialised outsourced remote hiring and onboarding company. My time there highlighted the diverse experiences, perspectives, and skills remote teams bring to the table. So, when I set out to establish a fully remote tech company across twelve different countries for coto, I knew that the journey would be filled with challenges, learning experiences, and benefits too.

For example, when we first started, managing a remote team scattered across various time zones proved to be quite the juggling act. Coordinating meetings, maintaining effective communication, and ensuring that everyone felt connected and supported was no easy feat. On top of that, we faced a myriad of cultural differences, which sometimes led to misunderstandings and communication gaps. It was critical that we developed solutions to keep us on track, ensuring we were achieving our productivity and resource utilisation targets. We prioritised tackling these challenges head-on and discovered several solutions that significantly improved our remote work experience.

Flexible work hours and open transparent communication were key. We learned to embrace the beauty of flexibility, good communication and actively encouraged full collaboration. By using tools like Slack, Notion and JIRA, we could collaborate and share information without having to be online at the same time. This made a world of difference in our workflow and helped reduce the stress associated with time zone differences.

We realised that some people felt isolated, so we focused on regular check-ins and virtual meetups; we made a point of maintaining a sense of connection and unity. These touchpoints allowed us to discuss progress, address concerns, and share personal stories, making us feel more like a

family than just colleagues.

As we are spread over twelve countries, cultural awareness was an initial challenge for many people. We invested in cultural awareness training to foster understanding, respect, and appreciation for our team’s diverse backgrounds. This not only improved communication but also enriched our team dynamics by celebrating the unique perspectives each team member brought to the table.

One thing that I quickly realised was that trust is the glue that holds a remote team together. Without trust, collaboration and productivity will quickly crumble. Trust has played a pivotal role in our team’s success, and it manifested in several

ways. It empowered people, so we actively encouraged autonomy and empowered our people to make decisions and take ownership of their work. This fostered a sense of trust in their abilities, boosting both confidence and performance.

In essence, we successfully created a conscious-led organisation and to the best of our ability, we phased out the task-oriented type environment. After all, transparency and open communication are key to create trust. We have maintained a conscious effort to be transparent in our decisionmaking processes and maintain open lines of communication. This helped build trust between team members and management, ensuring that everyone felt heard and valued.

This created accountability and reliability, with everyone holding themselves and team members accountable for their own work. By setting clear expectations and following through on commitments, we cultivated a culture of reliability and trustworthiness.

While we still have a long way to go, I believe that we are doing the right thing by remaining a globally remote organisation. Our journey to build a fully remote tech company across twelve countries has been nothing short of amazing. By addressing the initial challenges of remote working, implementing solutions that fostered collaboration and unity, and placing trust at the core of our team dynamics, we have been able to create a thriving, successful, and truly global company. It is a testament to the power of remote work, and I am excited to see where this adventure takes us next!

About the Author

Scott Harrison is Chief People & Culture Officer, coto. Join him at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 on May 10 at 2.30pm (SGT), where he will share insights into overcoming the initial hurdles of remote working and how to build a cohesive and successful remote team.

“I believe that we are doing the right thing by remaining a globally organisation.remote Our journey to build a fully remote tech company across twelve countries has been nothing short of amazing.”

Living hybrid work: Creating a more flexible and inclusive workplace

As the world approaches the three-year mark since the onset of the pandemic, many organisations have moved away from a full remote work model. Instead, a larger trend in the world of work is the move towards hybrid work as a permanent work arrangement.

While hybrid work is not a new concept, it gained more attention and adoption at the height of the pandemic when organisations shifted to remote work to keep their employees safe. According to a recent study by Gallup, hybrid work offers benefits such as improved work-life balance, more efficient use of time, control over work hours and location, burnout mitigation, and higher productivity. Specifically, hybrid work provides employees with the flexibility to work in ways that are most effective for them, and employees believe their current hybrid arrangements improve personal wellbeing and productivity at work.

Despite the clear benefits, hybrid work comes with its challenges, which include having the right tools to be effective at work, employees feeling less connected to the organisation’s culture, impaired collaboration and relationships, and disrupted work processes. Organisations need to address these challenges to create a workplace that meets the needs of their employees and promotes overall business success.

What Gallup’s study highlights is that hybrid work is likely here to stay and organisations must adapt to create a workplace that is more flexible, productive, and inclusive.

HR leaders have a critical role to play to support hybrid work by creating policies, providing guidance and support, and promoting a culture that values and prioritises flexibility. Additionally, they can find ways to build a sense of community and connection among remote and on-site employees, fostering a culture of collaboration and inclusivity that extends beyond physical boundaries.

In the UK, flexible working has gained increasing importance, driven by various factors such as the high cost of childcare and the effects of prolonged flexible working during the pandemic. A study by Queen Mary University highlighted the need for consistent and available childcare and flexible working arrangements due to the significant increase in parents’ expectations to work flexibly, with fathers being the most impacted. This emphasises the importance of HR leaders creating a culture that values flexibility and supports

BY JOSEPHINE TAN

employees in achieving work-life balance.

HR leaders can support employees by ensuring that they have the access to the right technology and tools needed to be effective at work. For example, employees may need video conferencing platforms, instant messaging tools, and project management software to collaborate with their colleagues effectively. HR leaders can also encourage employees to use these tools and technology to ensure they feel connected to their colleagues and organisation’s culture.

Moreover, HR leaders must create policies that promote hybrid work and guide managers and employees on how to work effectively in hybrid environments. This includes policies that address work schedules, communication protocols, and performance expectations. HR leaders can also develop training programmes that provide employees with the necessary skills to be productive and successful in hybrid work environments.

Finally, HR leaders can promote a culture of inclusivity that values and prioritises flexibility. This means creating policies that support employee wellbeing, including mental health support and flexible work arrangements. It also means creating a work environment that fosters collaboration, diversity, and inclusion. HR leaders can achieve this by promoting communication and collaboration, creating opportunities for remote and on-site employees to interact and connect, and celebrating diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

HR Tech Festival Asia 2023, taking place from 10-11 May 2023 at Suntec Singapore, will be an excellent opportunity for HR leaders in the Asia-Pacific region to explore the new paradigm of people and work, including the advantages of hybrid work and how to create a more flexible career experience.

As the way we work continues to evolve, join industry experts in discussing issues such as hiring the best talent regardless of location, reducing overall costs of talent acquisition, and keeping employees productive and motivated.

Clearly, employees are continuing to change work. Join HRM Asia at HR Tech Festival Asia 2023 to find out how you can better allow them, and your organisation, to thrive in a post-pandemic world.

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