Human Resources Singapore, January-February 2016

January/February 2016

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January / February 2016 « CONTENTS

COVER STORY 14 Q&A Olivia Tay, group CHRO of National Healthcare Group, reveals how HR can leverage on employees’ passion for their jobs to boost their potential.

Features 18 The HR director’s guide to team building Tips to get started on your team building programme using proven case studies of best practices, compiled by Jerene Ang.

24 The secrets behind Singapore’s top corporate training programmes Akankasha Dewan explores the award-winning secrets of firms that have demonstrated solid ROI from their corporate training programmes.

Opinion 30 Learning & Development Regina Koh, head of human resources for 3M Singapore, reveals the value of encouraging staff to form unconventional perspectives.

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32 People Issues Making a “dull and monotonous” sector exciting is possible, says Richard Lau, senior VP and head of integrated recruitment administration/ group marketing and corporate communications at Certis CISCO Security.

ON THE COVER: Art Direction: Shahrom Kamarulzaman; Photography: Stefanus Elliot Lee using Nikon D810 – www.elliotly.com; Makeup & Hair: Michmakeover using Make Up For Ever & hair using Sebastian Professional – www.michmakeover.com

34 Upwardly Mobile Eriko Talley, head of human resources for APAC at Facebook, expands on the three ideas the tech giant has adopted to ensure it maintains its standing as an inclusive and caring employer.

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40 Last Word Why Akankasha Dewan is going to take a leap of faith and assume everyone around her at work is smarter than she is.

Regulars 3 Ed’s note 4 In the news 6 Suite talk 7 Snapshot

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8 Spacial awareness 12 HR by numbers 36 Personal development 38 Shelf life

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January/February 2016 « Human Resources «

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Aditi Sharma Kalra Akankasha Dewan Jerene Ang Anthony Wong James Foster Regina Koh Richard Lau Eriko Talley Shahrom Kamarulzaman Fauzie Rasid Sherlyn Yap Deborah Quek Naomi Cranswick Karen Boh Yogesh Chandiramani Jaclyn Chua Keiko Ko Zoe Lau Isabel Ho Jenilyn Rabino Sarah Kee Sharissa Chan Nikita Erpini Shivon Aaria Gunalan Sanna Lun Kenneth Neo Evon Yew Gabriella Yu Yeo Wei Qi Evelyn Wong Tony Kelly Justin Randles

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Here’s to a healthier us In the 50 years of Singapore’s independence, the population has grown from 1.9 million to 5.5 million. Also during that time, the number of citizens aged 65 and above has doubled from 220,000 in 2000 to 440,000 in 2015, and is expected to increase to 900,000 by 2030. In Malaysia, there are now more people aged 60 years and older than there are children younger than five years old.

It’s no wonder that public healthcare is top-ofthe-mind for Asia’s ageing populations, especially in Singapore where the government is considering various options to plug the talent gap, among which are re-employment to the age of 67.

We need our workforce to stay healthier for longer to continue to be productive, so this past month, we caught up with Olivia Tay, the group CHRO of National Healthcare Group (NHG), one of Singapore’s two largest public healthcare groups.

As with a majority of other sectors, NHG’s focus is on achieving better quality healthcare and productivity. To ensure long-term sustainability of the healthcare system, NHG has started to shift its focus further upstream in the value chain, where healthcare providers no longer just take care of patients, but the general population too.

Instead of treating illnesses on an episodic basis, NHG adopts a new model of care that focuses on prevention, education and early detection – from illness care to wellness care; known as population health management.

What that means for HR is to continuously evaluate what additional skill sets the administrators, doctors, nurses or allied health professionals need. For instance, are they equipped to influence partners to achieve NHG’s shared vision? Are they confident enough to talk to non-profit organisations? Do they have what it takes to work in multi-disciplinary teams?

Tay told us: “Population health management goes beyond simply equipping them with clinical skills. We must also understand what skill sets our staff require in order to serve people throughout the spectrum of healthcare.”

In addition to this interview, our first edition for 2016 brings you two features on team building and corporate training. Singapore Airlines’ VP of talent management and development Casey Ow

Yong opens up about its flagship team building programme called FUS3ION, and how the team overcame the challenge of getting staff out of their comfort zones to participate effectively.

Meanwhile, Unilever’s HR director for Asia, Tricia Duran, breaks down the firm’s programme for future leaders in a great case study. With more than 5,000 learning programmes available, not only has Unilever seen tremendous take-up rates, demonstrated in the 36,400 unique visits and 19,300 e-books downloaded, but the programme has also led to a natural change in mindsets to grow leaders from within Unilever.

No New Year’s celebration is complete without a resolution – ours is to continue to serve the regional HR management community with our monthly magazines, daily email newsletters, and suite of targeted awards and conferences.

Coming up in February is our Workforce Mobility Interactive conference that will bring together 100 HR leaders to debate the latest issues in expatriate management and global mobility strategies.

As always, we seek your feedback as we start a fresh year, please write into us at aditis@ humanresourcesonline.net or join the conversation on Twitter by following us at @Mag_HR.

Photography: Stefanus Elliot Lee – www.elliotly.com; Makeup & Hair: Michmakeover using Make Up For Ever & hair using Sebastian Professional – www.michmakeover.com

HumanResources

Aditi Sharma Kalra Regional editor January/February 2016 « Human Resources «

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News from humanresourcesonline.net

THE HIGHEST PAYING JOBS OF 2016

WHY YOU SHOULD MAKE JOB INTERVIEWS HARDER

It looks like there may be a reason behind putting applicants through painfully tough interviews. New research from Glassdoor revealed that for employers in the US, a 10% more difficult job interview process is associated with 2.5% higher employee satisfaction later on. In all countries studied, there was a clear positive relationship between interview difficulty and employee satisfaction, with the effect being strongest in Australia (3.6%).

The report found that on a five-point scale – where one equals very easy and five equals very difficult – the interview level that leads to the highest employee happiness is four out of five.

A possible reason for this is that one-point interviews are too easy to effectively screen incoming candidates.

SINGAPOREANS COP ONE LESS DAY IN HOLIDAYS

The number of official vacation days has reduced in Singapore this past year, according to Expedia’s annual study, which found Singaporeans were offered 15 days of vacation in 2015 – one less day compared with the year before. Locals, however, took the same number of vacation days (14) in 2015 as in 2014.

In comparison, Hong Kong was offered one more day, 15 in 2015 instead of 14, all of which were used up.

Malaysians were still offered, and take, the same amount of vacation days (10 of 14).

Across the globe, the median number of paid vacation days available to workers falls slightly under 25 days annually.

IT professionals are set to be all the rage in the coming year, according to the 2016 Salary Guide from Robert Half Technology and The Creative Group, in a North engineers with virtualisation skills and systems o t American e ca study. study Systems S administrators are needed by many firms to manage the adm con convergence of networking, systems and data storage.

Wireless network engineers can expect a starting salary of US$108,750 – $150,750, a 9.7% year-onsa year ye increase. With more companies using big data analytics for business decisions, they are driving demand an fo database administrators and business intelligence for a analysts.

Big data engineers are projected to have a pay rise r of 8.9% with starting salaries between US$ 129,500 tto 183,500.

Employers across industries are also looking to hire ddevelopers for web, software and mobile apps. Also iin high demand are those with .NET, PHP and MySQL sskills, as well as those with responsive design skills, aaccording to the salary guide.

WHY GOOD LOOKS AREN’T EVERYTHING G

Bad news for the handsome men out there. here.

According to research from UCL School ol of Management, handsome men may be rejected for competitive jobs such as inn sales departments. The reason was that handsome men are seen as more competent – therefore, in competition-based workplaces, their good looks make them appear more threatening too nation, colleagues. This may result in discrimination, especially if the hiring decision-maker is expected to compete against these good looking men.

On the bright side, in line with being ng perceived ng males are as more competent, these good-looking ration, found preferred for roles that require co-operation, assistant professor Dr Lee Sun Young.

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» Human Resources » January/February 2016

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SINGAPOR SINGAPOREANS TO RECEIVE $$500 CREDIT TO UPGRADE THEIR SKILLS

The Singapore Work Workforce Development Agency announced that Singaporeans aged (WDA) has announc 25 years and above will receive an initial credit of SkillsFuture Credit account. Through $500 in their SkillsF January 2016, eligible eligi Singaporeans will receive their account activa activation letter and will be able to account to use their credit for courses access their accou that commence on or after 1 January 2016. the WDA, the credit can be used According to th for about 10,000 approved skills-related courses across 57 functional areas covering all key industries. As the credit will not expire and periodic top-ups will be made by the government, Singaporeans need not rush to use their SkillsFuture Credit.

The credit can be used on courses in four categories – those subsidised or approved by the WDA, selected courses by the Ministry of Education-funded institutions, those supported by public agencies and SkillsFuture@PA courses offered by the People’s Association, and courses offered by the IDA’s Silver Infocomm Junctions.

THE SALARY INCREMENTS STAFF IN 11 ASIAN COUNTRIES CAN EXPECT IN 2016

The highest pay increases in three years – plus historically low ans inflation rates – means he employees across the world can anticipatee average salary increases of 2.5% in 2016, net of inflation. n.

Asia, however, will surpass the global average, where real wages are expected to rise by 4.2% – the highest globally – according to Korn Ferry Hay Group’s forecast. Within the region, Vietnam leads the way with the largest real wage increases forecast at 7.3%. China and Thailand are not too far behind, at 6.3% and 6.1%.

Seeing the merits of being part of a fast growing economy, Indian workers are forecast to see the highest real wage increases in the past three years, 4.7% compared with 2.1% last year.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT TO LOOK ‘LIKE A BOSS’

Although most of us acknowledge that a person’ss physical attributes have no relation to their potential, tial, research has shown that physical appearance does es provide a significant bias in the selection processs for ted leaders. This is the conclusion of a study conducted oural

by Dawn Eubanks, associate professor of behavioural science and strategy at the Warwick Business School. chool.

