Human Resources Online, Hong Kong Q4 2022

October-December 2022

POWERING THROUGH CHANGE

Amid the energy sector’s transformation, Priscilla Chau, Director – HR, CLP Power Hong Kong – is rebuilding culture by helping the workforce adopt new ways of doing things. Page 12

The smart HR professional’s blueprint for workforce strategy

Step inside the office of Hong Kong’s major power utility, as Aditi Sharma Kalra finds out how CLP Power Hong Kong (CLP) is transforming to become the ‘Utility of the Future’.

The senior HR leader talks about the new mix of requirements and expectations from talent, which in turn means businesses now need to be more thoughtful and agile in their retention approach.

In a unique initiative, three companies have come together to create more equitable career opportunities for minority communities. We find out more in a chat with Hyatt’s Katie Carter.

Meet the winners of the HR Distinction Awards and the HR Vendors of the Year 2022.

CREATING MOMENTS THAT MATTER: HOW SOCIETE GENERALE SEES LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIPS WITH EMPLOYEES

Founded by a group of entrepreneurs in 1864 to promote the development of trade and industry, Societe Generale (SocGen) is today one of APAC’s leading financial services groups. But a 158-year-old legacy doesn’t mean that the spirit of entrepreneurship has diminished – on the contrary, the business mission has spilled over into the workforce, creating a people-oriented company culture where employees can thrive.

SocGen’s leadership doesn’t only care about employees and their performance in the short term; they highly value long-term relationships with employees. With an industry-leading average staff tenure of seven years, recognition from the employer and colleagues has been identified as critical to one’s job satisfaction. This is why the yearly ‘Commitment Awards’ campaign is well-loved by the staff, which recognises exceptional contributions to the bank or the community at large. The ‘thank-you’ culture is further magnified by ‘Spotlight’, an internal interactive platform that recognises positive behaviours and celebrates colleagues’ milestones. “To support our managers to motivate and recognise in the most efficient way, we have published a toolkit for managers which includes tips on effective recognition,” adds Mukta Arya, Managing Director, Chief Human Resources Officer, APAC, Societe Generale.

Apart from valuing professional accomplishments, SocGen gladly makes space for employees’ personal life, wellbeing, and growth. All staff in the Hong Kong office, which is the centre of operations in the Asia Pacific region, are entitled to work from home for up to two days per week – on top of a monthly ‘flexi day’ benefit. On the hardware side, reimbursement is provided to support the setting up of the work-from-home environment; on the software side, training resources are shared with both managers and employees on managing remote working.

Employees do, however, have plenty of reasons to return to the office given the facilities have just been upgraded. The bank has invested in

improving the office environment. This sees the addition of a collaboration area, a ‘Recharge’ room, the calming ‘Zen Bubble’, expanded pantry areas, and a phone booth for quiet time.

Further along the employee lifecycle comes the ‘3P’ principle behind the talent policy – performance, potential, and projection. This talent segmentation feeds into several developmental programmes, among which one of the most recent additions is ‘Live my Life’. Launched in 2021, the main objective of this initiative is to enable employees to discover and understand jobs and departments outside of their own, thus accelerating cross-learning opportunities. It leverages resources such as lunch-and-learn events, internal career fairs, as well as webinars and presentations. Apart from onthe-job skills, employees also unlock life skills – take, for instance, the mental health first-aid training for staff in Hong Kong, which has given colleagues the confidence to act as first responders to support each other’s mental health before directing someone to trained mental health advisors.

Clearly, a career in SocGen is not just another banking job – it is a place where staff benefits from employability, meaningful tasks, and internal mobility.

Arya affirms: “For us, providing access to diverse tasks that will impact the community ensures that each individual can help build a better tomorrow.”

With Arya and her HR team leading the way, HR at SocGen is becoming a game-changer to the business. In the years to follow, she sees HR assessing and creating the company’s impact on its workforce and the wider community (essentially, the ‘S’ in ESG) through: diversity & equality, employee rights, wellbeing, and growth. She concludes: “We will also continue articulating ‘moments that matter’ in the company’s culture through: expected behaviours, compensation and performance decisions, capability building, and recruitment.”

The bank supports talents in developing their professional and personal capabilities, within an inclusive and engaging environment, while promoting creative career paths.

WELCOME 2023: A NEW HOPE, RENEWED OPTIMISM, AND STRENGTHENED RESILIENCE

The year gone by has been a roller-coaster – the flip-flop pandemic situation, the reopening of borders, the revival of international travel, and the uncertain macroeconomic outlook – all prompting HR professionals to be more forward-thinking, agile, and adaptable to navigate the fastevolving world of work.

As we enter 2023, what should HR professionals expect and prepare for moving forward? This was the agenda that HRO ’s Tracy Chan aimed to uncover through this year-end special edition’s feature story dedicated to anticipating what the future brings. However, rather than gazing into a crystal ball (which can be unreliable in the best of times!), she speaks to seven senior HR leaders, across industries and regions, who based on their solid experience and industry acumen share their thoughts on the future of HR.

So what’s likely to keep CHROs busy the next 12 months? The themes of developing people’s capabilities, wellbeing and resilience, workforce planning, career development, and DEI came up several times. This, we are confident is timely for you, knowing we secured views not just from Hong Kong, but from leaders representing APAC-wide remits, including the key markets of India and the UK as well.

Peter Hatt, Head, HR, Asia, Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), sums it up beautifully: “There is much debate around the future of jobs and clearly, we are facing a competition for skills globally and as the local talent pool shrinks from factors such as emigration and an aging population, reskilling and upskilling to enable talent retention and succession planning are at the forefront of employers’ minds.

“As a result, HR has a critical role to play over the next 12 to 18 months and HR leaders need to arrive at new, innovative ways to address this challenge. Organisations are starting to determine what skills are in demand for the future, understand key skills required for what roles, and identify skills that are transferable.”

Head straight to page 18 to read the wealth of insights.

This quarter, we have also had the pleasure to speak exclusively to Priscilla Chau, Director – Human Resources, CLP Power Hong Kong. As the major power utility provider in Hong Kong, serving over 80% of the population, CLP Power Hong Kong (CLP) is currently transforming to become the ‘Utility of the Future’ to stay ahead of the challenges brought by climate change and rapidly evolving technologies.

To this end, the leadership at CLP aims to instil a workplace culture that encourages creativity, experimentation, and taking responsibility. “With changing customer needs and business environment, we would like to cultivate a group of employees who are adaptive to the changes and challenges with a creative and flexible mindset,” Chau tells us.

To this mission, CLP has had its ‘Design Thinking Programme’ in place since 2019 to equip employees with the ability and tools to innovate better ways of working. More than 4,000 employees have been trained and over 100 projects have been initiated by employees.

Curious to know more about this transformation journey? Do head over to page 12.

As we round up an exciting year, we want to thank you for your trust in us and for being part of our journey. The HR fraternity in Hong Kong, and the wider Asia region, has always been the guiding light that has given us the confidence to experiment and push our boundaries. Throughout the years, you have always supported us through our e-newsletter, magazine, awards, conferences, webinars, and more. Everything we create is really for you. We couldn’t have made it here without you.

So as we all take some time to recharge and rejuvenate, the team at HRO wishes you a wonderful year ahead, filled with good health, reunions with loved ones, laughter, and fulfilment in all you do.

Enjoy the read.

Aditi Sharma Kalra Editor-in-Chief

For someone who didn’t expect to work for so long at Canon when he first joined 33 years ago, Kazuhiro Ozawa has had a riveting career journey. After graduating from Waseda University, his first role saw him as a sales trainee, cold-calling and going door-to-door to seek new customers. While the rejections frustrated him at first, he refused to give up – and instead focused on building up a liaison network with customers as well as his own database.

His hard work was rewarded by his superiors and peers, and the rest as they say, is history. Tracy Chan finds out more about his career journey and the leadership lessons he has learned along the way.

Throughout the past three decades, what were the most memorable experiences you have had at Canon?

For me, there were two memorable experiences: becoming the President and CEO of Canon Marketing Philippines in 2017, and being a founder member of Canon Middle East.

For the latter, I was one of the five founder members under the President. With limited resources and only a few staff, we established the business together in Dubai. After two years when I returned to Japan, Canon Middle East had already developed into a corporate with more than 100 staff. That was a satisfying experience.

There was another challenge when I became the President and CEO of Canon Marketing Philippines. Before I joined the office, one of the business units had suffered a loss in profit for many years and certainly needed a reform.

To do so, I recommended the new recruitment of top management. Together we built a foundation and overcame different issues. After five years of effort, in 2021, Canon Marketing Philippines finally made a record profit after 24 years. Those challenges became a terrific opportunity for me as well as my precious milestones.

With stints across the globe, including Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, what priorities do different talent have in the various markets? European talent are more concerned about optimising their tasks, and they always target getting off work on time. Asian talent, and even some Middle East talent, do not mind staying in the office a bit longer, if necessary.

Therefore, when we come to employee engagement, we have to tailor activities according to the talents’ needs. For example, talent in the Philippines welcome corporate events on Saturday and Sunday, and we can also invite their family members to join.

However, talent in Japan view their private time as precious and prefer to enjoy the weekend of their own will. For employee engagement, we must first understand our employees’ preferences and habits.

How closely do you work with your CHRO, and what skills should future-forward CHROs possess to navigate the future talent landscape?

For the talent landscape, the most important thing is not the skill set, but the mindset of the talent. At the top management level, improving the approach of the talent will make more impact, and crosstraining can help achieve this.

Cross-training can help to change the mindset of the management, and thus, make a more considerable proportion of the staff change their mindset, which will help to strengthen the company.

How would you describe your leadership style?

I think I have an approachable and open leadership style. I enjoy discussions and arguments, and don’t want to put pressure on others, even if they report to me. I try to understand others’ situations, and I like to think together with my team.

People always ask top management to make decisions, however, there is always hidden information that makes it difficult to make judgments. So, throughout those years, I learned that asking is the key to success. We must ask for more opinions and solutions from our colleagues and discuss them to find the best way out. That’s why discussions are so important.

How do you take care of your wellbeing outside of work?

I like to play golf, sing, and meet friends. I used to go to a karaoke bar or karaoke box in Japan to enjoy singing. I would have liked to have been a musician if I was not in this career … more precisely a singer.

Kazuhiro Ozawa, President and CEO, Canon Hongkong Company

HOW SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC CREATES SUSTAINABLE CAREERS FOR EMPLOYEES

Focusing on graduate programmes doesn’t mean current employees are forgotten. Its AI-driven career development platform ‘Open Talent Market’ opens the door for internal mobility and provides employees visibility into a variety of opportunities available within the organisation. Employees are encouraged to apply for part-time projects, mentorships and open positions across different regions to equip themselves with necessary skillset for future developments. The platform will match employees with personalised opportunities based on their profile and development aspirations.

As a continuous effort to bridge gaps, reskilling and upskilling employees have become an increasingly important topic at the centre of its people strategy. Schneider Electric provides a bite-sized digital learning platform ‘My Learning Link’, enabling learning on the go. Webinars based on the learning needs of different teams and functions are made available, allowing employees all over the globe to learn together, connect and engage virtually.

Schneider Electric,

in

transformation of energy management and automation with a global presence in over 100 countries and regions, thrives on its purpose to empower the world to make the most of our energy and resources, bridging progress and sustainability for all. And this mission can also apply to its people strategy.

Seeing people relations as a journey of “value co-creation”, Jimmy Chong, Human Resources Director, Schneider Electric Hong Kong, believes human resources (HR) plays a critical role in traversing this journey for employers and employees. “When we develop a campaign, a policy, or a process, we should always ask ourselves: What kind of value can we bring?” said Chong. “How can we bring the most value out of this?”

Schneider Electric has well-demonstrated how to strike a balance, or what it calls ‘dynamic equilibrium’, through its ways to hire, develop and retain potential and passionate talents, and build a sustainable future for both employees and the company.

One of its focus areas is strategic hiring. Schneider Electric has tapped into targeted social campaigns and strategic partnerships, including alumni and referrals, university/campus partnerships as well as other outreach campaigns such as ‘Go Green’ and ‘Global Student Experience’, to engage potential fresh graduates and strengthen its efforts in employer branding.

It has also leveraged automation and artificial intelligence (AI) technology to elevate candidate experience and free up energy in HR. For instance, a new tool ‘HireVue’ was introduced to support talent identification and reduce layers of interviews; and a new CRM system ‘iCIMS’ supports better organisation and segmentation of talent in the pipeline.