In experiments designed to find out how well people could place which industry leaders worked in from m their gorise faces alone, participants could successfully categorise the leaders in business, sport and the military.

“The most plausible explanation is that leaders ers are being selected, at least partly, according to how ow they look,” Eubanks said. The findings could be, however, seen as depressing as they oppose attempts to encourage greater diversity in boardrooms – faces chosen for the study were all middle-aged white males. However, the study said nothing about whether possessing the facial characteristics of a leader meant a person could be a great leader.

HOW BOSSES CAN BOOST STAFF ENGAGEMENT IN TWO STEPS

It’s perhaps a great thing that HR is increasingly focusing on developing leaders – good leadership is, in fact, the top driver of employee engagement today. That is according to a new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which canvassed a total of 7,396 full-time employees over the age of 18, working in organisations with 200 or more workers globally.

The report found that leadership vision is the top driver of engagement globally. Those survey respondents who stated they were confident in how their bosses were leading the company towards success had significantly higher levels of engagement (86%) than those who were less likely to have such confidence (28%).

The report identified two things leaders can do to optimally boost employee engagement levels in organisations. First, leadership direction. Employees who were confident in the future of the company, the ability of their leaders’ to lead them to success had two to three times higher levels of engagement (86%) than those who were less likely to have such confidence (28%). Second, trustworthiness of leadership. Employees who were able to trust in their leaders were again more engaged (86%), than those who felt they were not able to trust their leaders (30%).

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WORK LIFE » People GET INTO THE BOSS’S HEAD

Douglas Foo Founder and executive chairman Sakae Holdings From a start-up to Singapore’s leading Kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi chain, how has your journey with Sakae been?

Besides working towards building 30,000 stores in five continents, we want to be a brand synonymous with sushi, and offer healthy, fresh and quality Japanese food at value-for-money prices.

What sets us apart from the competition is our innovative culture, which propels us to the next level. We have always been the first in the market to deliver new dining experiences for our customers, and this continuous pursuit of excellence allows our team to reinvent, innovate and be creative.

What are the biggest people challenges you have faced while scaling up operations?

As Sakae continues to grow, it is important we continue to be innovative. Innovation isn’t just about technology. We need to build 30,000 units around the world. If we need 10 people in each shop, we need to recruit a total of about 300,000 employees. Where will we get these employees?

Investing in human capital is among Sakae’s core strategies as it offers skills training, staff benefits and career opportunities.

Sakae currently has more than 2,000 employees across all age groups under its payroll, and also works closely with a number of schools to tap future talent. Training programmes and scholarships are offered to students who aspire to join the Sakae family.

Being in the food business is not just about providing quality food, it’s about understanding people’s needs. We want Sakae to be a company with a soul and a heart.

Any people-related advice for start-ups to achieve success like yours?

They need to be prudent and realistic. All successful businesses started with a simple dream that was well executed and realistically grown.

At Sakae, we have a strong emphasis on creating a conducive work environment through progressive HR practices. Start-ups have to understand that as Singapore’s talent 6

pool becomes more diverse and progressive, employment practices such as robust appraisal systems and age management are no longer merely good-to-have, they are essential for any organisation’s long-term competitiveness.

Only by hiring and rewarding employees based on their abilities and skills will they respect your leadership and give their best at work.

I also always remind aspiring entrepreneurs that failure is part of success.

Abraham Lincoln said: “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.” It is with this resolution that Sakae has gotten to where it is today, and continues to expand and evolve.

As the co-chairperson of the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP), what is your view of HR? HR is an incredibly important business function beyond just recruitment and processing payroll.

HR is the crucial link between management and the company’s workforce, and they are often the champions of continual professional development.

Besides, the HR function serves as a valuable feedback channel for management through which it can continuously glean insights into staff morale and react accordingly.

Fair and progressive HR policies ensure firms attract and retain the best talent, something crucial for SMEs as they strive to remain competitive – apart from gaining access to a wider talent pool, enhancing productivity and staff retention, increasing customer satisfaction and bolstering corporate reputation.

“Being in the food business is not just about providing quality food, it’s about understanding people’s needs.” nothing about running a restaurant, and I credit our success to many factors, including values that have being instilled in me since childhood which have guided my career.

Aside from that, studies have shown that over the past 15 years, there has been a dramatic change in the roles HR people play. Today, CHROs often report directly to the CEO, serve as their key adviser, and make frequent presentations to the board. These studies have also uncovered that many CHROs behave, think, function and deal with pressure and risk-taking similar to CEOs.

How can HR contribute better to organisational goals?

I would like to challenge HR practitioners to go beyond transactional processes, and take on a greater role in their organisations’ business strategies. I strongly believe businesses, especially start-ups, can benefit if greater consideration is given to how the business strategy affects the workforce. HR needs to be given a voice in the boardroom, and a hand to help shape the organisation’s future.

In particular, HR must ensure employment policies support the organisation’s values. There must be a clear alignment between what leaders commit to and what the line managers and HR do in their day-to-day.

More importantly, management and HR must have open minds about adopting new employment practices or reviewing current ones.

Do you see HR leaders becoming CEOs? I believe anyone with the right skill sets, core values and attitudes can become a CEO. When I first started Sakae Sushi, I knew

» Human Resources » January/February 2016

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People WORK LIFE »

snapshot

15 minutes with ... time zones makes the day productive as both learning and contributions occur simultaneously. The last activity circles around collaboration where I find opportunities to contribute in other colleagues’ HR projects as a sparring partner or a team contributor.

Gary Lee

Senior project manager talent management (global) Grundfos HOW DID YOU GET STARTED WITH HR? I entered HR by chance when I was approached to join a consultancy start-up while I was at university. Starting with only five people, I juggled between a fulltime job and studying while working on end-to-end people consulting solutions.

As the organisation expanded across markets and regions, I started to specialise more in people development – specific to learning and development, leadership and HR strategy. I was also heavily involved with recruiting, managing and developing talent across the APAC region. Having worked with corporate clients from various industries and sizes, I was able to adapt the best people practices and implement them in my organisation.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE MOST ABOUT YOUR JOB? HR is going through a transformational change for many organisations and we are only at the infancy stage. From talent analytics to innovations in learning and development, I enjoy contributing and learning about how to increase human capital and develop talents for my organisation.

Being able to collaborate with like-minded colleagues to bring an idea to fruition and seeing how these people projects can benefit many makes my job so much more enjoyable.

WHAT’S A TYPICAL DAY AT WORK FOR YOU LIKE? My typical day at work is split into three main activities. The first is focused on learning, where time is dedicated towards keeping myself updated on the latest in talent development or human resources.

The second activity is invested in project management, where I work on some global talent development projects. Working across cultures and

IN SINGAPORE, WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE BIGGEST HR CHALLENGE FACING MOST COMPANIES? I think one of the biggest HR challenges most companies are facing in Singapore today is the challenge with talent development. Given the disconnect between theory and practical application, many professionals lack the ability to become high performers. Training alone does not guarantee that employees will become star performers.

More support is required for management to equip HR with the right capabilities to build a talent development system or process to continuously nurture their employees towards higher productivity.

HAS HR SUCCEEDED IN BECOMING A STRATEGIC BUSINESS PARTNER TODAY? OR IS THERE ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT? I think HR has had some success in evolving into a strategic business partner. At the same time, it does take time for management to change its mindset that HR is not just a transaction role, but a crucial element in growing the business. However, HR professionals can continuously upgrade themselves professionally by building on their business acumen capabilities to become more effective strategic partners for the business.

HOW DO YOU THINK THE FUNCTION WILL EVOLVE IN FIVE YEARS? Tactically, HR will move towards a shared service model where technology will help to alleviate some of the more tedious transactional HR roles resulting in a loss of headcount for HR administration. At the same time, HR professionals will evolve towards specialised roles as centres of excellence for talent pipelines, succession planning and development.

I CANNOT IMAGINE HR WITHOUT … A commitment towards positive change and more resources!

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January/February 2016 « Human Resources «

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WORK LIFE » People

SpacialAwareness

HOW SANOFI STRIVES TO HOUSE ITS STAFF AS ‘ONE’ FAMILY With nearly 100,000 employees in more than 100 countries, Sanofi leverages strongly on the beauty of teamwork and communication to ensure its success as one of the leading healthcare organisations in the world. This is especially vital because the firm has diversified into many business activities such as consumer healthcare products, generics as well as animal health products.

Those reasons are precisely why Sanofi’s Singapore office emphasises an environment of openness and also promotes employees’ transversal collaboration.

“As Sanofi has different business activities, we have a goal to achieve the ‘One Sanofi’ family and this workplace design breaks down silos,” says Freddie Chow, chief talent officer for Asia Pacific at Sanofi.

“As no individual, regardless of your position has a dedicated office, it promotes a culture which is not hierarchical, but building on teamwork and collaboration.”

Chow explains the company does not mandate that every employee in the firm sit on a permanently assigned desk.

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People « WORK LIFE

Instead, the company lets its employees decide where they sit and who they sit with, depending on the job activity the employee is working on.

“This allows employees the flexibility and autonomy on their part,” he says.

Chow agrees strongly that designing an office which promotes flexibility helps improve employee engagement significantly in the organisation.

“With the flexibility of the workplace design, employees have the choice to work in a quiet workplace if he/she needs to focus on the work,” he says.

He adds that employees can also use a meeting room for a teleconference, book a room for a small or big team meeting, or even take an urgent call in the phone booth.