In line with its ‘Life is On’ mantra, Schneider Electric’s workforce is energised through developmental opportunities. To groom young talents into future leaders, a series of local and global programmes have been launched, such as the Sustainability Consulting Leadership Programme, Global Marketing Graduate Trainee Programme alongside its ongoing Graduate Trainee and Engineering Trainee programmes. All these programmes aim to provide adequate platforms to nurture talents in their specific domain and create a sustainable talent pipeline.

“At Schneider Electric, we believe all employees are talent,” emphasised Chong. “We empower our people to grow to their fullest potential, develop new skills and build sustainable careers for today and tomorrow.”

Growing employees to their fullest potential also includes their wellbeing. To cultivate a more agile, inclusive, empowered and trusting company culture, Schneider Electric has implemented a hybrid work model, allowing employees to have a flexible working arrangement depending on everyone’s needs.

Schneider Electric also believes in constant recognition – after all, a simple ‘thank you’ can go a long way in building trust and creating a caring environment. For this purpose, Schneider Electric has rolled out the ‘Step-Up Recognition’ platform for employees to recognise and be recognised for the extra miles taken in different projects and initiatives, and redeem incentives, anytime and anywhere.

“We believe that great people and partners make Schneider Electric a great company,” concluded Chong. “Our commitment to innovation, diversity and sustainability ensures that ‘Life is On’ everywhere, for everyone and at every moment.”

the leader

the digital

Believing great people make a great company, the leader in the digital transformation of energy management and automation empowers its people to grow to their fullest potential in a meaningful environment.

15 minutes with ...

BETTY LAM MANAGING DIRECTOR, HEAD OF HUMAN RESOURCES DBS BANK (HONG KONG)

Working in banking and insurance for more than 20 years, what do you see as the trends and challenges in terms of managing talent in these sectors?

As the job market evolves, I’ve noticed that talent at all levels now looks to have more freedom and options in their career development journeys as well as their personal lives, and places a greater emphasis on work-life balance. They are also more proactive and open to exploring different opportunities, such as in job mobility, where we see more talent being willing to consider working outside of Hong Kong.

All this leads to a new mix of requirements and expectations from talent, which in turn, means businesses now need to be more thoughtful and agile in their approach to both hiring and retention.

We at DBS are particularly proud to be recognised as a future-ready and progressive employer, with effective hybrid-work practices, and a holistic focus on employee progression and wellbeing.

In November 2020, we were one of the first organisations to implement a permanent hybrid work policy, where employees can work up to 40% of their time at home. We also offer flexibility for employees at different life and career stages. For example, parents with young children have the flexibility to work from home 100% for six months beyond their paid maternity or paternity leave.

As a result of our efforts to create a positive and engaging journey for our employees, we’ve been able to attract and retain talent across the globe.

Can you share a life moment which made you who you are today?

In my early career, I relocated to Shanghai to work in a global FMCG company. Though they were my first, and possibly my last, non-financial services employer, it was an inspiring and fruitful adventure.

Everything was new – the FMCG industry, competing for talent in one of the world’s fastest growing markets, speaking a different language, and experiencing a different culture. This precious adventure enabled me to grow and develop both professionally and personally.

My advice is to dare to come out of your comfort zone, try something new, and challenge yourself. This will make you more ready for your next endeavour.

How would you describe your leadership style?

As a leader, it is my job to set my team up for success. I encourage everyone to provide and receive candid and constructive feedback. I believe in the importance of being a role model and creating an environment of trust, where people feel safe to speak up, and are willing to take the time to listen to, as well as understand each other. I truly believe in partnerships where we work together for the greater good.

I always tell my team – there are no silly questions, please ask and speak when you do not understand or do not agree. I do not know everything and I am always learning and unlearning from my team every day.

To navigate the digital era better, how do you upskill your workforce?

Long before the pandemic, DBS began its digital transformation journey in 2014, when we focused on cultivating a start-up culture among our employees. We wanted to make sure they would be future-ready by giving them the ability and resources to acquire new skills and knowledge to cope with the evolving landscape.

In 2017, we launched DigiFY, a mobile learning platform designed to help employees upskill for a digital age in areas such as work agility and digital technologies. Since then, some 90% of our DBS HK colleagues have completed at least one stage of the curriculum.

We also have learning road maps in place, which are based on the projected future needs of different functions and businesses across the bank, designed to nurture the bankers of tomorrow. All this has culminated in a shift in skill sets across the bank. Today, DBS has twice as many engineers than bankers.

By behaving more like a start-up, more like a techie, being more sustainability focused, and less like a “traditional” bank, we believe we can be a bank for the times.

WHAT GUIDES AIA’S EMPLOYEECENTRIC DECISIONS AND ACTIONS

With the largest number of policies in Hong Kong and serving over 3.4mn customers, AIA stays true to its purpose of helping millions of people live ‘Healthier, Longer, Better Lives’. And this is not only a commitment to its customers, but also to staff.

“Employees are at the heart of AIA and we are committed to engaging our people and empowering them to succeed,” affirmed Maylie Lee, Chief Human Resources Officer, AIA Hong Kong & Macau.

AIA’s human-centred approach to employee wellbeing is based on its four ‘Work Well Pillars’, which cover initiatives around physical health, mental health, community engagement, and financial planning. These include an in-house developed employee engagement app ‘AIA ONE’, COVID-19 support, employee assistance programme (EAP) and wellness-themed activities, charity and sponsored events such as online hackathon ‘hackUST2022’, employee share purchase programme (ESPP), and retirement plan. All of these aim to help employees ‘live well’, ‘think well’, ‘feel well’, and ‘plan well’.

While emphasising wellbeing, AIA is also making continuous investments in employee learning and development to help people develop meaningful careers.

For example, ‘Curiosity Lab HR’ empowers employees to experiment with different ideas, test, and learn. Even during COVID when face-to-face interaction was not feasible, AIA continued leadership development by leveraging VR technology to carry out training on unconscious bias, emotional intelligence, and leading in uncertain times. One of AIA’s targets is to ensure an average of 24 learning hours for every employee per year by 2024.

Recognising different employees have different career aspirations, AIA also offers dual career streams, allowing employees to choose their career paths and grow into specialist or managerial roles. Lee reiterates: “As an organisation, we are continually evolving and finding new ways to provide an even better employee experience and create a diverse and inclusive culture to support and enable our people to shape their career.”

To cater to the next generation of talent, AIA has been evolving into a simpler, faster, and more connected workplace. Under its ‘Organisation of the Future’ (OotF) transformation programme, one prominent measure is

streamlining the organisation to enable faster decision-making. “We encourage and empower our people to ‘believe in better’ – because together we can achieve so much more for the communities we serve and the environments we live in,” Lee shares.

Another effort is building a ‘new way of working’ culture. By adopting an agile way of working, the organisation acts as an engine to support cross-functional collaboration and business impact. Two agile tribes are in place, comprising members from different departments, to solve customer-related problems, as well as creating a ‘start-up’ style office to engage tribe members through interesting projects under a customised performance review mechanism.

In line with this progressive approach, Florence Tsang, Director, Talent & Sustainability, AIA Hong Kong & Macau, believes ESG and people sustainability will be the main focus for HR professionals; thus, AIA is leading the way by incorporating ‘people and culture’ under the umbrella of ESG.

“In the past, ESG was mainly about CSR, company policies and governance,” says Tsang. “In the future, HR professionals should think about how to merge people and culture into their ESG strategy.”

“AIA will continue to go the extra mile to maintain our leading position and focus on ESG and DEI to achieve our great purpose of helping people and the wider community to live ‘Healthier, Longer, Better Lives’,” she adds.

“AIA”, “AIA Hong Kong & Macau” or “AIA Hong Kong” herein refers to the Hong Kong Branch and/or Macau Branch of AIA International Limited (Incorporated in Bermuda with limited liability). “Hong Kong” and “Macau” herein refer to “Hong Kong Special Administrative Region” and “Macao Special Administrative Region”, respectively.

THIS ARTICLE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY AIA HONG KONG & MACAU

Underpinned by its employee value proposition ‘believe in better’, the insurance company strives to build a workplace that enables everyone to thrive at work and in life.

TEN RECRUITMENT TRENDS TO KEEP AN EYE ON IN 2023

#6 Both jobseekers and employers fear “ghosting”

United States – iHire recently surveyed 3,668 jobseekers and 539 employers in the US to take a look at how employers are recruiting and retaining top talent amid the talent shortage, and what jobseekers are on the lookout for.

While the survey was conducted in the US, HRO believes the content remains relevant to our readers in Asia. Priya Sunil compiles 10 trends derived from the survey findings, which employers and HR leaders can keep an eye on in the coming year.

#1 Employers are anticipating a continued talent shortage

For the fourth straight year, employers surveyed cited finding qualified candidates among their top hiring challenges. In 2022, nearly seven in 10 said they receive too few applicants, and a similar percentage said the applicants they receive are unqualified.

#2 A gap between the skills employers desire and the ones candidates actually possess

While companies said they cannot easily find qualified talent, 38.5% of jobseekers believe employers have unrealistic or overly specific requirements. Additionally, a group of candidates said they have recently applied for a job even though they didn’t meet the requirements.

#3 The Great Resignation isn’t slowing down More than half (57.3%) of the candidates in the survey were employed and seeking a job actively or passively, suggesting the Great Resignation may persist.

#4 Economic uncertainties will impact hiring

As a possible recession looms and inflation rises, candidates and employers said economic uncertainty will impact their ability to find work and hire, respectively. Nearly seven in 10 jobseekers said they would be more likely to apply for a job if the ad included the position’s salary range.

#5 Job boards will remain a key tool in recruitment

About six in 10 employers said they have increased their reliance on job boards in the past year, with a significant number using them for either “most” or “all of their hiring. Among jobseekers, 66.3% said they would go to a job board if they needed to find work immediately.

A little over half of the employers in the survey said they were frustrated by unresponsive applicants, while at the same time, just over four in 10 jobseekers said getting ghosted by employers was their chief job search challenge. Evidently, there is a need for clearer communication between both parties.

#7 Candidates still want remote work, but say it is getting harder to find Jobseekers are struggling to find remote work, and employers are anticipating that candidates’ preference for remote work will continue to hinder their ability to hire in the next year, per the survey.

#8 Time will be of the essence to snag top talent A number of candidates said they would be more likely to apply for a job if the employer shortened the time it takes to complete an application. Moreover, nearly 20% mentioned “long application processes” as a top job search challenge, and 26% want optional cover letters.

#9 Candidates’ reasons for searching for work will vary dramatically General unhappiness with one’s current role was the main reason for searching for a new job, but one in five respondents selected “other” and wrote in their response. Reasons under “other” included searching for a second or part-time job, returning to the workforce after taking care of children or elderly family members, coming out of retirement, leaving a business that is closing, and needing more flexibility.

#10 Retirees are re-entering the workforce About 7.5% of jobseekers said they were retired and looking for a job – a 2.9% year-over-year increase. This underscores the upward trend of “unretirement” due to declining retirement funds and the increasing cost of living, the survey noted.

WHY INNOVATION NEVER STOPS AT CITIC

Telecom providers around the world are moving into a more digital mindset –for CITIC Telecom International CPC (CPC), this has always been the guiding mantra. With a motto of ‘Innovation Never Stops’, CPC maintains its status as a leading ICT provider, embracing AI, AR, big data, IoT, and other disruptive technologies.

All focus on technologies doesn’t mean that the ‘human’ element is forgotten. On the contrary, CPC believes that staff is the greatest asset. Catherine Lo, Executive Vice President, Human Resources & Administration, said: “We are committed to creating an ideal working environment that is happy, healthy, and caring.”

The focus on staff has intensified in the last three years, where as a result of the pandemic, heightened stress and anxiety was observed among the workforce. To tackle that, a series of staff wellness activities was rolled out.

Lo explained: “Given the impact caused by COVID-19, it is our top priority to encourage staff to shift from sedentary behaviours to an active lifestyle. The ‘14-Day At-Home ACTIVE Challenge’ was a virtual activity encouraging positive interaction among staff all over the world as they were asked to form a team of four and to achieve as many steps as possible to win the match.”

The 14-Day At-Home ACTIVE Challenge programme was planned and implemented under the considerations of language and literacy, family demands, culture, and health across CPC’s offices in all regions including APAC, Europe, and Russia. This was to ensure the wellness programme could be accessible to all staff, thus promoting inclusion. As a bonus, the ‘Best Photo Award’ was added in which participants shared their best workout photos for the rest of the company to vote for. Further, even the senior management participated to role-model the right behaviours.

“A stronger sense of belonging and team morale was built during this difficult time as staff was asked to team up across regions/departments,” Lo affirmed.

The focus on wellbeing extends beyond physical into mental wellness. Living in a fast-paced city sure takes its toll. Lo shared: “One in seven people in Hong Kong are experiencing a common mental disorder. As such, we organised a series of activities in our ‘Mental Health Month’ to raise staff’s awareness.” These activities include a ‘Leather Card Holder Workshop’, ‘Archery Fun Day’, ‘Mental Health Corner’, and online platform sharing.

Evidently, CPC puts people first. The workforce is always encouraged to voice their opinions and speak their minds to boost transparency and tailor the company’s programmes to meet their needs. A culture of people development is fostered where staff receives all-round training to optimise their performance. To close the loop on giving back to the community, CPC team works closely with NGOs to organise various kinds of CSR activities, e.g. ‘Tree Planting Day’ and ‘Mosaic Bottle Workshop’.

Lo concluded with a forward-facing outlook: “In the future, we will look for more technological breakthroughs to align with our motto ‘Innovation Never Stops’.”

們鼓勵員工改變久坐不動的習慣，轉向積極的生活方式。『14天在 家活動挑戰』是一項跨地域的虛擬活動，邀請世界各地的員工組隊 參與，累積最多步數的隊伍為勝，以鼓勵他們積極互動及增加公司 的凝聚力。」

中信國際電訊CPC周詳考慮到其亞太、歐洲和俄羅斯等辦事 處的員工，規劃並實施為期14天的在家活動挑戰計劃，確保所有員 工均可參與，從而達至共融。活動增設「最佳照片獎」作為額外獎

HOW A CROSS-INDUSTRY INTERNSHIP IS HELPING UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

GAIN REAL-WORLD EXPERIENCE

In a unique initiative, Hyatt, Manulife, and Herbert Smith Freehills, came together to create more equitable career opportunities for minority communities. Aditi Sharma Kalra finds out about the programme’s impact in a chat with Hyatt’s Senior Vice President of Human Resources, Asia Pacific, Katie Carter.

Among several progressive industry initiatives which took place in Hong Kong this year was the Diversity Champion Internship Programme (DCIP), a cross-industry endeavour to help local university students from minority communities gain real-world experience. Leading the charge for the second annual edition were three employers – Hyatt, Manulife, and Herbert Smith Freehills – who covered three sectors between them.

This year’s project concluded successfully in August 2022, benefiting eight students from diverse backgrounds. Through extensive job rotations at each company, they gained exposure to the legal, hospitality, and financial services industries, as well as building relationships with business leaders who reflect their own identity.

The programme witnessed a 90% increase in applications over the inaugural edition. Because of its success, Hyatt is looking to replicate the programme in other Asia markets.

HRO ’s Aditi Sharma Kalra had the opportunity to catch up with Katie Carter, Senior Vice President of Human Resources, Asia Pacific, Hyatt, to learn about her experience and insights on the programme.

Congratulations on the success of the initiative. Could you share some highlights from the second annual DCIP?

We are very proud to have developed this exciting programme in partnership with Manulife and Herbert Smith Freehills, united by a shared belief that a new, more targeted approach to attracting diverse talent to our sector and to enhancing our culture of inclusion. This is particularly critical for the hospitality industry at a time when we continue to grow while facing a shortage of talent.

After the first year, we knew we had successfully established a unique initiative that resonated with diverse young talent. Last year’s participants had highlighted the lack of role models in their work lives, and there was a clear desire for opportunities to acquire hands-on experience and learn from business leaders. Therefore, this year we sought to deepen those opportunities through a combination of role shadowing, networking, interactive workshops, and a group project assignment.

We saw a 90% increase in applications this year, which really speaks to the appetite for such schemes. Because of this huge interest and the

feedback we have received, we are looking forward to expanding this even further, and offering the programme in other Asia markets.

How do you identify the potential internship candidates from the minority communities?

The programme is open to all university students, and really aims to harness talent from a range of diverse backgrounds, including those from minority ethnic and LGBTQ+ communities, as well as those with disabilities. A total of eight positions were available, so selecting the final participants from the significant number of applications was challenging!

The key criteria we focus on is a positive, enthusiastic, and motivated attitude, a sense of innovation, and a genuine passion for diversity and inclusion. Among these applicants, we have seen a generation that is passionate about causes and achieving real change, so it is clear companies need to demonstrate a tangible commitment to an inclusive approach to hiring diverse talent.

Did you face challenges in getting internal stakeholders to give up their time in working with these interns?

Hyatt’s purpose – to care for people so they can be their best — guides everything we do. It is rooted in empathy and allows us to see to our vision of a world of understanding and care.

We are deeply committed to creating a culture where every single colleague and guest feels welcome, cared for, and like they belong. This means creating a culture that embraces and values everyone for who they are. We believe the more globally inclusive we are in terms of culture, race, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability, perspectives, and styles of thinking, the stronger we are as a company and as a Hyatt family.

We’re proud to say that our senior management team has been supportive of the DCIP from the outset. For example, our president of Growth and Operations for Asia Pacific, Stephen Ho, hosted this year’s closing ceremony, and other members of our senior leadership team participated in workshops and fireside chats with programme participants.

We feel it’s important to integrate and show support throughout the organisation, and work with our teams to offer participants special opportunities to network as well as learn directly from industry leaders.

In the early stages of discussion, we recognised that each of our sectors is facing similar challenges when it comes to engaging and attracting diverse talent, and that there has been a significant gap in traditional internship programmes.

Students from minority backgrounds often lack opportunities or exposure in a range of areas, not only in gaining hands-on experience, but also to network, to learn from positive role models, and to collaborate with peers. Therefore, by reassessing our approach and broadening our thinking to find commonalities, we were able to unlock new opportunities that may otherwise have never surfaced.

Looking forward, why will diversity be important in the hospitality industry?

The last three years have presented significant challenges to the hospitality industry, with our sector being among the most heavily affected by the pandemic and associated travel restrictions. This has led to a visible shortage of talent and now, as the travel sector begins to show signs of recovery, demand is outstripping supply.

That is why we’re so passionate to ensure we’re opening new pathways to bring talent into the industry through initiatives like DCIP. Hyatt operates in many parts of the world, engaging with diverse customers, owners, and communities.

Being inclusive is therefore one of our core values and an expectation from our colleagues. We believe that seeking to understand different perspectives

and incorporating them into our business decisions makes us stronger.

That is why we have set a range of key goals to achieve by 2025 covering three areas: who we employ, who we support, and who we buy from and work with.

In each area we have set clear targets such as doubling our representation for women at the VP+ level in our Asia Pacific hubs as well as among our hotel general managers across the region. We also aim to achieve 10,000 hires across APAC for RiseHY, our programme targeting opportunity youth.

Personally, what led you to a career in hospitality?

It was the industry’s diverse experiences, global presence, and the passion of the people that drew me to hospitality. Being born and raised in West Africa to Dutch parents, I have always sought out environments where I can learn and understand various perspectives.

Hyatt was and is a place where I felt I belonged, and a company whose purpose and values aligned with my own. Plus, there is always the opportunity to see different places, try new cuisines, and take part in exciting events – it is really an industry where you can never be bored.

What challenges have you faced in the roll-out of this initiative, and how did you overcome them?

Priscilla

Chau Director – HR CLP Power Hong Kong

BY ADITI SHARMA KALRA

As the major power utility provider in Hong Kong, serving more than 80% of the population, CLP Power Hong Kong (CLP) is currently transforming to become the ‘Utility of the Future’ to stay ahead of the challenges brought by climate change, and rapidly evolving technologies.

The HR team, led by our interviewee Priscilla Chau, works on manpower planning to support this strategy.

The Hong Kong Power business is supported by over 50 colleagues in the HR function, covering more than 4,000 full-time and part-time employees. Overall, CLP Group had more than 8,000 full-time and part-time employees as of 30 June 2022, of which about 5,400 staff were engaged in CLP’s businesses in Hong Kong and Mainland China, and 2,700 in the businesses in Australia, India, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan.

The leadership at CLP aims to instil a workplace culture that encourages creativity, experimentation, and taking responsibility.

“With changing customer needs and business environment, we would like to cultivate a group of employees who are adaptive to the changes and challenges with a creative and flexible mindset,” Chau tells us.

To this mission, CLP has had its ‘Design Thinking Programme’ in place since 2019 to equip employees with the ability and tools to innovate better ways of working. More than 4,000 employees have been trained and over 100 projects have been initiated by employees.

“We are excited to see our employees being empowered to drive transformation that varies from small processes to big ideas, which all contribute to the success of CLP,” Chau shares.

CLP is also striving to increase the involvement of employees in shaping the company culture, as such ‘Cultural Jam’ has been organised, a three-day group-wide forum for all employees to express their opinions and ideas on what an ideal company should look like.

In this interview, Aditi Sharma Kalra speaks to Chau to find out about the plans for workforce transformation, challenges faced in this sector, milestones achieved in business partnering, and more.

VITAL STATS

Priscilla Chau is a senior HR leader with over 20 years of experience in a variety of Asia Pacific HR roles, including business partnering, talent development, and HR process improvement. Having taken on her current role in 2021, she leads the operations of people-related programmes to support the growth of CLP’s Hong Kong subsidiary, as well as playing a critical role in the continuous development of the HR function.

Before CLP, she most recently spent 15 years with multinational industrial leader BASF in a variety of regional roles based at its Asia Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong.

Q What are the talent challenges you face as part of this role and sector?

Firstly, the power industry is traditionally male dominated, and a major change in the female ratio is a long-term challenge given the relatively limited supply of women with technical and engineering skills. As such, CLP has set gender diversity as a group-wide priority to ensure a diverse workforce.

We have set up a dedicated task force for a holistic review of gender diversity, where one of its major tasks is to formulate strategies to attract, recruit, and retain female staff.

We believe that a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture is important to our sustainable growth and innovation capability. New ideas and perspectives are needed to transform our business into a ‘Utility of the Future’. Energy transition, digital evolution, and increasing social and political uncertainties, as well as expectations in CLP’s markets, are driving the need for greater organisational agility – the ability to adapt and succeed in a rapidly changing environment.

CLP continues to strengthen efforts to resource for energy transition and growth, and attracting and retaining talent to support our business needs, in addition to enhancing the technical and digital capabilities of the workforce, amid accelerating changes in the industry.

Upskilling and empowering employees to respond rapidly to changing customer needs and drive breakthrough improvements, providing physical and virtual work environments that facilitate collaboration, and equipping employees to leverage new technologies, remain as our priorities.

CLP is also striving to instil a workplace culture that encourages creativity, experimentation, and taking responsibility. As the energy transition unfolds, CLP is committed to supporting its people to thrive in change, and promoting wellbeing and resilience.

As a brand with over 120 years of history, CLP has maintained its reputation as a desirable employer in HK under an ever-changing employment environment, proving that we are heading in the right direction and should continue embracing a flexible mindset.

We believe that good employer branding comes from effective strategies such as our health and wellbeing programmes, work-life balance initiatives, and our enhanced family-friendly policies, with an emphasis on mental

health and our recent introduction of more flexible working modes.

CLP has positioned its employee health and wellbeing strategy as ‘Boost’. This strategy aims to help employees in four key areas: physical health, mental wellness, social health, and financial wellbeing.

Under the ‘Boost’ wellbeing programme, we have introduced Virgin Pulse, a health and wellbeing digital platform and app, that provides a personal wellbeing journey – for example, more exercise, less stress, better eating, and healthy competition among our employees via team and company-wide challenges that make wellbeing fun.

We have appointed ‘Boost Wellness Champions’, a group of colleagues who are passionate about supporting fellow CLP colleagues to develop healthy habits and thrive at work and in their personal lives. A recent example of their work includes healthy recipes via internal videos.

Beyond the work-life, we encourage employees to plan for a joyful retirement through pre-retirement workshops on mental and financial preparation, as well as our ‘CLP Retiree Recreation Club’ where retirees are welcome to continue to participate in CLP’s social, recreation, and sports activities, as well as volunteering services.