“Employees can have a quick bite or a meal in our food lab, celebrate a colleague’s birthday in our community centre or play a game of table soccer to help them de-stress.

“The workplace design caters for different needs and this helps improve productivity.”

When asked what elements HR leaders should keep in mind when designing a new office, Chow says it is key for them to understand the type of work activity the majority of the employees engage in and the amount of time spent on each activity.

If the change implemented is something drastic, Chow warns that change management must start early and employees must be involved and communicated to an early stage and be updated on the plan and progress.

“At the end of the day, no matter how beautiful the office may be, we still want a happy and motivated workforce and employees must enjoy the new workplace,” he says.

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WHITE PAPER » Leadership

HR IS THIRD MOST IN-DEMAND FUNCTION IN SINGAPORE recruitment drivers in Singapore. This is a result of new initiatives from companies which all involve strengthening IT infrastructure,” said Toby Fowlston, managing director for Southeast Asia at Robert Walters.

In Hong Kong, a similar situation was in evidence with a 4% overall increase in job advertising volumes.

As regulatory requirements tighten and corporate compliance grows, an increase in legal and compliance professionals is seen in the 23% year-on-year increase in advertising for legal and compliance jobs.

Similarly, increases in advertising volumes are seen for accounting and finance roles (17%), sales roles (15%) and IT roles (14%).

On the other hand, advertising volumes for roles in product and logistics operations saw a 13% dip.

Matthew Bennett, managing director for Greater China at Robert Walters, said: “The recruitment market was relatively active with a 4% year-on-year growth in job advertising volumes this quarter, despite signs of softening, particularly in the retail and tourism sectors.”

He added there was a steady stream of replacement-based openings with many organisations opting not to hire like-for-like replacements, but rather taking the opportunity to upskill roles.

“Hong Kong remains a prime gateway for companies looking to enter the Asia market with the ease of setting up business in the city, and we therefore expect the demand for top talent will continue to be strong for the rest of 2015.”

In Malaysia, however, a slightly lower (3%) increase in annual job advertising volumes was witnessed in the report.

Percentage rise in local job advertising Function

Percentage

Medical services

19%

IT

16%

HR

5%

Source: Robert Walters Asia Job Index Q3 2015

Singapore – As the talent war continues and expectations for the workforce evolve, companies in Singapore are placing employee engagement among their top priorities. As a result, they are driving up the demand for skilled HR professionals.

This is according to the Robert Walters Asia Job Index Q3 2015, which noted an overall increase of 4% in local job advertising volume.

Advertisements for roles within the medical services (19%), IT (16%) and HR sectors (5%) grew the most.

On the other hand, because of the increasing automation of internal company processes, job advertising for administrative and secretarial professionals has seen a 15% annual dip.

“Technology remains one of the largest

The top three roles with the highest demand are marketing (17%), IT (15%) and accounting and finance (13%), while demand for engineering roles saw a dip of 11%.

“The 3% increase in annual job advertising is a reflection of market caution driven by the weakening ringgit and falling crude oil prices.

Hiring in the third quarter was largely focused on key hires and business-critical niche positions,” said Sally Raj managing director for Malaysia at Robert Walters.

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Leadership « WHITE PAPER

DO MILLENNIALS MAKE POOR LEADERS?

Global – Millennials may be the best at providing the key skills businesses require to remain agile and innovative, but in today’s multi-generational business landscape, do they also make good leaders? A new study by Future Workplace and Beyond found that Millennials might not be as good in leading companies as they think they are. Surveying 5,771 professionals, the study found that 83% of respondents have seen Millennials managing Gen X and Baby Boomers in their office.

“As more Baby Boomers retire, Millennials are moving into leadership positions and are faced with managing older generations, which they were never trained to do,” said Dan Schawbel, partner and research director at Future Workplace.

While 44% of Millennial respondents thought they were the most capable generation to lead in the workplace, only 14% of the total respondents felt the same. In fact, 51% of the total respondents felt that Gen X staff were the most capable generation to lead organisations.

The main reason for this lack of faith in the leadership skills of Millennials is the generation’s lack of managerial experience. Almost half (45%) of Baby Boomers and Gen X respondents feel this lack of experience could have a negative impact on a company’s culture.

The most capable generation to lead in the workplace Generation

Percentage

Millennials

14%

Generation X

51%

Source: Study by Future Workplace and Beyond

On the same note, more than one-third of Millennial respondents have admitted it’s difficult managing older generations.

Schawbel added: “Millennials need to respect and support the careers of Gen X and Baby Boomers if they want to learn, develop and eventually become the executives corporate America requires to move forward.”

The survey also found there’s a need for ongoing mentorship and coaching to deepen the Millennials leadership skills.

While more companies today are spending a large portion of their training budget on formal training and learning and development programmes, only 47% of respondents revealed their companies have formal mentorship programmes to support their leadership development.

This is despite the fact that 89% of respondents feel that building strong leadership skills is important to them.

“Millennials are no longer new to the workforce, they’re now in the thick of it,” said Rich Milgram, founder and CEO of Beyond.

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WORK LIFE » HR by numbers

The employee wish list for 2016 If employees in Singapore could pick just one thing they really wanted from their employers, what would it be?

According to new research by Robert Half Singapore, the answer is more days off. The survey of 500 employees in Singapore found 36% put more annual leave at the top of their wish list, followed by more flexible hours (32%) and professional development (20%). Other perks such as childcare, laundry services and access to fitness facilities all ranked low on the list.

Remote working or the home office was on the wish list of less than 10% of both employees as well as employers’ view of what staff want.

36%

of employees in Singapore put more annual leave at the top of their wish list for 2016.

One in five

employees would ask their employers for more professional development opportunities, if they could make a wish (20%).

54%

of 150 C-level executives, however, believed what employees really wanted was more flexible working hours.

Source: Robert Half Singapore

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PROFILE » Olivia Tay

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Olivia Tay « PROFILE

Olivia Tay

Group chief human resources officer National Healthcare Group Delivering relevant healthcare by upskilling medical professionals

By AKANKASHA DEWAN

Q What is the best part of heading HR for the National Healthcare Group (NHG)?

As an HR professional, I am privileged to be part of one of the two largest public healthcare groups whose ideas, plans and decisions help shape Singapore’s evolving healthcare landscape. The pulse is palpable and that motivates me to do my best.

This is especially important in Singapore, which faces an ageing population. What we do today in terms of healthcare development will be crucial in helping us meet the demands of our population in the years to come, and contribute meaningfully to our future generations.

Q When did you join NHG and what experience did you bring?

I joined NHG in 2001. I was previously in the electronics manufacturing sector where I had stints in various areas, including marketing and HR. Public healthcare was therefore a new realm for me, but that was good as I wanted to challenge myself in a different industry.

Q How have you seen NHG evolve since then?

NHG has undergone a lot of changes since 2001. When I started, NHG was one of two clusters – the other being SingHealth. The mandate at the time was to leverage on clustering in order to streamline the overall processes, and achieve better quality healthcare and productivity.

Today there are six clusters looking after the health of Singapore’s population.

VITAL STATS Olivia Tay is a human resources practitioner with many years of experience in MNCs and a public listed electronics manufacturing company. She joined NHG, one of two clusters of public healthcare institutions in 2001. She assumed her current position as group chief human resource officer in May 2006.

Although more public hospitals are being built to cope with Singapore’s rapidly ageing population – exacerbated by falling birth rates and growing chronic disease – the reality is resources are finite.

That means even an effective healthcare system like ours will not, in the longer term, be adequate to address the needs of the nation.

To ensure long-term sustainability of our healthcare system, we have started to shift our focus further upstream, where healthcare providers no longer just take care of patients, but the general population too.

Instead of just treating illnesses on an episodic basis, NHG adopts a new model of care that focuses on prevention, education and early detection – from illness care to wellness care.

This type of healthcare is called population health management, where we look at the whole continuum of health, starting from birth.

The integration of medical and medical support services with our community partners means that we are able to provide a network of effective and holistic care to take care of the population.

The larger objective, however, is for our population to start taking charge of their own health, to keep fit and live well.

For HR, it is important to understand what it is that we want to do; and from there, how we can develop our talent to support our vision.

Q So keeping in mind this focus on the entire spectrum of healthcare, and not just on acute care, how have your

talent attraction and development policies changed?

We have to evaluate what additional skill sets our administrators, doctors, nurses or allied health professionals need.

For instance, are they equipped to interact and influence partners to achieve our shared vision? Are they confident enough to talk to schools and non-profit organisations? Do they have what it takes to work in multi-disciplinary teams to tackle population health management?

We would then need to equip them with the necessary know-how to accomplish these tasks.

We must also provide our staff with a deeper understanding of the extended care ecosystem, which includes step-down care, mental, social and community services.

Only then can they effectively link patients and their families with the relevant parties to address their needs.

Population health management goes beyond simply equipping them with clinical skills. It’s about understanding different parts of the healthcare system and connecting the dots to provide better care for our patients. We must also understand what skill sets our staff require in order to serve people throughout this spectrum of healthcare.

Q What leadership or skill development programmes do you have in place to provide your staff with such skills?

We have a suite of programmes to cater to the training needs of staff – from the leadership teams to middle and new-

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PROFILE » Olivia Tay entrant managers, both in-house and external. There are leadership courses as well as inter-professional training courses to foster team-based care. We also encourage learning from different clusters and industries where we can glean best practices.

Q Do you have any onboarding programmes in place?

We have induction programmes for employees to understand not only the organisation, but also its culture. At NHG, we launched our culture building programme in 2012, titled 4P7R – four principles and seven rules to guide our staff to fulfil their roles and responsibilities with the right behaviour.

We believe the culture of 4P7R will bring us to the next level of performance, quality and care; as well as to have greater synergy with our partners. In essence, the four principles are: • Patient-centred care: Where we focus on understanding on what our patients need and value to create a healing relationship.