Under mental health support, our ‘Employee Assistance Programme’ has been made available since the early 1990s to assist individuals, and their immediate family members, who may encounter work or personal issues and need professional support. Services are provided by registered social workers and clinical psychologists and kept in strict confidence. Alongside, we provide access to mindfulness webinars, meditation workshops, and more.

In this space, we have further enhanced the people management capability of our people leaders, for which a series of mental health training courses were organised such as mental health first aid training. More than 250 midlevel managers in Hong Kong participated in the programme, equipping themselves with the knowledge to identify and address early signs of mental health issues.

Since then, a road map has been developed to embed psychological health in CLP’s policies and systems, and to plan for the objective of attaining the ISO 45003 certification for psychological health and safety at work from the International Organization for Standardization.

The mental health support ties into our work-life balance initiatives, wherein CLP’s social, recreation, and sports programme, offers activities, including Thai boxing, dance, yoga,

Q CLP has been consistently rated as among Hong Kong’s most coveted employers. Could you share the most impactful HR campaigns you and your team have implemented?

tai chi classes, ball games, and the opportunity to sign up for corporate sports teams.

During the pandemic, more virtual fitness programmes were organised by adopting different technology such as Teams, Facebook, MS Stream, etc., allowing staff members to stay engaged and maintain their physical wellness. To increase awareness about the importance of good health and a healthy work-life balance, CLP Power has made October its ‘Work-Life Balance Month’, with a calendar of events, activities, and workshops, on subjects such as vegetarianism and diabetes.

Talking about our familyfriendly policies, we have introduced flexible working hours; a work-from-home policy launched in 2022; an enhanced part-time working policy that provides more part-time pattern options; as well as an unpaid leave policy with a flexibility of up to three months.

All of the leave we provide is more than what the law requires – for example, five days of marriage leave, 16 weeks of maternity leave, 10 days of paternity leave as well as adoption leave, three days of compassionate leave, and one day of wellbeing leave (newly introduced in 2022).

Q Earlier this year, CLP Power was acknowledged as among the most inclusive employers in APAC. What affirmative action are you taking to ensure inclusion and diversity thrive to create an environment of belongingness?

At CLP, our ‘Value Framework’ has guiding principles to ensure we respect diversity, and we trust and treat our employees fairly, regardless of gender, race or other attributes. Moreover, we respect all internationally recognised human rights relevant to our operations, and require our business partners and suppliers to do the same.

CLP is also committed to providing safe, healthy, and secure work environments, free of discrimination or harassment on the basis of gender, physical or mental state, race, nationality, religion, age, family status or sexual orientation; or any other attribute recognised by the laws of the country in which we operate.

Among the affirmative action being taken at CLP, we started out with comprehensive and well-communicated policies and guidelines to foster a diverse and inclusive workplace. These cover equal opportunity policies on recruitment, promotion, etc.

We do have a multinational workforce made up of talent of different races and from different disciplines, age, race, academic backgrounds, and qualifications. We also enforce a harassment-free workplace policy.

In addition, we have well-established targets and initiatives to encourage more women to join the workforce through our ‘Women In Leadership’ and ‘Woman In Engineering’ initiatives, both of which have seen female percentages on an upward trend.

To not only attract, but also retain women talent, we provide a working environment and HR policies to take care of their needs, such as the aforementioned family-friendly policies, as well as networking support for female engineers.

Earlier in the pipeline, we have initiatives to inspire the younger generation’s interest in engineering, especially young female students so that they will consider engineering as a future career option.

CLP has launched various public education programmes from kindergarten to secondary schools to nurture and attract female students. In the ‘POWER YOU Kindergarten Visitation Programme’, our female graduate trainees and young female engineers visit kindergartens to introduce the power generation journey, safe use of electricity, and EE&C tips. They also introduce engineering as a profession to the students.

‘Engineer in School’ is a programme where we send young engineers to secondary schools to host seminars on interesting topics such as climate change and energy efficiency. The goal is to arouse students’ interest in science so that more of them will develop a strong foundation in STEM subjects and will be prepared for advanced studies at universities.

At the higher education level, CLP has partnered with the Hong Kong Association of Careers Masters and Guidance Masters to facilitate career teachers’ knowledge about power engineering as a career of choice.

To further demonstrate CLP’s commitment to DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and to foster the culture of having these values in mind in every employees’ daily work, we conducted a ‘Business Practice Review’. This is a mandatory training programme for all staff through live discussion in the training workshops, not only to refresh their understanding of the key principles in our ‘Code of Conduct’, but also to facilitate a better application of these principles in their daily work.

Q Let’s talk about some challenges you’ve faced now – how easy or how difficult has it been to pivot and change for all these new programmes?

CLP is a great company. Our more than 120 years of success is built on our commitment to society, our solid technical foundation, as well as the way we work as a team in CLP.

With the rapid changes in the environment, it calls for us to be transformed ourselves into the ‘Utility of the Future’ with our decarbonisation, digitalisation, and customer-centricity programmes. Some of these areas are not only new to us, but also to the industry. It thus requires our colleagues to learn and adapt very quickly.

As part of the transformation, we also need to adopt a new way of doing things by rebuilding our culture. Therefore, what is important is preserving our strengths and bringing in new elements to prepare ourselves for the future.

In this journey of change, it is important to bring our colleagues along. We make use of town hall communications, workshops, and internal

social media, to explain to our colleagues our vision and approach to drive changes. We also organise learning sessions on key change topics, for example, how to use Power BI or design thinking to facilitate changes.

So far, we have received very positive feedback from colleagues via our pulse check tools. We are looking at enriching our learning curriculum to equip the organisation with future skills as our next milestone in the journey.

Q It is time to shift the focus to the future – which lies in cleaner fuels and greater energy efficiency. What impact do these game-changing developments have on your workforce – in terms of introducing automation, upskilling the workers, and ensuring harmony between the old and the new way of doing things?

CLP is building a workforce for a future shaped by structural shifts, including energy transition, demographic changes, and evolving regional market priorities. This drives the need for greater organisational agility – the ability to adapt and succeed in a rapidly changing environment.

One of the examples is that more than 4,000 Hong Kong employees have participated in our design thinking training. This programme is intended to nurture a people-centric innovation culture in the company, providing practical problem-solving frameworks for product and service development with users’ needs in mind.

Also, over the last few years, several of our employees have gained professional accreditation in data analytics skills, building their capability to leverage technology and data in new and insightful ways to enhance the customer experience and operation excellence.

CLP’s ‘Executive Development Programme’ for senior managers was held during the year, focusing on developing skills required to lead transformation. The programme combined leadership, energy transition, and business simulation elements, and was conducted virtually in partnership with various international institutes.

We also have a range of staff development programmes for colleagues at different career stages, mentioned previously, to meet future managerial engineering needs.

CLP puts particular emphasis on people development and skills transfer from one generation to the next, thus our CLP Power Learning Institute provides systematic and practical training to uplift the standard of customer services, and capabilities of our staff in the energy retail industry.

Q CLP has come a long way since it was founded in 1901. How does the leadership team ensure that legacy does not get in the way of adapting to new trends and innovations? Personally, how do you convince stakeholders of being open to change?

CLP has a deep-rooted ‘Value Framework’, first introduced in 2003, which reflects the time-honoured principles and commitments that have been integral to CLP’s success for 120 years.

This framework includes our long-standing ‘Code of Conduct’ which provides the guiding principles for all company employees to do what is right, behave with integrity and honesty, treat people fairly, respect diversity, obey all laws, accept accountability, communicate openly, and always behave in a way that is beyond reproach.

The company expects all employees to observe and apply these principles in the conduct of the company’s business. We care how results are obtained, not just that they are obtained.

Besides our ‘Value Framework’ and ‘Code of Conduct’, we also have a set of competencies for CLP leaders as a compass to guide our leadership behaviours to reinforce our values while keeping ourselves up to date with the changes in the business and operation environment. As much as we value

the wellbeing of our employees, we also look at creating an inclusive environment for everyone to thrive and openly share their ideas. This is our idea of making CLP a safe environment to cradle innovative ideas.

Q Looking to a post-pandemic road map, what’s on your HR checklist to ensure that CLP’s employee experience remains personalised, purposeful, and timely?

On top of the list is taking care of our colleagues’ individual needs. Besides their wellbeing, we aim to provide a space for them to learn and develop a career with CLP. In CLP’s transformation, there are a lot of opportunities for colleagues to take part in projects that are meaningful for the future and everyone is welcome to be part of it.

Another important vision that we have is to make HR services accessible to our colleagues. We are in the midst of driving digitalisation in HR so that colleagues can access various online platforms. The first area we started is in e-learning – from micro-learning to online learning platform, colleagues can enrich their own knowledge and skills at their own pace anywhere.

Q What are your personal start/stop/continue goals as you set your resolutions for the year ahead?

I enjoy every moment working in CLP and have learned enormously from the great team around me. One thing I have benefited a lot from personally in my career so far is creating an environment whereby all are encouraged to give open feedback in a non-hierarchical way. To me, this is essential for being innovative.

We have different transformational initiatives and there are two things I remind myself from time to time. First thing is to never stop improving, and always be bold enough to challenge assumptions. What got us here might not be able to get us there; therefore, be open to change.

Another thing I personally see as very important is that we should have fun at work. I wish for both myself and the team in CLP that we work together not because we have to, but because we love to. That’s my motto of life.

CITIC Pacific is a diversified business platform with operations in special steel, property, energy, health, consumer products distribution and other industries. As the largest non-financial platform of CITIC Group, one of China’s largest conglomerates, CITIC Pacific has over 30 years of history with operations in 13 markets and over 40,000 employees. Distinguished by its foundation in Mainland China and headquarters in the international business hub of Hong Kong, the company invests in and operates a unique portfolio of businesses with global perspective and a pioneering spirit.

Launched in 2020, the Future Business Leader Trainee (FBLT) Programme is an extensive five-year initiative that includes three concentrated phases of development: competency and business training, head office (HO) function attachment, and business unit (BU) visits (12 months); middle-management training along with specialised business expertise (30 -36 months); and business leadership across industries (12 months). It begins with a campus marketing campaign across over 120 universities. After a rigorous selection process, the trainees are supported by a range of in-house and external resources during the familiarisation stage, such as a branding platform that serves as a gamified onboarding website, a psychometric-based competency gap analysis to identify future development needs, and an intensive engagement plan that includes meetings and discussions with the Chairman and the senior leadership team.

This holistic programme is one of the few in the industry that is truly expansive, offering trainees exposure across a wide range of businesses. The five-year horizon requires commitment on behalf of both the company and the trainees, and is designed to be especially rewarding for high-potential talents who can accelerate their careers into a management role by the fourth year, and into a business consultancy role by the fifth year.

The results to date have been promising and demonstrate the value of the time and resources invested. In addition to the 100% offer acceptance rate from candidates, the FBLT programme pipeline has helped to address workforce planning needs, which is especially critical in today’s competitive talent market.

Following the success of the FBLT programme, CITIC Pacific also launched the ‘Enterprise Talent Programme’, which targets promising internal staff at the beginning of their careers, and serves to balance the external and internal pipeline of young talents.

Two years after inception, these programmes have already positively impacted the organisation, developing new competencies and preparing future leaders – a message reinforced by Zeng Chen, Chairman and President of CITIC Pacific. “The programmes we crafted not only offer mentorship and direct exposure to our many industries, but more importantly cultivate cultural dexterity and effective communication. Our future leaders will have strategic acumen and executive adaptability, ensuring they are well equipped to steer the company forward in an increasingly complex world.”

中信集團旗下最大的非金融子公司，中信泰富擁有30多年的豐富 經驗，業務遍佈13個市場，員工超過40,000人。憑藉在內地的厚實 基礎，並以國際商業中心香港為總部，中信泰富以全球視野和開拓 精神投資和經營多元獨特的業務。 未來商業領導培訓生計劃於2020年推出，為期五年，分為三個 階段進行：勝任力培訓、業務培訓、總部部門跟崗和業務板塊實地 培訓（12個月）；關鍵中層管理崗位的勝任力與專業知識培訓（30 至36個月）；以及跨行業商業領導力培訓（12個月）。中信泰富透 過全球招聘，積極聯繫超過 120間大學，宣傳及挖掘目 標學生，經嚴格甄選後，最 後選拔出涵蓋不同學習背 景的培訓生，以內部及外部 資源支持培訓生融入中信泰 富的企業文化，如透過遊戲化電子平台學習體驗入職導向以加強

ON THE ROAD TO 2023

Hello, crystal ball, what will the world look like in the future? Rather than taking an illusionary perspective, seven senior HR leaders, across industries and regions, based on their solid experience and industry acumen, share with Tracy Chan their thoughts on the future of HR in the coming year.