• Systems thinking: Where we seek to make our complex healthcare system simple, safe and reliable for our staff and patients.

• Learning organisation: Where we continuously learn and share to build our competency and capability to achieve excellence.

• Staff engagement: With our people as our most valued resource, we want to build a purpose-driven, safe and nurturing work environment to collectively achieve our goals.

Essentially, the four principles emphasise upon systems thinking.

For example, when engaging our staff, the people who join healthcare are similar in the sense they are all compassionate about helping people – that is why they become doctors and nurses and other health professionals.

But what about the rest of the people who support the whole healthcare system? How do we engage them so they remain inspired?

We cannot always depend on their compassion for others – we have to ensure they are self-motivated and find meaning in what they do.

We are experimenting with various models to motivate everyone. It is natural that in this journey there will be some challenges while we are evolving.

As a result, our leadership plays a key role in engaging and empowering staff with the right tools to fulfil their roles.

Our senior leaders make it a point to attend employee engagement programmes. We also have sessions called “leadership moments”, where senior management share their expertise and life lessons with staff.

Q How do you measure the effectiveness of these programmes and your employee engagement levels?

Like many other large firms, we conduct employee climate surveys, but what makes us different is that we have included an additional element of the culture index in our surveys. Specific questions have been designed to give us insights as to whether the 4P7R is being practised by staff.

We are still in the early days of our journey to build a strong culture in NHG, but initial findings are promising. We believe that this culture index plays a large role in influencing how our employees work and perform.

Q Why do you think the healthcare industry is facing an acute talent shortage today?

I think I have to divide this answer into two broad categories.

The healthcare sector requires skilled

professionals – doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, etc.

Knowledge building and skills training for these professional groups inherently takes time for them to attain a certain level of standard. This practice, in a way, limits the talent pool.

That said, Singapore’s newest medical school, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine – of which NHG is the primary clinical training partner – is helping to boost the pipeline for doctors with a view to the longer term.

Secondly, we need to grapple with the negative perception or stigma associated with some public healthcare professions.

For example, the prevailing mindset that being a doctor is considered a glamorous career, but nursing not so much. The reality is that it is not an easy task to take care of the daily functions of a patient who is physically sick or terminally ill. It takes someone who cares to go beyond their duty to make a difference.

The bigger challenge is not about recruitment. It is about educating our young people to appreciate the value of healthcare so they would want to be healthcare professionals. In that way, we can build up a more robust talent pool over time, especially when they graduate.

Q How do you overcome such challenges then?

We work very closely with the Ministry and polytechnics to help students better understand the many career opportunities

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Olivia Tay « PROFILE and disciplines in the healthcare sector. We also organise hospital open houses where students can shadow certain professionals to get a better understanding of what the responsibilities entail.

For instance, some students haven’t yet heard of professions such as speech therapists or occupational therapists, so we help to create that level of awareness.

We also organise open houses to allow students to shadow staff and walk in our hospitals to get a better understanding of what that job entails.

Q How big a role does social media and technology play in doing this?

I think there is success in social media for some roles. We are always on the lookout for the most effective recruitment platforms befitting certain jobs.

If you talk about IT or administrative jobs, then social media works well.

For some other professions, hands-on exposure may be more effective.

Q How important is diversity to NHG? I believe that success is gender blind.

However, the healthcare sector tends to attract more females due to the nurturing

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aspect of the work. We do make a conscious effort to appeal to more male nurses and they do just as well.

For example, our flagship Tan Tock Seng Hospital has Singapore’s first male chief nurse.

In terms of diversity of nationalities, we do recognise that we do not have enough locals. We treasure our foreign professionals, but we are also aware there has to be a balance between the two.

Q How do you think HR has evolved over time?

HR used to focus on transactional tasks – hiring people, administering their leave and benefits, etc. But today, people realise that human capital is exactly that – capital.

It needs to be optimised and grown.

Having the right people in the right place is just as critical as having the right strategy.

Companies that understand this naturally have higher retention and attraction rates. Therefore, a successful HR department must now look at the development of human capital, and how to help them meet their career aspirations.

It has gone beyond just offering competitive salaries.

As long as HR keeps doing this, and is aligned to the organisation’s vision and mission, it can tailor its strategies to suit the business.

Q In light of this, what are the key skills HR leaders should have today?

They must have the fundamentals in place, such as pegging market salary rates.

They must also understand the business and the role they have to play in driving the company forward. This will help them visualise what else is required to support the company’s vision.

Q Where do you think HR will go to in the next five to 10 years?

It depends on the individual. I know of bosses working within the HR industry who have gone on to become CEOs. I also have friends who have moved on to become HR consultants.

Most firms today recognise the importance of human capital, and their HR plays a very active role in shaping the strategy of the organisation. Overall, I feel HR will continue to play an integral role in shaping and driving the growth strategy of an organisation.

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FEATURE » Team Building

We all know the benefits of good teamwork and hence, the necessity of having team building programmes. However, implementing team building programmes in today’s fast-paced business environment is easier said than done. Follow these case studies from companies like Singapore Airlines and IKEA for an effective model of team building, revealed in interviews by Jerene Ang.

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Team Building « FEATURE

he scale of operations in businesses today often makes it necessary for people to work in teams, across geographies and functions. But according to a study by Dr Michael Housman and Dylan Minor, if productivity and profitability are what businesses are aiming for, merely working together is not good enough - it is also necessary that close bonds are fostered among employees.

In this feature, we’ve put together a guide to implementing effective team building programmes, and tips on choosing a provider.

Case 1: foodpanda Organisations with people and technology at

the core of everything they do need to actively promote an efficient and engaged workforce. at foodpanda, leaders do this by ensuring strong links are being formed between teams at different levels.

“When we focus on our people, it benefits all other aspects of our business. Th is has played a part in how we have managed to get our average delivery timings down to just 30 minutes, which was a key business goal for us,” says Madeeha Arain, head of people and talent acquisition at foodpanda, Singapore.

To achieve this, foodpanda focuses on three aspects – mental wellbeing, physical health, and rewards for hard work. Under wellbeing, it organises a series of regular team activities such as football games and gym passes to encourage health and wellness. It also hosts delivery rider barbecues at East Coast Park, which help connect riders with foodpanda employees, who might not frequently cross paths and could risk feeling disconnected. Often running late into the night, this ensures that everyone is able to enjoy the event, even after a late delivery shift.

For rewards, foodpanda holds weekly Tasty Thursdays, which allow employees to order from their favourite vendors straight to the office for free. The company also holds a weekly “Beer O’Clock” unwind session on Friday.

All new programmes have their challenges – for foodpanda, these lay in measuring the effectiveness of these programmes.

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FEATURE » Team Building organise these activities. Some activities are for fun, but others can play a bigger part in overall performance and identifying, systems and skills that need to be developed,” Arain says.

Foodpanda plans to use gap analysis to prioritise the objectives of its team building activities, as well as plans to survey employees on the perceived effectiveness of programmes.

functions, geographies and time zones. It also required a great deal of collaboration and communication. We overcame the barriers through constant dialogue, a disciplined approach to timelines and teamwork.”

By effectively directing the team’s efforts, the company gained higher data accuracy, became more cost efficient and reduced time and effort.

Case 2: Grey Group

Case 3: IKEA

To produce “famously effective” work, employees at Grey are always working in teams – whether it is the huddles over Friday breakfasts or the Monday morning new pitch briefi ngs. Even the company’s breakout areas are designed to be conducive to idea sharing.

“Being a large, diverse and global organisation, we have a strong need for team building as it encourages open communication.

Th is improves working relationships and in turn, the quality of work,” says Rumki Fernandes, regional director of talent and HR at Grey Group Asia Pacific.

With togetherness as an integral value of the IKEA culture, IKEA uses a co-worker welfare budget for barious formal and informal team building activities, such as department/ management outings (up to three times a year), social days and family day outings, learning and development activities as well as business plan kick-off meetings which include a fun activity for employees to get to know each other.

These programmes fall under the general co-worker welfare framework, owned by the rewards team in HR. It becomes the responsibility for the management of each business unit to integrate into their teams.

“A happy, friendly and cohesive workforce naturally translates to better business results and customer experience on the sales floor,” says Lydia Song, HR director for IKEA Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

The most recent addition to these activities was the social day outing by the sustainability team, that brought together co-workers for causes such as building furniture for an orphanage and cleaning up coastal areas.

Since these activities are generally appreciated by the management, the challenge lies more in getting everyone together at the same time due to the nature of the retail business environment. To allow every employee to have a chance to attend the event, IKEA tries to work around the business operations and at times, splits the outings into two sessions.

As a result of these programmes, staff are happier, operations are smoother and there is less miscommunication, along with better sales, happier customers and lower staff turnover. To quantify employees’ satisfaction, IKEA uses an annual VOICE survey. More informally, it looks at things like the number of smiling faces, and how often staff go for lunch together.

“When we focus on our people, it benefits all other aspects of our business. This has played a part in how we have managed to get our average delivery time down to just 30 minutes, which was a key business goal for us.”

– Madeeha Arain, head of people and talent acquisition at foodpanda, Singapore

Emerging from a business need of clearer processes and more data accuracy, Grey Group implemented a global identity management tool that helps to reduce manual intervention, develops clearer processes, facilitates communication and provides an audit trail.

Th is was led and owned by Grey’s head office in New York, but requiring a great amount of collaboration from stakeholders such as senior management from across business groups, video conferencing and face-to-face meetings.