It’s been a roller-coaster year – the flip-flop epidemic situation, the reopening of borders, the revival of international travel, and the uncertain macroeconomic outlook – all prompting HR professionals to be more forward-thinking, agile, and adaptable to navigate the fast-evolving world of work.

As we enter 2023, what should HR professionals expect and prepare for moving forward? We reached out to seven senior HR leaders representing Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), Reckitt, MasterCard, SevenRooms, Bloom & Grow, ACAMS and DNEG, to hear their views about the HR trends and challenges in the year to come.

Peter Hatt, Head, HR, Asia, Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited

Developing people capabilities It’s definitely all about skills and how employment is likely to change in the future.

There is much debate around the future of jobs and clearly, we are facing a competition for skills globally and as the local talent pool shrinks from factors such as emigration and an aging population, reskilling and upskilling to enable talent retention and succession planning are at the forefront of employers’ minds.

As a result, HR has a critical role to play over the next 12 to 18 months and HR leaders need to arrive at new, innovative ways to address this challenge. Organisations are starting to determine what skills are in demand for the future, understand key skills required for what roles, and identify skills that are transferable.

We’re seeing more opportunities to upskill (employees are taught additional skills or their existing skills are improved to help them bring more value and expertise to their position), reskill (learning new skills to transition into a completely new role), and even cross-skilling (learning of new skills that can be lent to different areas to improve collaboration and support). This massively helps to retain our talented employees, prepare for organisation’s growth, and also results in positive outcomes for the company.

We need to create an environment in which people can do their best work. That’s why many organisations are seeking to create a frictionless learning experience for them.

However, therein lies our challenge. Organisations need to continue to strive towards the adoption of innovative and employee-centred solutions, so that training is focused on the individual needs of each employee, and that it fits seamlessly with their work schedules. We also need to transform the learning experience from traditional classroom settings to a digital experience with a human touch. We need to continue to engage learners through immersive experiences in this hybrid working environment.

And this is far from simple. A key question that organisations will continue to ask - How can learning programmes be developed to hold the learner’s attention?

Accessing training remotely may be convenient, however these experiences are in direct competition for the learner’s attention from constant distractions. We need to continue to spark curiosity and play to a learner’s motivation for learning.

This can be driven in several ways. Short, bite-sized modules, interactivity, and the gamification of learning can all contribute to successful learning

outcomes. We will see a lot more focus on offering brief, focused lessons that center on one learning outcome that can prove to be beneficial to a learner, eliminating wandering attention and irrelevant material. Minimising the length and complexity of individual training sessions can also help learners retain information more effectively.

Wellbeing

A key trend that we will continue to see flourish and evolve is the investment towards mental health.

Mindfulness, a meditative practice, is gaining immense momentum as a key trend that will evolve next year, and personally one I’m very excited about. In a nutshell, mindfulness is about being mindful about our decisions for our wellness and every living moment, such as the choice of diet and its effect on our planet. Employees are reinterpreting all their decisions and behaviours based on mindful awareness.

Mindfulness can help individuals develop greater awareness of organisational needs and challenges. It can also help people to develop leadership skills and feel less reactive in the face of change. I truly believe that it will foster workplace wellness by helping increase flexibility, improving empathy, and improving resilience in the longer term.

Workplace stress has exacerbated over the years during the pandemic and now with new hybrid working environments, we’re witnessing

employees unable to draw clear boundaries between their work and personal lives. Many employees are unable to dedicate time to their mental and overall wellbeing due to inflexible work hours, high workload, job insecurity and inability to share concerns openly.

It has become extremely critical for leaders to spot the signs of stressedout employees such as incomplete work, decreased productivity, lower quality of work, and mistakes. We also need to individually as leaders and collectively as an organisation, identify potential stressors in the workplace and take active steps in reducing them.

I personally try to role model behaviours that I would want to see in my team as it’s important that I can demonstrate and provide a stress-free environment for my colleagues to work in, and still be productive.

Tras Wong, Head of HR, Hong Kong & Taiwan, Reckitt

Compensation and benefits (C&B)

When it comes to people’s ideal working approach, there are individual differences, as well as varying trends, but the desire for flexibility is consistent. At Reckitt, we launched different initiatives to put employee wellbeing the top priority.

People are more aware of personal wellbeing nowadays—they are looking for compensation and benefits that are flexible and personalised. However, this demands a higher people cost for the customisation, wherein companies should strive for good balance.

Recruitment and staffing

With the local workforce shrinking by 140,000 over the past two years, talent acquisition has become more challenging. Moreover, young talents are more interested in being slashers than sticking to one permanent position. Thus, companies need to respond quickly with agile workforce planning.

Since the pandemic hit, we have been putting the safety of our people first by adapting flexible approaches to our working model to empower work-life integration. We recognise the importance of people also being able to reconnect with family and friends or recharging their batteries, while maximising the benefit from travel time.

Reckitt enhanced the hybrid working arrangement to allow more flexibility at work through the working-from-anywhere policy which enables colleagues to work from different locations globally, wherever it is legally permitted and adhering to the company’s guidelines.

Learning and development (L&D)

We implement the 50:40:10 model for learning and development globally to enhance employees’ competency. The comprehensive training programme allows colleagues to broaden their exposure and improve their learning curve through job rotations and coaching.

A global e-learning portal, including learning hubs for personal, leadership and functional development, is also available for colleagues to sharpen their skill set and develop a competitive edge.

Mobility

Hong Kong talents are looking for more international mobility. At the same time, Hong Kong has become less favourable for expatriates by remaining the world’s most expensive city for expatriates to live in for three consecutive years.

Tras Wong Head of HR, Hong Kong & Taiwan

Reckitt

Ruth King Group Head of Human Resources Bloom & Grow

Our employees have the freedom to succeed in owning the career development conversation. Working in a multinational company provides the opportunity to work with colleagues from other markets and gain exposure at the global level. We also have an internal job board where employees can easily assess overseas opportunities.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I)

DE&I conversations in Hong Kong are employer-driven and education-based. In line with our ‘Compass’ approach of putting people first, we are looking to adopt a more employee-driven approach at Reckitt.

Recently, we launched the ‘Greater China Inclusion Board’ to start an inclusive platform where everyone can participate and realise their full potential. The board promotes diversity and inclusion through various activities based on the uniqueness of the local market, giving colleagues a sense of belonging. With this, we hope each person can truly become themselves, realise their value, and bring more innovation and vitality to Reckitt.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG), corporate social responsibility (CSR), and sustainability

Sustainability is central to Reckitt’s purpose and runs through everything we do in pursuit of a cleaner and healthier world. We have a global employee-driven initiative, ‘Give Time’ programme, allowing employees to volunteer two days a year.

On a local level, we continue to work closely with our NGO partners to support the community through Dettol product donations, hygiene education, and volunteering throughout the year. Hygiene is the foundation of public health, and access to the highest quality hygiene, wellness and nourishment is a right, not a privilege.

Employee wellbeing

It is essential to prioritise the wellbeing of our colleagues as they are an invaluable asset to the company. Employee wellbeing should be dynamic and all-rounded. It is not just about better work-life balance but better life across different components—physical, mental, financial, nutrition, etc.

Wellbeing is at the core of Reckitt. Our approach is centred in a model where all content, tools and resources are aligned within seven components that cover both physical and mental health. We have launched a six-month ‘WellBeingWell’ programme for Hong Kong and Taiwan markets to enable healthier, happier people and places across the company. It is not just about a better work-life balance, but a better life.

Ruth King, Group Head of Human Resources, Bloom & Grow

Compensation and benefits (C&B)

Under the COVID-19 era, employees still want a higher salary and seem to have lost loyalty to their employers. We will see flexible staff benefits become the biggest trend, and candidates demand higher pay, more leave, etc.

Traditional HR professionals need to open their minds to understand individual staff/candidates’ needs on different benefits rather than providing one-sizefits-all solutions.

Recruitment and staffing

Online interviews will be the biggest trend.

Meanwhile, it will be hard for recruiters as candidates have high salary expectations. Many job seekers will choose a larger company, because they are worried that a small company will easily go bankrupt under COVID-19. This also makes it difficult for small companies to recruit people.

On the other hand, many candidates who have signed a new employment contract may decide not to join the new employer a few days before they are due to be on board. This will cause a waste of time in preparing all for new staff and losing a month of recruiting time!

Learning & development (L&D) and mobility

We will see more virtual distance interventions and more work-from-home requests.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I)

HR professionals need to open hearts and minds in a traditional-thinking workforce across Asia.

ESG, CSR, sustainability and employee wellbeing

The biggest challenge is to find time to introduce, promote, and arrange such interventions. And HR needs to deal with the increased costs.

Gervay Senior Vice President, Human Resources AsiaPacific Mastercard

Amanda Gervay, Senior Vice President, Human Resources Asia-Pacific, Mastercard

Compensation and benefits (C&B)

It is widely acknowledged that the employer-employee relationship has evolved during the pandemic. As such, supporting employees’ physical, emotional, financial, and social wellbeing, especially in times of crisis, is today recognised as an integral element of an organisation’s offering.

As the corporate emphasis on supporting employee needs increases, leaders will have to address the widening scope of expectations. To that end, flexible and customised rewards will likely become mainstream in future.

Organisations should aim to offer a wider array of benefits and allow employees to choose the benefits that are most relevant to them.

Recruitment and staffing

The war on talent is fiercer than ever. Organisations have to consistently review and re-define their approach to onboarding new employees to ensure that the journey from interview to day one and beyond is firmly aligned with the company’s brand and culture.

As competition for talent increases, it is essential to firmly engage the attention of the new joiner even before the job officially begins. This is where robust pre-onboarding and on-boarding execution matters. We have a dedicated shared services team that keeps in regular touch with pre-joiners to assist them with completing various activities, along with personalised touch points to keep potential new hires engaged.

Learning and development (L&D)

Our global return-to-work programme has been designed to enable experienced mid-career professionals to return after a career break of two or more years. It provides returners with a range of resources to support them every step of the way and help them integrate into the organisation.

From the start, they are given opportunities to work on key projects and initiatives, enabling them to expand on their skills and prior experience. They receive on-the-job training, coaching, and opportunities to learn about our business, while developing new and existing skills. Upon completion of the programme, based on their performance, participants may be considered for full-time employment.

Employee wellbeing

Moving to work-life harmonisation rather than focusing on work-life balance is one of the biggest employee wellbeing challenges. Even though benefits that promote wellbeing, including the flexibility to determine when and where an individual works, have significantly increased in the past two years, employees report experiencing higher levels of burnout and deteriorating work-life balance.

Managers need to be the stewards of this cultural shift and work with employees to understand their individual expectations and needs, as well as identify potential areas of burnout or disengagement. This will empower employees to design a work mode that is best suited to their unique circumstances and schedule.

Organisations, on the other hand, have a unique opportunity to focus on wellbeing metrics as a leading indicator of their employees’ engagement and productivity. They should start tracking these metrics using engagement scores, wellbeing surveys, utilisation reports, absenteeism, and more, to understand if the working environment allows talent to perform at its best. Tracking these metrics will also create more direct organisational accountability for employee wellbeing, reinforcing the idea that wellbeing is valued throughout the organisation.

Paul McCarthy, Chief People Officer, SevenRooms

Compensation & benefits / employee wellbeing

Living and working through a global pandemic created challenges for every person on our planet. While it’s unlikely that 2023 will pose greater

Amanda

Chief People Officer SevenRooms

challenges than those we’ve experienced over the last few years, it does offer the promise of more certainty and stability since the pandemic began. There is a real opportunity for HR and People teams to think more holistically and longterm about employee wellness going forward.

The last two years brought more open conversations around mental health and social wellbeing at work than ever before. I foresee a continued emphasis on ensuring that both businesses and their wellbeing policies, in addition to compensation and benefits, will be personalised and provide genuine value for employees. Specifically, how can businesses move away from one-size-fits-all compensation, benefits and employee wellbeing programmes, and tailor their offerings to the needs of each and every individual team member?

In 2023, to have maximum impact, companies must further their personalisation of benefits for employees to provide something genuinely relevant and useful for everyone. For example, you might provide fantastic fertility or parental leave benefits, but they’re only going to be beneficial to the handful of people who are having a baby.

So how can you provide something of equivalent value to the remainder of the company? One way to circumnavigate that, and ensure that every benefit is tailored to the needs and desires of an individual employee, is through stipends. We offer our employees a monthly stipend that can be used for anything from student loans to travel to fitness. If you can give people optionality and allow them to make those choices themselves, you’re ensuring your business works for them, not vice versa.

The pandemic has been a period of immense reflection for employers and employees alike, and one of the biggest takeaways for us has been the importance of time. Time is our most precious resource as humans, whether you earn it or give it away. And how we spend our time is perhaps the single most important decision leaders and employees can be making right now.

Our jobs are an important part of our lives, but they don’t define us. Every member of our team has a life outside of work - whether that’s children, caring for a relative or just personal passions - and no job should diminish their commitment to their families or the pursuit of their passions.

So whether that’s flexible remote work policies, or something else entirely, employees want freedom first and foremost, and their employers should be the ones championing that decision and providing support to make that a consistent reality.

At SevenRooms, for example, we have introduced a policy in which every single new hire spends their first two weeks of employment on paid leave. All employees are also required to schedule a minimum of five consecutive days of paid leave during the first half and second half of the year, with a minimum of 10 days required for those with five or more years of tenure.

This is in addition to our monthly recharge days, which enable our employees to take one day a month to refresh and recharge away from their computers, outside of their regular PTO. We want people to be able to take the time they need to rest and recharge before embarking on a new journey with us and continue to find time to step away and reset once onboard. It’s about more than all the additional leave, it’s about continuously proving that our employees’ time is meaningful to us.

Delna Dhamodiwala, Global Head of HR, DNEG

In 2020, the world was hit by the global pandemic. Since then, the dynamics of work and the employee ecosystem have changed drastically.

Before the pandemic, the concept of working from home was preposterous. It was even more so unimaginable for companies dealing with confidential data and projects. However, the pandemic challenged the idea of what working looks like and turned work-from-home and hybridworking culture into the new normal.

Post the pandemic, employees want to continue having flexibility and want to maintain a work-life balance. While the concept itself has a lot of pros, there are also areas where we are missing important aspects of our working lives: employee connection, camaraderie, visibility, collaboration, and building trust all require employees to meet and mix at regular intervals, but the concepts of work from home and hybrid culture pose some challenges in achieving this.

Therefore, one of the most important focus areas for companies in 2023 is to strategise and implement policies and practices to find the right working balance for both employers and employees.

Paul McCarthy

Delna Dhamodiwala Global Head of HR DNEG

Kucza Human Resources DirectorEurope, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) & Global Head of Talent Development ACAMS

Employee engagement / centricity

We believe that 2023 will witness renewed focus on engagement and employee retention. Listening to employees and addressing their concerns is critical for designing a relevant and meaningful retention strategy.

Providing meaningful work; competitive remuneration; improved and customised benefits and perks; increased recognition; more connection and collaboration; and creating a healthy and fun work environment, will be a few key engagement themes that will be adopted across various sectors in the next year.

Employee mental health and holistic wellbeing

One of the biggest factors affecting the employee ecosystem is the need to maintain good mental health.

Holistic wellbeing involves focusing on mental, physical, and financial wellbeing. When an employee can take care of themselves on these levels, they are more productive and happier at work.

Within this year, many companies across all sectors have been conducting various events and seminars to help promote holistic health. We too have taken significant steps and tied up with various experts who help with generating awareness, educating employees on physical and mental health, and providing support with one-on-one counselling. We believe there is still work to be done within this area and it will remain a major focus in 2023.

Winning the war for talent

The VFX and film industry is dependent on excellent talent, and the talent pool is rather limited compared to the demand for content post-pandemic, which has been on an all-time high.

As companies have expanded globally to cater to this increase in demand, the war for talent acquisition has become more intense. Owing to this, rethinking the hiring process, and prioritising recruitment strategies will have to be one of the key focus areas for 2023.

Learning and development (L&D)

While talent acquisition and employee retention will be in focus, upskilling employees will help tackle the issue of limited talent pool. Training the leadership & managerial teams will help companies thrive in the post-pandemic changing work dynamics. Identifying, developing and equipping the future leaders while investment in upskilling employees, managers and leaders shall be a key focus area in 2023.

However, unlike previous years, L&D will have a different approach and direction in the coming years. There will be a balanced mix of technical, functional, and behavioural skills as well as a focus on analytical and critical thinking. L&D will be more strategic with a strong focus on training employees on acquiring and honing skills that are aligned with organisational requirements.

Along with this there will be a focus on coaching, mentoring, talent rotation, and onthe-job immersive experiences to strengthen the capabilities of employees and sustain competitiveness. The focus in 2023 will be to leverage technology so as to make learning ondemand, self-paced, accessible, and futuristic.

DE&I

The focus of DEI ecosystem has shifted to looking at the entire employee lifecycle through the DEI lens and including every aspect of the employee experience.

Measures like setting up a DEI steering group, diversity audit, awareness sessions, workshops, expert talks, DEI training, mentorship for underrepresented groups, more engagement and involvement, creating opportunities for growth and inclusion, employee networks, strengthening DEI policies, and partnering with organisations who help further the DEI cause are amongst some of the initiatives that organisations shall be focusing on in 2023 and beyond.

For DNEG, in 2023, DEI will continue to be a key focus area in our talent strategy, with the goal to create a safe and inclusive workplace culture that helps to differentiate us from our competitors.

Aleksandra Kucza, Human Resources Director - Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) & Global Head of Talent Development, ACAMS

From my perspective the biggest challenges and trends in HR in 2023 will be the result of a combination of few events: the new way of working for office employees (remote or hybrid rather than physically in an office), the ongoing competition for talent, and the rising cost of living.

Work effectiveness and engagement

How to make sure that employees, individually and as teams, are effective in a remote/hybrid environment, and focused on the real goal of their role/team? Do we need to organise work differently? How do culture and purpose happen remotely? How do we ensure equality in the remote world?

Compensation & benefits

How to find the balance between meeting company’s financial goals and competing for talent (external and internal) with the current rise in cost of living? Are there creative ways of approaching benefits? How far should company’s care for employees go: is financial education, childcare support, or energy bills covered?

Aleksandra

HOW SMCP ASIA ACHIEVED 20% RATE OF INTERNAL MOBILITY OR PROMOTION IN ASIA MARKETS

It was the union of four Parisian ateliers that led to the birth of SMCP, which comprises ready-to-wear brands, Sandro, Maje, Claudie Pierlot, and Fursac. With a global presence in 43 countries, more than 1,684 points of sales, and more than 6,000 employees, SMCP Group has the ambition to be the global leader in accessible luxury, with the mission to inspire Parisian elegance around the world.

Accessibility isn’t, however, only restricted to its business model – it is the essence of the company’s philosophy around managing talent and enabling learning for its teams across Hong Kong, Shanghai, New York, and Paris. Led by its CEO Stephane Ledru, SMCP Asia believes in blending an organisational approach (of identifying risk vs ambition) with an individual approach (of identifying talents who most nourish the company, i.e., ‘key people’). This has not only allowed the company to take better decisions at a BU-level, but also roll out a united SMCP talent culture which shares the same language, identifies the key people, and makes them stand out in front of the management.

A ‘9-Box People Talent Review’ awaits those individuals identified as the company’s key talent. This entails using a strategic platform to distinguish them based on their potential (motivation, capabilities, learning agility), and performance. Based on where they stand, they could be classified as rising stars, solid contributors, trusted specialists, and more. This classification guides their training into management leaders, as well as feeds into a cross-functional talent review.

As a result of this approach, SMCP achieved better company connection across all departments and regions, as well as saw reduced employee turnover. Not only did the programme foster healthy competition and support inclusion, but stakeholders said it also helped to build strategic thinking in the organisation. In fact, in 2022, SMCP Asia achieved 20% of internal mobility or promotion in Asia markets, with seven nationalities and 87% percent of women within the group.

While this programme focuses on key people, the rest of the organisation is equally cared for – and this is through ‘My Learning’, a new digital learning platform specifically designed to make staff onboarding a success and enrich the employee experience. This easily accessible, self-

service portal focuses on both product training and personal development, and is supported by the leadership team who leads by example in launching the portal in Asia and engaging in activities such as ‘Digital Conference’.

Evidently, SMCP has been investing significantly in MyLearning, where training is aimed to be 100% accessible to its employees worldwide, anytime, anywhere. This was a key success factor especially during the pandemic lockdown, where the team had the flexibility to control individual learning pace, resulting in higher learning efficiency and positive employee feedback.

Indeed, with 24/7 online coaching at their beck and call, employees have become the owners of their career journey at SMCP, learning through videos, interactive resources, quizzes, idea boxes, and more.

As a result, the portal has been positively received by all stakeholders. It is being credited as not only spurring administrative efficiency, but also overcoming space-time constraints, and achieving its goal of making people grow, with them having spent an average three hours of learning.

As the SMCP HR team prepares its people innovation strategy for the year to come, SMCP’s CEO Asia, Stephane Ledru has a special message: “Hiring the right talents in an ever-changing environment and company is a real challenge (and a real talent also). This is why our HR team needs to be entrepreneurial and understand perfectly the difficulties that operational teams are facing.

“They need to dare, take risk, fight for their conviction, and give all the support that individuals but also business partners need in their daily life to achieve our ambitious goals.”

This is thanks to blending an organisational approach (of identifying risk vs ambition) with an individual approach (of identifying talents who most nourish the company, i.e., ‘key people’).

NAVIGATING THE NEW WORLD OF WORK: HIGHLIGHTS FROM INSPIREHR 2022

In the face of disruption, how to keep up with the changes, and make strategic business decisions, have become the keys to success in this new world of work.

Human Resources Online had the pleasure of hosting our one-day flagship conference InspireHR in Hong Kong on 12 October 2022 at Hotel ICON. It offered a unique opportunity for business and HR leaders to share and exchange the industry’s best practices.

During this one-day conference, an experienced line-up of HR experts shared their insights on some of the most critical issues facing the industry, from talent acquisition and retention, to employee wellbeing. More than 100 delegates also engaged in long-anticipated in-person networking with their HR peers during the roundtable sessions.

The pandemic has changed the way we live and work forever. As an HR professional, having a human touch, with the support of facts and data, is always at the heart of every HR work, stressed Mukta Arya, Managing Director, Chief Human Resources Officer, APAC, Société Générale, at the opening keynote presentation of the day.

“For me, human resources going forward is definitely a combination of both an art and a science,” she said.

“It is very important that when we are grooming people in our team, or when we are grooming ourselves, you need to keep in mind that it is a holistic approach. We can’t be just one or the other.”

When it comes to HR priorities, Arya said HR professionals are now not only doing things as human resources professionals, but also as psychiatrists, counsellors, and even data analysts.

“You have to choose your battles in an organisation. We cannot be everything to everyone at every time. We also need to prioritise with the support of our business managers,” she added.

“What is important is to have a consensus-based approach on the priorities for the business, and that we are clear that these are the main priorities. Otherwise, we will be spreading ourselves thin and becoming a jack of all trades and a master of none.”

The changing world has brought a worldwide phenomenon – the Great Resignation. So the next keynote speaker, Wicky Cheng, Human Resources Director, Talent Management & Organisation Development Asia Pacific, Fresenius Medical Care, shared his insights on acquiring and retaining talent in this lens.

Cheng said people nowadays, especially the younger generations, have different priorities and expectations towards their work and life, and some of them even prefer to be a “slasher” or build their own careers rather than having a full-time permanent job at one company, which makes attracting and retaining talent more challenging.

He said what they also care about is what the company stands for, and how it contributes to society. “They don’t just work for themselves or for a package, they also look at a company’s standpoint.”

Cheng stressed that on top of listening, it is also about partnerships; allowing employees to join the discussions in building the company together to show their values.

“Their values are key for them when you are trying to attract them to join and to retain them. They want to show their values before they join a company.”

In the first panel discussion of the day, moderated by Human Resources Online, we heard from Kim Leung, Head of Talent & Culture, Classified Group; Steven Filby, Head of Talent & Learning, The Hong Kong Jockey Club; and Sadia Liu, Head of Human Resources – HK/TW/SEA/South Korea, Organisation Development Lead for AP, Knorr-Bremse; on the efficient workforce strategies to mitigate talent disruptions.