“It was a huge team building exercise that involved people from different offices, functions and regions to work collaboratively as a single unit,” Fernandes says. “Working on the programme was challenging as it involved inputs from people belonging to diverse

Case 4: SCIEX “Team building to us is more than just an activity. It is an overall look into everything

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Team Building « FEATURE employees do - including things built into the employee’s performance and into the company’s objectives,” says Lim Teng Teng, regional director of HR at SCIEX. SCIEX holds an annual kick-off meeting by region – China, Japan, India and the rest of Asia which includes Singapore and Malaysia – to bring employees together, and set the direction for the year. “We also hear from the employees about the queries they have,” Lim says.

The kick-off meeting includes a number of team building activities, wherein its behavioural competency programme called the Leadership Anchors was rolled out. Other than that, SCIEX holds a quarterly all-hands meeting, both physicaly or virtually, during which other than the usual business updates, some countries will have half a day of team building exercises either on-site or off-site.

To ensure that teamwork continues thereafter, SCIEX sets individual, department as well as company objectives. Additionally, incentives such as bonuses are measured on company goals on top of the individual goals.

To avoid the challenge of low participation rates, most activities are held during office hours. However, Lim notes, planning in advance is very important, and one must notify employees at least a few weeks in advance.

Since employees fi nd the events truly benefit them, in ways like understanding the business direction, they become more willing to attend.

“Then, even when we have the events out of office hours (for example, our regional service meeting is on Sunday), because of all the positive feedback they have heard, employees are willing to attend them,” Lim says.

To SCIEX, a good way of measuring the success of these events is through employee engagement surveys. For example, the manufacturing plant in Singapore saw a doubledigit improvement in the engagement survey.

Case 5: Singapore Airlines “The emphasis of team building in our company

is evident as all employees are encouraged to exemplify it from the moment they join us,” says Casey Ow Yong, VP of talent management and development at Singapore Airlines (SIA).

The company believes that success in service delivery is very much a result of effective communication and smooth co-ordination across functional areas. Hence, SIA has embedded the team building element in many of its learning and development programmes, its flagship programme being FUS3ION. FUS3ION has been designed to enhance and promote integrated safety, security and service excellence (denoted by the “3” in FUS3ION), for staff from the airline’s four key operational areas – technical crew (pilots), cabin crew, ground services and engineering. It is managed

by SIA’s HR team’s corporate learning centre which works closely with the programme facilitators from each of the four operational units who will roster or schedule staff from their respective areas for each run. It aims to develop participants to be members of highperforming, cross-functional teams who share common goals and accept each other as internal customers deserving of a high level of service.

Participants become champions of FUS3ION and propagate the message among colleagues.

“Th rough FUS3ION, we hope to bridge the invisible barriers that might hamper effective cross-functional co-operation in any situation,” Ow Yong says.

The technical and cabin crew are rostered to attend, while staff from the other two operational areas are scheduled to attend as part of their annual training plan. One of the operational areas will also have their senior VP participating in the programme through hosting dialogue and interaction sessions to show the value the company places on this programme.

No programme is without its challenges. For FUS3ION, it was to get staff out of their “comfort zones” to share the challenges they face with one another. To overcome this and encourage staff to contribute in the discussions, SIA places

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FEATURE » Team Building an emphasis on the sharing of past success stories as well as some ice-breaker activities and role plays to improve communication.

As a result of FUS3ION, SIA’s employees have a deeper appreciation of the responsibilities and challenges faced by their colleagues in other operational areas, resulting in them working better as a team to manage situations.

“A happy, friendly and cohesive workforce naturally translates to better business results and customer experience on the sales floor.”

– Lydia Song, human resource director for IKEA Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand

“We have received consistent high ratings and favourable feedback from the participants.

Success stories and learning points are often used as case studies in the programme itself to enhance learning,” Ow Yong says.

Implement your team building strategy 1. Hold activities during office hours. Th is is especially for organisations that are just starting to roll out team building activities.

Holding them during office hours will give employees less reasons not to attend, increasing the participation rate. Once employees see the usefulness, timing is less likely to be a reason to not attend.

2. Stretch out the duration of social gatherings such as barbecues. Th is is especially for organisations in the retail or service sectors where shift work is common and it is difficult for front line employees to leave their positions without affecting business operations. By stretching out the duration, employees will be able to attend before or after their shifts.

3. Remember to build teamwork into the company culture. One-off events are easily forgotten. Hence, the best way to encourage better teamwork is to build it into the daily activities around the workplace.

Tips on how to choose a good vendor Most of the team building examples shared here have been implemented in-house, but there’s always the option to outsource the planning and implementing to a team building provider. For

this, we spoke to Alex Blyth, founder and MD of MegaAdventure, for some tips on choosing a good team building provider.

Before selecting a team building provider, it is recommended HR leaders have a clear goal of what the organisation is trying to achieve.

“The better you can defi ne and articulate your needs as an organisation, the more likely you are to identify the right supplier,” he says.

“The more basic your needs, the easier the task.”

For organisations that are just looking for a half day or day of bonding fun, here are three things to look out for when sourcing a provider: 1. The resources of the team building company. Where does the team builder operate? What activities do they suggest?

Who will deliver the programme? Can they accommodate your numbers and needs?

2. How efficiently is your initial enquiry responded to? Are they efficient? Are they personable? Do they respond to your needs in the way that you would like your team to respond to the needs of your clients? Do you feel a good chemistry? Can they adjust their programme to accommodate your needs?

3. The proof is in the experience. Before reaching a decision, check out the experience of other organisations who have used their services. Any team builder worth their salt will have a long list of happy customers who have enjoyed working with them, and they should be keen to share those contact details with you. In addition, ask your friends in other companies who they used and what they thought of them.

Should the organisation have more complex team building needs, the abilities of providers can be quickly assessed by asking them more penetrating questions.

“Your investment in a programme is likely to be substantial, so ask the provider to visit you.

Give them a detailed brief on the issues that your team encounter and need to solve, and ask them how they would approach the problem,” Blyth says.

“Beyond an understanding of your needs, they will need to know how much time and money you are prepared to invest, and most importantly, what the most accurate and meaningful measure of a successful outcome is for you. You can then map out the project journey and fi nal objectives, with both parties clear on mutual expectations.”

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SPONSORED RECRUIT ADVICE HOW TO THIS ARTICLE WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY MEGA ADVENTURE

TURNING PROCESS INTO BEHAVIOUR Along with mnemonics, the military is a big believer in “experiential learning”, or learning by doing. And for very good reason. Young leaders are expected to make tough decisions that have serious consequences on lives and property. What is key is not so much the task or challenge that you set for the individual or the team, but the process that needs to be followed to achieve the objective.

That process is one that can be applied just as effectively in conducting business as it can be on the battlefield or in the sports arena. The whole purpose of investing in a team development programme is to encourage certain behaviour until it becomes natural and can be applied automatically to any situation.

It follows a very simple and natural path: ADCERR – assess a situation. Make a decision. Communicate your intentions. Execute the plan. Reflect through feedback.

Repeat the task.

It sounds simple doesn’t it? But like all things, it is in the regular practise of the process that your chances of success multiply.

So whether you need to get a team of people across an imaginary canyon using a limited supply of poles and rope, or whether you need to mount a marketing campaign, sell widgets, organise an event or execute a trade, the way you approach the problem will dictate your chances of success.

When a task is set, the leader is presented with a situation and a desired outcome. The leader’s first response should be to conduct an appreciation, in which he or she assesses the alternative ways to approach the problem. Leaders should ask themselves the question “what if?” again and again.

“What would be the outcome if I was to do this”?

“And what, if having done that, was such and such to happen?”

Different scenarios are pursued to their natural conclusion, outcomes compared and a decision taken on which approach is most appropriate.

Extra pressure can be applied by imposing deadlines on the process. This encourages swift and decisive decision-making.

The most vital part of the process follows this – communicating your intentions to your team. With 30 years of military and business experience under my belt, I can confidently say that nothing is more important than the art of effective communication both within an organisation and with those parties with whom you conduct business. Honest, clear, simple, regular and concise communication.

Again, it sounds like a no-brainer, but it is extraordinary how many teams and businesses find this a challenge, especially as they grow larger. It is at the heart and is the essence of all good business.

Communication remains key from start to finish. Not only in announcing your intentions before you set off, but during the execution of the project, of any size or duration. You must respond to change (and, as we know, conditions alter constantly – people, markets, resources and relationships) to maintain an all-informed team.

The only way to refine performance is to practise the process day in and day out so it penetrates the fabric and the DNA of the company.

Always try to interact face-to-face with people when communicating things of importance. If that is not possible, speak to them on the phone. In this modern age of email, for all its benefits, the mood and intent of the written word can often be subject to misinterpretation.

Besides these, there are two more vital components in developing your teams and which good facilitation will deliver. They are often forgotten in the unfocused aftermath of completing a project.

Upon conclusion of the task, reflecting on what was successful and what must be improved is essential. Otherwise much of the learning can be lost. Importantly, reflection is not about telling the team what it got right or wrong.

The key to facilitation is to ask the right questions and let the team look into its own performance and reach its own conclusions. Doing so allows you to develop their ability to analyse results and hone in on their leadership skills, as they do not expect that senior managers will necessarily dictate or intervene.

Finally, repeat the task with the necessary adjustments in order to really leverage on the feedback gained from the team. You may argue that giving a team the same task to do two or three times is pointless. On the contrary, doing so helps builds morale and self-esteem of the group as they see the immediate benefits of preparation, teamwork and familiarisation with a process.

In essence, ADCERR is the mnemonics to remember when training your teams and should be at the core of regular and experiential learning programmes.

Assess. Decide. Communicate. Execute. Reflect. Repeat.

This article is contributed by Alex Blyth CEO and founder of MegaAdventure

MegaAdventure delivers adventure to urban communities in a way that motivates people, encourages exploration, rewards and recognises achievement and drives personal growth. A core function of the business is delivering team building and corporate development programmes to brands across Southeast Asia.