All the panellists agreed that amid the emigration wave, and shrinking talent pool, talent acquisition and retention are two key challenges facing all industries.

“For taking in people, I communicate and share with all the hiring managers that we should revise our expectations,” Liu said. “To focus more on potential and motivation rather than, in the past, we just focused a lot on industry knowledge and years of experience.”

Filby also mentioned the importance of wellness and listening.

“I think that is really important. Many organisations and divisions are shortstaffed at the moment, which means people there are under a lot of pressure,” he said. “So we need to equip them with tools for wellness because you want people to be performing at their best.”

Added Leung: “So I guess one of the things that we can do is to set up a flexible system that can cater to the unique needs of different generations and people with a more diverse background.

“There are a lot of things that work and don’t work. But I think for HR practitioners like us, be creative, be bold and be disruptive, and try different things, and we will learn from it.”

After the morning networking break, Andrew Yung, Team Lead, Digital Transformation Services, BDO HK; Ronald Poon, IT Talent Development Manager, Cathay Pacific; and Wesley Ling, Human Resources Director, FundPark; delved into the hot topic – HR technology – during another panel discussion, moderated by Zoé Auclair-Boissonnat, Head of Conferences, Human Resources Online.

With so many tools available nowadays – artificial intelligence, cloud, and people analytics – how should HR leverage them to make better business decisions?

“From an IT perspective, we always ask our business units, what is the problem statement?” Poon shared.

“Where there is a problem, then we will be able to sit down and talk about whether it can be solved by a system, application, IT, or some other way. If we cannot clearly identify the problems or the challenges, there is no way to go further.”

An increase in efficiency is one advantage that technology can bring to HR professionals, said the panellists.

“I know that HR professionals are extremely busy every day,” Ling said. “So when it comes to investing in or implementing HR tech, the primary question I ask myself and the team is whether it can help us get a little bit lazier,” he quipped.

“So get a little bit lazy, get a little bit more efficient, then we can focus our energy and time on some more important stuff.”

Yung also shared some examples of how digitalisation can help companies stay in compliance, create a fair working environment, eliminate bureaucracy, and contribute to a better company culture.

“To automate things that can be automated so that we as an HR professional can do something more value-added,” he said. “Therefore, I think HR tech is not only about efficiency, but also retention and compliance, I think those could be important ROI generators.”

Amid all these changes, how to do something to cause disruption rather than reacting to things happening was the focus of the next keynote speaker CY Chan, Chief Talent Officer, EC Healthcare.

“We as an HR or talent and culture team, all we need to do is to understand the situation of the company and then react,” Chan said. “And react, I mean not according to the instruction of the team, but think about what we should do as the HR team so that we can disrupt instead of being disrupted.”

Chan stressed that HR should be more “aggressive and innovative with some courage”, on the foundation of “intelligence, diligence, and ownership”.

“We, as the HR practitioners or the HR professionals for a company, have an option to be disruptive and help the business to change before they get disrupted,” he added.

In a highly stressed, demotivated, and disengaged city such as Hong Kong, it is critical for HR professionals to know how to revitalise the workforce and turn disengagement into high performance, stressed Chris Jaques, Head of Team Science, Make Great Teams, who started on this subject by showcasing how to build real engagement with the audience.

He first identified two core drivers of workforce engagement. The first thing is to work on a project team.

“When I talk about a team, I am not talking about an organisational unit,” he said. “The highest engagement happens in cross-functional and dynamic teams that change over time. It’s a group of people coming together to work together to achieve an agreed goal together. That is where engagement really happens. It is not reporting up through a hierarchy.”

And the second thing is to trust the team leader. He then shared five simple principles to build an engaged team: keep every team small, the magic number is four to eight; limit top talent because team performance declines if there are too many top talent on a team; demand diversity to get collective intelligence; women always come first, half of every team’s members must be women; and team leaders must do the right things well by applying proven tools, which includes huddles, debriefs, and weekly check-ins.

After lunch, delegates engaged in roundtable sessions over two hours covering four topics: talent management, HR transformation and inspiration, L&D, and employee wellbeing.

Following the discussions, Annaliza Woo, Head of Human Resources, Asia, Aesop; Vince Wong, Senior Vice President, COO, Human Resources, DBS Bank; and Fanny Lau, Head of Learning & Development – Human Resources, New World Development Company; came together to discuss how HR can build a healthy workplace experience, and manage holistic employee wellbeing, during another panel discussion moderated by Human Resources Online.

Woo said it is a holistic and humanistic approach for Aesop.

“Wellbeing means very different things to different people, it’s about how we can capture those needs through understanding their thinking from their perspective,” she said.

“It’s about making sure that we encourage and empower employees, recognise their needs, and provide those resources and platforms for them to tap into.”

In DBS’ case, while building an employee wellbeing ecosystem that covers physical, mental, social, and emotional wellbeing holistically, celebrating employees’ life moments is also one of its focuses.

“To a longer term, we are celebrating some important milestones and life events of our people, so they also feel they are part of the organisation,” Wong highlighted.

Apart from physical and mental health, employee wealth and their families are two elements that Lau believes are important.

“We invited our partners to talk to our staff about how to do their wealth plan, for example, for their retirement,” she said. “We also focus a lot on the family pillar because we believe it is important for the company to take care of not only the employees themselves, but also their families.”

Winnie Tsien, Regional Head of People Experience, APAC Work Dynamics, Jones Lang LaSalle, wrapped up the conference by sharing some key takeaways to inspire HR to be modernised, yet resilient in an ever-changing world.

She stressed the first thing is to understand what is happening in the world and what people are thinking about, otherwise, “it will be difficult for HR or employers to think about a good measure or methodology or way to tackle that”.

And, most importantly, the employee experience. “This is more about what exactly our people are expecting from the experience point of view.” And the key is “whether the company can accommodate or help them address the situation”.

Looking ahead to 2023, she said the focus should continue to be on “knowing our people and building a more diverse team”, “finding a good way in terms of communication and preparing for change management”, and “leveraging innovation and technology”.

Closing her presentation, Tsien shared a piece of advice for all HR professionals: “If we can, before you say ‘yes’ to someone, make sure that you are not saying ‘no’ to yourself,” she said.

“We need to look after ourselves. We need to help ourselves to make sure we are not burning out. That is very important.”

CORNERSTONE ONDEMAND’S MISSION IS TO CREATE A WORK ENVIRONMENT THAT INSPIRES GROWTH AND SUCCESS

As a holistic talent experience platform, serving 100mn users spanning over 7,000 customers across 180 countries, Cornerstone OnDemand helps people unleash their potential and get ready for the future – particularly its employees, or whom it calls ‘Cornerstars’.

To bring out the best in people and encourage everyone to bring their authentic selves to work, Cornerstone OnDemand concentrates on building a culture and employee experience grounded in potential over performance.

“We believe that each one of our employees – or Cornerstars (as we like to call them) – can achieve success, realise their potential, and be empowered to take the reins on their own career through development and growth opportunities,” affirmed Himanshu Palsule, CEO of Cornerstone OnDemand.

To empower its Cornerstars, the company has put different employeeled initiatives in place to allow them to learn and grow. For example, during its quarterly ‘Cornerstone Development Days’, Cornerstars can host a session, or attend as many sessions as possible. The sessions range from personal development skills, such as life hacks, to leadership skills hosted by the executive team, to fun sessions like wine tasting, cake baking and more. This has not only helped foster a creative and interactive learning environment, but also provide internal networking opportunities across teams worldwide, and build a culture of learning with an “inside out” methodology.

To round up the employee experience, there are also other companyled initiatives, particularly the ‘Gig Programme’. This internal talent marketplace allows employees to explore internal opportunities to take part in short-term projects, or gigs, outside of their usual department, and explore new career avenues within the organisation, with full support from the leadership team. Since its inception in 2021, the programme has received more than 250 applicants and counting.

To Cornerstone, culture is built by people, not by one single individual or team. This is why the company has made intentional efforts to drive diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) beyond the workplace to create a place of belonging. This sees the hiring of its first-ever Chief Diversity Officer,

Duane La Bom in 2020, branded email signatures for Pride Month, and more elaborate schemes like ‘Cornerstar Resource Groups (CRGs)’.

To better engage people in the company from diverse backgrounds, encouraging transparent and clear communication among employees, managers and executives is also important. Apart from internal social media and other communication platforms, various communication methods are unique to its company and culture, such as ‘Coffee with Cornerstars’ and ‘Live with Leaders’ sessions as a way to introduce Cornerstars on a more personal level as well as provide access to leadership.

Palsule believes to build the future of the workplace where everyone can reach their full potential, structural barriers that prevent sustainable growth in any organisation’s ecosystems must be brought down. “Recently we have formed a group of ‘Extraordinaries’ by our Cornerstars across the organisation, dedicating their time to break down siloes, empowering decision-making and further advancing our cultural strategy,” shared Palsule.

Meanwhile, good employee experience cannot be achieved without considering employee wellbeing, in which mental health is one of Cornerstone’s focus areas. This leads to a number of smaller, but no less important, offerings like encouraging designated Friday meeting-free or camera-off meeting days, ‘Pause & Recharge’ programme that offers one extra day off to Cornerstars each month during the summer period to allow them to “relax and have fun”, ‘Flexible first work model’ complemented by co-working spaces, an employee assistance programme, a ‘Wellness Day’, as well as ‘Cornerstone Care Fund’ to provide hardship grant to support Cornerstars during tough times.

Seeing the role of HR evolving over the past two years, Palsule believes the function is now at the forefront of being change leaders. “As HR of Cornerstone, we are tasked with the mission to lead and drive the movement ourselves internally,” Palsule puts it. “We believe everyone can rise to be extraordinary and has the potential to change the world. This isn’t a moment, it’s a movement. Join us.”

FOR ALL

Focusing on employees’ potential and development, the talent experience platform empowers people to be their most extraordinary – at work and in the world.

HR’S NIGHT OF DISTINCTION

A memorable night where the crème de la crème of in-house HR came together to celebrate their achievements.

The effective execution of creative human capital strategies is a key driver for the growth and success of an organisation, especially in a fast-evolving environment.

This awards ceremony celebrated Hong Kong organisations who successfully delivered organisational growth, strategic human capital strategies, solutions and executions, despite the most challenging of times.

On 7 December 2022, the best-of-the-best in-house HR professionals, and HR solution providers, came together at Hotel ICON to celebrate their great achievements and contributions made throughout the year at the HR Distinction Awards, and HR Vendors of the Year 2022 Hong Kong (see page 34).

At this year’s HR Distinction Awards, a comprehensive spectrum of categories was introduced to stay in tune with HR-related practices and developments across industries.

Congratulations to all the winners and finalists!

HOW

IS CREATING THE BEST WORKPLACE TO ENGAGE, NURTURE,

RETAIN TALENT

The Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC) has been carrying the baton of promoting productivity excellence through integrated advanced technologies and innovative service offerings to support Hong Kong enterprises. In doing so, it has cultivated a caring culture with a supportive work environment.

To enhance internal communications and encourage collaboration among employees, town hall meetings are organised to share the strategic business direction and policy updates. Roundtables are also held between the executive director and employees at different grades, building a platform for exchanging views, inspiring innovation, and pursuing improvement.

To nurture Hong Kong’s tech ecosystem, HKPC attaches great importance to the building of a talent pool. This includes a series of programmes to develop a pool of home-grown talent who have the potential to take on new or key roles. For instance, the internship programme offers undergraduates job exposure throughout the year, and the ‘Scheme A Training’ of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers allows trainees the opportunity to integrate their theoretical knowledge with practical skills, through two years of training with working experience at HKPC.

Mohamed Butt, Executive Director, HKPC, said: “The cultivation of innovation & technology (I&T) talent is critical to Hong Kong’s continuous economic growth under the National 14th FiveYear Plan for the city to become an international I&T hub and the introduction of related new initiatives by the HKSAR Government.

“This is why HKPC is fully devoted to equipping our staff members with the appropriate job skills and knowledge in new technology to raise their competence in adapting to future trends at work.”

Wellness and engagement initiatives

Employees’ health, including mental and physical wellbeing, is important to HKPC, which is why it engages a 24-hour counselling and consultation hotline service for its employees. This is supported by energising activities during the ‘Wellness Month’ in March 2022. November sees ‘Appreciation Day’ to express heartfelt gratitude to colleagues for their contributions to HKPC.