For more information, visit www.megaadventure.com.sg or email to ab@megaadventure.com

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Companies today devote time, effort and money into corporate training, but such training can drive a competitive advantage only if done effectively.

That is why the Human Resources Excellence Awards 2015 lauded those ďŹ rms who have demonstated measurable results which prove the effectiveness of their learning campaigns. Akankasha Dewan reveals their award-winning initiatives.

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Corporate Training « FEATURE he 2015 Emerging Workforce Study commissioned by Spherion Staffi ng found that 77% of employers had put more training and career development opportunities in place in 2015 compared with 2014. But solely increasing the number of training sessions will be inadequate if bosses don’t adjust their learning priorities per today’s climate.

That is exactly what the winners and fi nalists of the Human Resources’ Excellence Awards (HREA) did, in the category of training, learning and development. We highlight the practices in their award-winning L&D initiatives.

Case 1: Unilever Asia Having been titled as the best training, learning and development team in Asia at HREA 2015, Unilever’s vision is to double the size of the company by 2020 while reducing its environmental impact and improving its social impact. To achieve this, Unilever’s HR strategy, defi ned as “winning with people”, was captured in the fi rm’s roadmap for the future – also known as “the compass”.

“The learning strategy of Unilever is about helping people to develop and grow to become the best versions of themselves. The best part is, everyone has access to learning opportunities, anytime, anywhere, and the senior leadership is leading by example,” says Tricia Duran, HR director, Unilever Asia.

Unilever’s L&D framework is fully integrated within its “Four Acres leadership curriculum”, the Unilever future leaders programme (UFLP) and the newly launched learning hub. Between Four Acres and UFLP, Unilever is developing a new generation of leaders who embrace the future with principles, purpose and direction in achieving an ambitious Compass vision, and continuously home-growing graduates into business leaders for the future.

Delivering in London and Singapore, Four Acres designs leadership development programmes to accelerate the development of high potentials (for all work levels) and to increase the exposure of fast-track employee “listers”. These are activated globally to ensure the highest quality is delivered in scale. In 2013, it delivered nearly 200 programme sessions touching almost 4,000 executives globally.

To ensure the inflow of the best “raw” talent, the company implemented the Unilever

future leaders programme (UFLP) across its offices, globally. Those selected to participate in the UFLP are known as Unilever future leaders.

Th is is a fast-tracked leadership development programme that balances the developmental rotations with real jobs and real responsibilities from day one. The trainees undergo a one-week induction programme and are quickly brought up to speed on business operations and are expected to quickly learn and deliver.

More recently, with the launch of its new learning hubsystem (available online or as an app for learning anytime, anywhere), the company is also enabling employees to take charge of their own development and career through more engaging learning experiences.

With more than 5,000 learning programmes available, development can be tailor-made into an employee’s learning preferences. In 2014 alone, 4000 employees in Southeast Asia and Australasia took training and leadership development programmes in Four Acres Singapore. Additionally, with the introduction of the new learning hub in June, the fi rm has since (as at 1 July) seen: 36,400 unique hits on the website; 18,400 users (49% returning visitors; 51% new visitors); 19,300 e-books downloaded; and 189 videos watched.

Additionally, with the introduction of the UFLP, there has been a natural change in mindsets to grow leaders from within Unilever.

All future leaders have access to mentors and line managers who provide them the necessary tools to flourish in the organisation. More recently, this has been formalised in the form of the trainee development group, which provides a network of committed functional mentors.

Under the programme, there were about 250 promotions globally of UFLPs into more senior managerial roles in 2014 and nearly 160 promotions (as at end of June) in 2015.

Case 2: ANZ Retail Bank Singapore Winning the bronze award in the category, ANZ Retail Bank Singapore’s (ARBS) vision is to be the best connected and most respected bank across the region.

While the retail banking business remains core to ANZ’s super regional strategy, the local business environment in which ARBS operates in is extremely regulated and competitive. First, there is stiff competition from the rise of “local” banks, the emergence of “regional” banks, as well as the established presence of “global January/February 2016 « Human Resources « 25

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FEATURE » Corporate Training

It takes a team: A critical success factor of an L&D initiative is strong endorsement by the management team.

banks”, not only for customers, but also for talent. Second, on the customer front, increased urbanisation and mobility have become a trend and customers are more comfortable having multiple banking relationships instead of being loyal to one. Asian customers are also becoming more fi nancially competent and technologically savvy, with access to a myriad fi nancial information and tools online.

Th ird, the bank is facing an ever tightening regulatory landscape in the retail banking industry post the global fi nancial crisis.

Th is growing consumer “protectionism” means increasing eligibility controls on the development and distribution of retail investment, insurance and credit products.

Such challenges demanded a robust learning system. “We at ANZ Retail banking Singapore encourage continuous learning as this is essential in today’s world. Th is allows our folks to see things with a wider lens and the result is our folks can be more productive and relevant to our customers,” says Philip Lim, ANZ’s head of retail banking in Singapore.

In a bid to cater to these needs, the retail academy was established in October 2013, reporting to business assurance, one of the seven major business units within ARBS. Its fi rst task was to establish quality standards around learning processes, policies and frameworks.

The next phase was to implement an intensive and relevant new hire training curriculum for each unit.

To minimise the time taken for a new hire to become productive, the retail academy partnered hiring managers along ANZ’s 7020-10 pedagogy. To ensure learners achieve a meaningful transfer of knowledge, skills and mindset, they must pass multiple-choice question assessments after each module.

A fi nal two-hour role-play accreditation assessment is conducted jointly by the assessor and line manager to ensure the employee is ready to serve the bank’s customers.

The last phase is to support the business with a suite of tailored learning interventions to elevate staff competencies along the levers of knowledge, business skills and mindset.

All these efforts to train employees certainly seemed to have paid off. One indicator of this was the ARBS 2015 employee engagement survey result last August, where Retail Banking Singapore scored 80% for overall employee engagement in 2015, up from 71% in 2014 and 62% in 2011.

The number of service-related training has grown in tandem with 23 new courses.

Using customer surveys as an indication of customer satisfaction, the bank has stayed ahead of its targets despite a more demanding clientele. “It comes as no surprise that Retail Banking Singapore has done well in terms of their staff engagement scores and positive business results, with their strong emphasis on employee development,” says John Augustine Ong, Singapore learning lead at ANZ. “A critical success factor is the visible leadership and strong endorsement of people development by their management team, which is evident through their presence during and co-facilitation of training workshops, coaching conversations with their team or giving time off for staff to attend the relevant programmes.”

Case 3: SATS With a staff strength of more than 15,000, SATS is Asia’s leading food solutions and gateway services company, with an annual turnover of about S$1.8 billion. As a large organisation, SATS, is heavily dependent on human resources to execute its business strategies. The company’s vision for the human capital (HC) department is to engage and develop employees in an open environment of learning and sharing, with managers who lead by example.

To deliver its HC strategy, SATS has established a people development system, comprising its learning principles, learning centre, training framework, learning roadmap, learning management system, and more.

An employee engagement survey was conducted in 2012, which identified two key areas that SATS needed to work on to ensure its continued success – strengthening the company

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Corporate Training « FEATURE identity, and enhancing communication. The senior management team thus concluded that employees’ sense of identity and belonging to the company needed to be enhanced, and leadership at all levels needed to be strengthened for a culture to be nurtured.

To strengthen leadership from the top, new programmes for leaders at critical turning points in their leadership development were implemented, called the SATS Connect Series. These aim to get SATS leaders to reevaluate their own leadership styles, in order to aim to achieve business goals that fulfi l SATS’ vision and mission. The series focuses on strengthening leadership by improving communication and bringing visibility to the brand identity, represented by the brand promise “passion to delight” and its core values.

Another prong was to nurture and inculcate in all employees an understanding of SATS’ core values and its related service standards.

Since 2013, the SATS Ambassador Programme has served to consistently heighten the awareness of the SATS philosophy among its employees, hence, building an esprit de corps.

The goal was for it to be a learning carnival.

To translate SATS’ core values to actionable behavioural statements and service standards, HC worked together with the company’s corporate communications department to study ways to help employees more easily understand and relate to the core values. A set of behavioural statements were established and endorsed by the senior management team.

The programme has certainly delivered in terms of the feedback and results. An engagement survey in November 2015 showed the overall engagement score for SATS had improved significantly – from 40% in 2012 to 72% in 2015. Looking specifically at the key drivers for engagement, the score for brand identity improved significantly from 37% in 2012 to 83% in 2015. The score for communication rose from 32% in 2012 to 76% (intra-department) and 61% (inter-department) in 2015. All of these have contributed to improvements of SATS’ overall engagement scores.

Case 4: SMRT The role of L&D at SMRT has evolved over the past few years, beyond the traditional delivery of training courses.

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FEATURE » Corporate Training To develop a competent and engaged workforce in an increasingly complex operating landscape, SMRT has been making significant investments in its L&D capabilities and plans.

It now takes a long-term view towards L&D – from the perspectives of both the company and its employees, and integrates its L&D and HR strategies into a coherent and mutually reinforcing one.

“More than conventional training courses, we create learning experiences that motivate and engage employees, and inspire them to a higher level of excellence.”

– Kang Huey Ling, principal of SMRT Institute

“More than conventional training courses, we create learning experiences that motivate and engage employees, and inspire them to a higher level of excellence,” says Kang Huey Ling, principal at SMRT Institute.

The challenges and changes in the operating landscape that SMRT faces are numerous and multi-faceted. These include the doubling of the rail network by 2030, heightened regulatory standards, increasing ridership and commuter expectations, alongside an ageing infrastructure and workforce.

To overcome these challenges, the fi rm took deliberate steps to grow and professionalise its railway workforce, especially in the domain of railway engineering.

One key L&D initiative towards achieving this was to establish strategic academiaindustry partnerships to grow and sustain the rail engineering workforce pipeline.

The fi rm has established Memorandums of Understanding and co-launched courses with academic institutions such as the Institute of Technical Education, Republic Polytechnic, Singapore Polytechnic, and Singapore Institute of Technology.

The parties work closely together to codesign the course curriculum, exchange instructional services, and create industrial attachment opportunities for students.

SMRT has also been enhancing the overall professional roadmaps and training programmes for employees.

In May 2015, the company launched the SMRT train engineer professionalisation (STEP) roadmap, which not only provides development opportunities for such staff to gain internationally recognised professional accreditation, but also grooms them to become well-rounded individuals.

SMRT has also made significant L&D progress and investments for its bus professionals, leveraging technology to enhance its L&D effectiveness.

In July 2015, SMRT launched its bus training and evaluation centre – Singapore’s fi rst teambased bus training centre.

Besides strengthening its L&D capabilities to develop staff ’s functional competencies, SMRT also bolstered its L&D capabilities to develop staff ’s leadership competencies and facilitate a company wide culture revolution.

To re-engage its staff and rebuild trust with the public and other stakeholders in the aftermath of the 2011 rail disruptions and 2012 illegal bus strike, SMRT embarked on a “service excellence” campaign to inspire and achieve higher service quality.

Key to this culture-shaping campaign was SMRT’s service excellence training programme, which was co-developed by SMRT, NTUC Learning Hub and Disney Institute, and attended by all SMRT employees.

Service excellence and other SMRT core values were further weaved into its other L&D programmes to reinforce key messages and catalyse the culture change.

The staff ’s leadership development roadmap and programmes were also refreshed to develop leaders with the agility and leadership competencies to transform and grow SMRT in the new operating landscape.

As a result of these initiatives, the company’s headcount grew by 30% despite a tight labour market. In addition, voluntary attrition rates halved to reach a low of 5.5% in 2015.

Employee engagement scores are currently at best-in-class levels, with nine in 10 staff being proud to serve in SMRT, and 86% of staff being sustainably engaged – a noteworthy increase from 82% in 2013, placing the company way above the Singapore norm of 80%.

Moving forward, the company will build upon its strong learning and development foundation to groom Singapore’s rail and bus professionals so as to enhance reliability and the commuters’ travel experience.

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OPINION » Learning & development

Inspiring disruptive innovation among 3M’s talent REGINA KOH Head of human resources 3M Singapore

Find out how 3M’s globalised leaders 2x2x2 initiative lets staff acquire diverse perspectives.

The science of innovation: When it comes to the crunch, would we rather disrupt ourselves than be disrupted by others?

It is said that change is the only thing that is constant.

Operating in a global business environment that is increasingly volatile and competitive is not easy for a company like 3M, whose core products and technologies are based on science and are subject to a period of discovery, development and regulatory approval.

Yet, the pressure and need to keep moving and innovating is ever present. So how should we effectively balance the two?

I feel that a science-based company’s success relies on its ability to identify, develop and leverage on its employees’ competencies. Having people who can “think out of the box” becomes especially important in an environment where the frequency of disruptive technologies is increasing.

When it comes to the crunch, would we rather disrupt ourselves than be disrupted by others?

Staying ahead, with people 3M’s talent management programmes help the company stay ahead of disruptive innovations by promoting a mutual understanding between departments and minimising silothinking. This in turn strengthens the already collaborative company culture within its global pool of 90,000 employees.

Through this, 3M can successfully energise and integrate across functions and businesses, while nurturing staff who may grow into future 3M leaders.

3M Singapore, with its 1,700 staff, is not just a country office. It houses two manufacturing plants, R&D operations, and includes regional operations in supply chain, business, etc. This means there are many areas where talented employees could make a real difference to the business, locally and regionally.

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Learning & development « OPINION

Our employee development strategies are designed to create value for customers and shareholders today, all the while driving business transformation in accordance to our five-year company strategic plan.

While employees are, at the end of the day, in charge of their own careers, companies can adopt policies to expose employees to different functions of the business and keep their portfolios varied.

A fresh perspective leads to fresh ideas and that is one of the reasons why 3M has managed to create more than 55,000 innovative products.

At 3M, employees are among the company’s greatest assets. From HR’s perspective, the goal is to maintain a diverse talent pool, hence, maintaining the innovative lifeblood of 3M. Broadly, these are our globalised leaders initiative and the 3M leadership way.

Globalised leaders initiative (2x2x2) Referred within the company as “globalised leaders 2x2x2”, the globalised leaders initiative allows employees to gain exposure in different functions, businesses and geographies, and enables them to acquire diverse skill sets and experiences.

The “2” means the possibility for employees to gain experience in two businesses, two functions and two geographies. 3M has five business groups: consumer, electronics and energy, healthcare, industrial and safety and graphics.

As for functions and geographies, 3M is like any typical MNC. Thus with the globalised leaders initiative, 3Mers have a playing field of many jobs open to them.

Tapping on their previous experiences, employees in the globalised leaders initiative will cast a fresh eye at customer challenges from a different perspective.

Likewise, they will also be more likely to combine different 3M solutions across businesses and/or functions to create more diversified and innovative solutions for the company’s customers.

Since its implementation in 2012, nearly 100 employees at 3M Singapore have undertaken interesting career choices and switches. Financial consultants became marketers, R&D staff converted to marketing managers, and some even switched career fields twice – from marketers to business managers to HR business partners.

From the perspective of the employees, it keeps their working life fresh and appropriately challenging.

For the company, it has enabled a rethink of human resourcing – matching new applicant skill sets with the needs of the different business divisions.

It also comes with the additional business benefit of a shorter onboarding time, faster assimilation of 3M’s expected behaviours such as collaboration – a key success ingredient of the science-based company – as well as retention of talent.

“Likewise, they will also be more likely to combine different 3M solutions across businesses and/ or functions to create more diversified and innovative solutions for the company’s customers.”

The 3M leadership way The newly launched 3M “leadership way” heralds a new approach in the way we develop talent. For the first time, 3M HR has created a unified approach to identify and develop leadership talent across our five business groups, functions and areas.

The approach is focused on high-potential employees at all levels. The aim is to accelerate development of these individuals to ensure their readiness for future leadership roles and assignments.

Our ultimate goal is to cultivate a large, diverse and international pool of top talent within 3M, and create the playing field to unleash their full potential – adding value to the company, key customers and the world we live in.

The high potentials that we identify exist at every level, not just managerial. The core training content includes business and financial acumen, coaching others, diversity and inclusion, code of conduct, and the desired leadership behaviours of 3M. In addition to the core curriculum, the HR department also works with relevant supervisors to craft customised training elements that focus on the specific needs of high potentials at each level to accelerate their development.

Once brought into the 3M leadership way training programme, a participant can expect to embark on a six to nine month-long personalised training journey.

Conducted by a mix of internal and external trainers, the 3M leadership way adopts a blended learning approach through a series of events. These include self-discovery, face-to-face experiential learning as well as virtual learning.

Conclusion Over time through our consistent talent development effort, 3M has been widely recognised across the business landscape as a leading employer and people developer.

But what gives me the most satisfaction is when I hear about a fellow 3Mer who successfully innovates or facilitates the creation of a new solution for our customers – because HR has then directly benefited 3M’s business and beyond.

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OPINION » People issues

How this HR team got a 15% social engagement rate

A guide to making a “dull and monotonous” sector exciting for young talent through social media.

RICHARD LAU Senior VP and head of integrated recruitment administration / group marketing and corporate communications Certis CISCO Security

Click to like: One of the contests received an overwhelming response of 552 comments, 11 shares, and a 17.81% engagement rate among the public.

As an established name in Singapore’s security industry, one of the key challenges Certis CISCO faces is in attracting and retaining young talent (aged 18-35) for a sector which is made up of a mature workforce and is perceived to be dull and monotonous.

Ever since we started our social media platforms, we have made a concerted effort to bring our employer branding – growth, excitement and stability – out into this space.

Despite the challenges, I am pleased that we have devised and innovated digital media strategies that resonate with our target audience – young people from 18 to 35.

Knowing this group of potential candidates are typically digitally savvy, our team decided that going digital would be the best way to reach out to them. Hence, we embarked on a digital media initiative with the objective of improving the public image of auxiliary police officers, recruiting and retaining talent and, at the same time, to promote our Certis CISCO employer brand.

With two key messages in mind – “Auxiliary police officers enjoy a rewarding career with Certis CISCO – with good career exposure, career path and work-life balance”, and “Join us, and embark on an exciting and meaningful career with Certis CISCO as an auxiliary police officer” – we employed a three-pronged approach to engage our more than 30,000 employees worldwide.

We developed three campaigns: “Inspire me” (to improve the industry’s perception); “Certis world of opportunities” (to drive recruitment); and “Winning hearts and minds” (to boost retention rates and enhance employer branding).

Our team at Certis CISCO took various elements into consideration before implementing these strategies. These included expanding the reach of our efforts, managing negative

comments, shortening the response time to fans’ comments, and keeping the content engaging and up to date on social media.

Though the process was tough, we were pleased that our efforts paid off when our various online pages, contents, and posts saw a spike in impressions and engagement. For example, the posts on Certis CISCO’s Facebook page saw a total engagement of 15% in 2014, meaning that an estimated 49,200 users would have clicked on it or shared a story about it.

Besides that, we also noted an active participation in our social media activities, including users commenting and sharing posts with their Facebook friends.