Diverse workforce, inclusive workplace

HKPC not only accepts, but also values differences between people including those of different races, ethnicities, genders, ages, religions, and disabilities. This collaborative and supportive environment allows employees from diverse backgrounds to feel welcome and bring their most authentic selves to work. This is supported by the senior management members, who champion diversity and inclusion organisation-wide.

Eliza Ng, Chief People & Culture Officer, HKPC, affirmed: “HKPC has built and implemented innovative engagement and wellbeing strategies that have created a caring and supportive work environment and a real commitment to the welfare of our employees, resulting in high staff satisfaction levels and a well-motivated and integrated workforce to go the extra mile and strive for excellence.”

HKPC

AND

To nurture Hong Kong’s tech ecosystem, HKPC attaches great importance to the wellbeing of its home-grown talent pool.

HONOURING THE CITY’S BEST HR SOLUTION PROVIDERS

Judged by a panel of top HR leaders, the HR Vendors of the Year awards provides a platform to showcase the exceptional contributions that HR solution providers have made.

Regardless of the field of HR solutions, be it in recruitment, consultancy, or HR tech, a good HR service partner plays a valuable role in supporting HR teams to build deep functional capabilities, keep up with workforce transformations, and stay competitive.

The relentless efforts made by Hong Kong’s HR solution providers deserve to be recognised and celebrated. This is why the flagship HR Vendors of the Year awards has always garnered an immense following from HR professionals since its inception.

On the night of the gala dinner on 7 December 2022, winners across 17 categories became the brightest superstars, shining in front of more than a 100 distinguished guests.

Human Resources Online would like to extend our gratitude to all our judges and attendees. Once again, congratulations to all the winners and finalists!

“Do something to ensure you get 5% better every day. Then get 5% better again. The rewards will stun you – in a good way.”

This is one of the recruitment mantras for CGP Group, the world’s first fully integrated multi-industry onlineto-offline talent recruitment platform. Launched in 2012 as a traditional recruitment firm, CGP has become one of the largest recruitment solutions firms in Asia with more than 600 team members delivering executive search, recruitment process outsourcing and contracting services to multinational and domestic firms.

But what’s most interesting about this recruitment specialist is that at a time when consultancies are struggling to excel due to high fees, CGP is working to disrupt the digital transformation and consulting arena.

Solutions to unleash global talent CGP’s professional recruitment services include permanent search solutions, contracting, RPO, and recruitment market intelligence. CGP also has cross-border solutions, which help attract talents in the US back to Asia, as well as support China/Asia-based clients in hiring Chinese-speaking talents in the US.

As part of CGP Group’s 14 brands, Inspire supports employers in their critical business needs such as rapid expansion, digital transformation or when they face sudden increases in workload by contracting professional services and project management professionals in the areas of risk, accounting, finance and other core business systems.

CGP’s unique O20 recruitment platform enables confidential access for candidates to AImatched career opportunities, as well as individualised career advice by in-person talent advisors – thus bringing together the best of the online and offline worlds.

From ‘employees’ to ‘co-owners’: The winning formula Derek Kenny, CGP’s Co-Founder and Managing Director - Hong Kong, believes people are the ‘cornerstone’ of the company. CGP’s leadership team pushes employees to be more like ‘owners’, which is made possible through people-centric strategies, such as a market-leading salaries and commissions; decentralised operating model; and a comprehensive digital employer brand strategy.

Kenny sets a blistering pace for the year to come: “Recruitment has been a traditional industry for many years and we come to the market as a new breed high-tech recruitment company. We want to be #1 in Asia and at the same time, bring innovative business models to this professional service industry.”

This mission is within reach, whereby using the best AI, automation, and big data, CGP/ Inspire has grown 99% year-on-year in Hong Kong, and is all set to ‘unleash talent, enable entrepreneurs’ in the years to come.

最有趣的是，當各諮詢公司爭相因高額收費而力求表現之 際，CGP集團正致力於顛覆數碼轉型和招聘諮詢市場。

網羅全球人才的解決方案 CGP集團提供的專業招聘服務包括獵頭、派遣、招聘流程外包和招 聘市場調研。CGP集團亦提供跨境招聘服務，以吸引美國人才回流 亞洲，並協助中國／亞洲客戶招聘美國華語人才。

作為CGP集團14個品牌之一，Inspire致力為僱主提供支持， 助其羅致風險、會計、財務和其他核心業務範疇的專業服務和項 目管理專業人才，以應付快速拓展、數碼轉型或工作量急增等關鍵 業務需求。

CGP集團的獨特O2O招聘平台完美結合線上線下世界優勢， 求職者可透過人工智能平台進行保密職業匹配，人才顧問亦會親身 為求職者提供個人化職業建議。 致勝法則：從「員工」到「共同擁有人」 CGP集團聯合創辦人兼香港董事總經理Derek

HONG KONG’S 2022 POLICY ADDRESS: HIGHLIGHTS FOR EMPLOYERS

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee delivered his inaugural Policy Address on 19 October 2022.

Tracy Chan puts together some of the key takeaways for HR leaders to note.

Titled ‘Charting a Brighter Tomorrow for Hong Kong’, the Policy Address, which was described as a “Policy Address for Hong Kong citizens”, saw Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee outline his initiatives for the city’s development in the next five years.

Apart from addressing important livelihood issues such as housing and healthcare, according to the Policy Address, the Government is also expecting to implement an array of new initiatives targeted at “competing for enterprises” and “competing for talents” more proactively and aggressively.

Here are some policy highlights that businesses and HR leaders may want to note.

Attracting enterprises, investment, and talent

• Establishing the Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises (OASES), led by the Financial Secretary, for attracting high-potential and representative strategic enterprises from around the globe.

• Establishing the Talents Service Unit, led by the Chief Secretary for Administration, for formulating strategies to recruit talent from the Mainland and overseas, and co-ordinating relevant work, as well as providing one-stop support for incoming talent.

• Setting aside HK$30bn from the Future Fund to establish the CoInvestment Fund for attracting enterprises to set up operations in Hong Kong and investing in their business.

• Setting up dedicated teams for attracting businesses and talent in the Mainland offices and overseas Economic and Trade Offices (ETOs) of the Government.

To trawl the world for talent, the Government will launch the Top Talent Pass Scheme. Eligible talent will include:

1. Individuals whose annual salary reached HK$2.5mn or above in the past year, and individuals who graduated from the world’s top 100 universities with at least three years of work experience over the past five years, will be issued a two-year pass for exploring opportunities in Hong Kong and are not subject to any quota.

2. Individuals who graduated from the world’s top 100 universities in the past five years and have yet to fulfil the work experience requirement will also be eligible, subject to an annual quota of 10,000.

The Government will also enhance six existing talent admission schemes:

1. Streamline the General Employment Policy (GEP), and the Admission Scheme for Mainland Talents and Professionals (ASMTP).

2. Suspend the annual quota under the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme (QMAS) for a period of two years.

3. Relax the Immigration Arrangements for Non-local Graduates (IANG) by extending the limit of stay from one year to two years; and expand the scope of the arrangements to cover those who graduated from the GBA campus of a Hong Kong university on a pilot basis for a period of two years.

4. Enhance the Technology Talent Admission Scheme (TechTAS) by lifting the local employment requirement, extending the quota validity period to two years, and expanding the coverage to more emerging technology areas.

5. Extend the limit of stay of employment visas so that talent admitted under the existing and newly launched talent admission schemes and securing employment may be issued with an employment visa which will be valid for a maximum period of three years.

6. Eligible incoming talent, who have become permanent residents upon residing in Hong Kong for seven years, can apply for a refund of the buyer’s stamp duty and the new residential stamp duty paid for the first residential property purchased which they still own, while the ad valorem stamp duty at Scale 2 rates is still payable.

Grooming local young talent

• Publishing the first edition of the Youth Development Blueprint within this year, and introducing a series of initiatives to assist young people in overcoming difficulties in education, career pursuits, entrepreneurship, and home ownership.

• Increasing the number of UGC-funded research postgraduate (RPg) places by about 1,600, from some 5,600 at present to 7,200 in the 2024/25 academic year.

• Expanding the STEM Internship Scheme, by offering local I&T internship opportunities to university students studying STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) programmes overseas or at GBA campuses established by designated local universities.

• Increasing the number of industries adopting the Vocational Qualifications Pathway (VQP) under the Qualifications Framework from six to at least 18 in the next five years.

• Launching the Youth Participation Initiative, and expanding the Member Self-recommendation Scheme for Youth, to engage more young people in public affairs and encourage them to participate in community development.

• Working with all sectors of the community on a variety of activities to help young people broaden their horizons, and acquire a better understanding of the development of the country and the world.

Improving

labour rights and safety, promoting D&I

• Inviting the Minimum Wage Commission to study how to enhance the review mechanism of the statutory minimum wage, including the review cycle, how to improve efficiency, and balancing a host of factors such as the minimum wage level and sustained economic development, and make proposals to the Government.

• Further reviewing the arrangement relating to the employment of nonskilled workers under government outsourced service contracts, including remuneration of workers, as well as relevant monitoring mechanisms.

• Enhancing the procedures of the Protection of Wages on Insolvency Fund, including providing legal services by the Fund to assist employees in filing winding-up or bankruptcy petitions against insolvent employers, so as to expedite the disbursement of ex gratia payment to affected employees.

• Inviting the Employees Retraining Board to consider raising the daily rate of the retraining allowance and providing allowances for half-day courses for implementation by the first quarter of 2023 to encourage the public to enrol in training and enter the workforce.

• Investigating each and every fatal industrial accident, pursuing responsibilities of those who should be held accountable and putting in place improvement measures. Passage of the relevant bill will be sought under the LegCo as soon as possible to increase the maximum penalties for occupational safety offences, thereby enhancing their deterrent effect.

• Increasing funding for activities to promote women development by the Women’s Commission from HK$4mn to HK$10mn per annum in the next three years. A Women Empowerment Fund will be set up to subsidise community projects that support women in balancing job and family commitments.

• Recruiting more ethnic minorities for appointment as employment assistants and general assistants in the Labour Department, and setting up a service centre on a trial basis to provide emotional support and counselling for ethnic minorities to further enhance the support for them.

Providing further support for SMEs

• Raising the level of funding support under the Dedicated Fund on Branding, Upgrading and Domestic Sales (the BUD Fund) and the SME Export Marketing Fund to HK$7mn and HK$1mn respectively. The special measure to expand its funding scope will also be extended to 30 June 2026 to continue to cover exhibitions and online exhibitions targeting the local market, and the eligibility criteria will be relaxed to cover non-SMEs.

• Guangdong ETO will set up a dedicated promotion centre to support the development of Hong Kong people and enterprises in the GBA. The HKTDC will also set up more GoGBA Business Support Centres to cover all nine Mainland cities in the GBA, and organise business missions, training, etc, in various Mainland provinces and municipalities.

• The Pre-approved Principal Payment Holiday Scheme will be extended for another six months to 31 July 2023, through the Banking Sector SME Lending Coordination Mechanism of the HKMA, and the principal repayment option will be enhanced.

• Continuing to reduce 75% of water and sewage charges for non-domestic accounts for eight months from 1 December 2022 to 31 July 2023, subject to a monthly ceiling of HK$20,000 and HK$12,500 respectively per household.

• Continuing to provide 75% rental or fee concessions currently applicable to eligible tenants of government premises and eligible short-term tenancies and waivers under the Lands Department for six months from 1 January 2023 to 30 June 2023.

HONG KONG EMPLOYEES CAN EXPECT A PAY RISE OF 3.6% NEXT YEAR

A recent survey by the Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management (HKIHRM) found that Hong Kong employees received an average salary increase of 3.5% in 2022, hitting the highest level since the COVID-19 outbreak.

96%

of participating companies offered a pay increase, the base pay adjustment for 2022 was 3.5% (weighted average).

After deducting the 1.9% rise in the Composite Consumer Price Index from January to August 2022, the real base pay adjustment stood at

Senior-level staff

received the largest pay adjustment at 3.8%, while top-level staff were slightly behind at 3.7%.

For pay increases in 2023, the average projected pay adjustment was listed as upwards of

1.6%. 3.6%.

HKIHRM’s 2022 Pay Trend Survey collected data from 178 companies on pay adjustment provided for employees between January and September 2022