One of our most notable contests was the fun “Guess the World Cup winner”, in which the company gave out $500 worth of Sportslink vouchers to five winners who successfully predicted the World Cup winner. For this competition, we received an overwhelming response of 552 comments, 11 shares, and a 17.81% engagement rate among the public.

Apart from the spike in engagement levels, we were honoured that our initiative stood out to the judges in helping us win at the Asia Recruitment Awards for the Best Use of Digital Media (in-house) category.

Over the years, our social media platforms have grown from zero to become something that engages more than 10,000 of our staff, their family members and members of the public.

We also have an excellent in-house marketing team that is able to think out of the box and come up with fabulous content consistently throughout the year.

With all these efforts, we hope to hire aspiring talent as well as retain dedicated employees who have contributed to the success of the company.

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OPINION » Upwardly mobile

How openness and simplicity drive Facebook’s policies ERIKO TALLEY Head of human resources, APAC, Facebook

Forget perks. “Fuel” moments and a “hack” culture is what makes this tech giant a truly caring employer.

• •

•

Comfort for all: Facebook’s policies are set around looking after its employees.

Be bold like ginger. Dimmer than sugar cane. Wind

blow water rise. Visitors to our Hong Kong office may be forgiven for doing a double-take when they chance upon these delightfully colloquial names on our meeting room doors, coined by our local employees from popular Cantonese sayings.

Our offices worldwide are designed to reflect our founding ethos and core values of openness, simplicity and cultural connection, bringing to life Facebook’s mission to make the world more open and connected. We seek to instil the same in other facets of the workplace – such as through our unique approach to talent development, which includes initiatives such as “fuel” moments, work-life integration and our hack culture.

Fuel moments “Fuel” is our workplace concept to empower people to achieve extraordinary results, develop their careers and lead full lives. It is built across three pillars: employees, managers and Facebook itself, and here are some examples of how it works: • Challenging employees to stay healthy with the Health@ Challenge and encouraging them to incorporate exercise and wellness into their daily activities.

• Having a flexible work schedule allows employees to adjust their days according to their personal priorities. For example, one of our business leaders comes to work very early so he can be home late afternoon to help the children with their homework and enjoy dinner with the family.

• Helping managers build greater self-awareness so they can pivot career conversations to “whole life check-ins”.

• Creating time with their families when employees travel for work. For example, some mothers bring their children,

spouses and even parents with them on business trips at their own expense. This makes being away from home easier, while allowing them to squeeze in a family holiday.

Inviting family to the office on special days such as “Bring your family to work day” and for casual drop-ins.

Providing additional amenities in the office such as TVs and entertainment gaming consoles, which allow employees to watch their favourite events such as the US Open or World Cup, or take breaks between meetings.

Efficient work tools such as simplified expense reporting and a “calendar fuel” to help employees track their use of time.

Work-life flexibility We are not a believer in work-life balance because “balance” means constantly trying to prioritise each side. Instead, we emulate the same level of innovation as our products into building a culture that redefines the way work gets done.

The goal of work-life flexibility is simple: to make life easier for our employees so they can focus on their work by allowing flexibility, while expecting greater ownership of their work.

Quirky meeting room names aside, our offices are set around tasks instead of desks, and we create an environment that is comfortable and inspiring for all: • Our open kitchen is stocked with a wide range of complimentary food and beverages, which have been voted for or requested by our own employees.

• A significant portion of our offices is devoted to our chill-out lounges, where professional endeavours blend with personal passions, reflected in stimulating book shelves and games.

• Our “write something wall” captures messages to reflect the office’s diverse fabric, making a simple yet powerful statement that everyone is welcome and valued.

• All around our offices, we also have inspirational posters such as “people not pixels”, and “nothing at Facebook is somebody else’s problem”.

Hack culture “The hacker way” is our unique culture and management approach at Facebook. Hacking has an unfairly negative connotation in popular culture, but in reality it just means building something quickly or pushing the boundaries for positive change.

Facebook is a strong believer in continuously building and improving itself and the world, which is what powers our “hack culture”, where employees regularly gather to “hack” problems and create new ideas. In fact, some of our new product innovations have come from such “hackathons”. We believe that things can always be better and nothing is ever complete.

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CAREERS » Personal development

uptheranks Tracking HR’s industry moves Who: Stacy Green From: A+E Networks To: A+E Networks A+E Networks has announced the promotion of Stacy Green from senior vice-president of HR to executive vicepresident of global HR and facilities.

In her new role, Green will continue being an integral member of the company’s leadership team, ensuring the focus of the teams across the world is on culture and people, which will be reflected in the employees’ work environment.

“Stacy has done an incredible job leading her team and has worked tirelessly to reimagine human resources as a proactive and strategic company resource designed to recruit, inspire, engage and retain the most talented people in the world,” said Nancy Dubuc, president and CEO of A+E Networks.

Green has more than 20 years of business experience. Before joining A+E Networks, she was the vice-president of HR and advertising sales at NBCUniversal.

Who: Yeoh Sai Yew From: AirAsia To: AirAsia X AirAsia’s Yeoh Sai Yew has moved up the ranks from his previous role as group head of rewards for AirAsia to become the head of the people department for AirAsia X. The new position was effective from 1 January, 2016, and Yeoh will continue to be based in Malaysia.

Speaking to Human Resources, he confirmed he would manage the overall HR function for AirAsia X in this position, and his current priority was to “re-look into staff productivity to ensure optimum output”.

He added that another agenda item was “to map and maintain the talent profile, especially for the top management”.

Commenting on the overall HR scenario in Malaysia, he explained competition for the most talented members of the workforce remained the key people challenge.

personalgrowth THREE WAYS TO MAKE YOUR TIME COUNT MORE IN 2016 A new year typically heralds new resolutions that we all promise to keep, but lose sight of midway through the year – if we are lucky to last that long. Will you have better luck with yours, asks Aditi Sharma Kalra.

This year my resolution is to make better use of my time at work – devote hours to what’s most important to me and my team, and worry less about putting in facetime to projects that will not maximise the greater good.

A recent study by Bain & Company showed top executives currently spend the equivalent of two days each week to meetings with co-workers.

While that may sound reasonable if the collaboration proves its worth, the same study found managers today spend hours sifting through the average 30,000 external pieces of communication they receive yearly, up from just 1,000 in the 1970s, but without good results.

Greg Caimi, partner and co-author of the time management study, said something that resonated with me: “If time really was money, and accounted for in the same way, many companies would be running huge deficits.”

And that’s what got me thinking. While everyone faces a daunting checklist daily, there are ways to squeeze in time for self-development if you’ve got the inclination.

Here’s what I’ve tried so far: 1. Go out, meet your business connections: Hiding behind the digital screen is a habit we’re all too used to, but how about putting a face to that name? A quick coffee with an industry peer whose work you’ve long admired might just give you that fresh idea you’ve been looking for – for your own next project.

2. Teach someone something you’re good at: In the 2000 movie Pay It Forward, Haley Joel Osment’s character tried to make the world a better place by starting a chain of good deeds.

In our roles, learning is one of the best deeds we can do. If you’re good at

3.

something, go ahead and share your skill with a willing learner – whether it’s a neat new spreadsheet you’ve created to track productivity, or even something like my colleague’s helpful sharing of Singlish words to pepper my daily conversations (thanks for the daily lesson, AK!).

Make reading a habit: If you, like me, lost touch with reading the minute smartphones came along, then it’s a good time to rebuild the habit, given that Mark Zuckerberg just successfully completed his 2015 resolution of reading one book every two weeks. First step is to identify what you enjoy reading about, and then find the best time and way to do it – 15 minutes of Harry Potter on your MRT ride on a tablet, or catching up with the daily HR news at humanresourcesonline.net after dinner (shameless plug, I know).

The result? The in-depth perspectives and examples I get from reading more not only make my conversations more fun, but also helps me strengthen my resolve against unnecessary distractions.

Would love to hear your tips and tricks of managing time. Here’s to a productive 2016.

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Good reads re to improve your business life

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Jeff Wolf with Ken Shelton Wiley S$ 31.60

With today’s massively pressured business environments leaving leaders little or no time to hone their leadership skills, this insightful book takes leaders through the full process, step by step, with succinct and descriptive steps to make the process easier.

Each element of the process is peppered with real-life examples, and a guide and practice application at the end of each chapter to help coach leaders through the journey.

What makes some leaders so much more effective than others? It’s a question that has plagued aspiring managers and leaders for decades, and author Jeff Wolf has based his response on his 14 years of experience in coaching and training leaders at all levels and in all types of industries.

The result? Seven disciplines and 11 practices that have enabled leaders that he has coached transition from being good to great performers.

Bookmark this!

Start by setting aside some time to think about your and others’ feelings, as well as how you respond to others. Most leaders fail to develop this understanding, as it requires them to be completely honest with themselves and to explore alternative behaviours and reactions.

Simply acknowledging your need to increase self-awareness will help you to become more self-aware, and you’ll tune into your subconscious thoughts. - page 99

Seven Disciplines of a Leader

Each workplace has its share of autocratic lions, peace-loving elephants, nonchalant chimpanzees, eager beavers, and singletracked eagles.

So how can this circus perform at its optimum?

That requires a game changer to enter the arena, says author Jean-François Cousin. He has written this book in two parts, the first of which tells a fable, while the second is a leadership workbook.

In his conversations with CEOs and cross-cultural leadership teams, executive coach Cousin realised that often leaders and their teams were just a couple of steps away from reaching far greater outcomes.

In response, he identified precisely which further steps they needed to take to change their game and contribute their best performance, and how they could take those steps – thus becoming game changers.

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Athena let him gaze at the painting. Yang’s hardened posture sagged a little and his fierce eyes softened slightly as he looked at his lionesses and cubs.

After a long silence, Yang spoke in a rough voice, “You have to understand... I hold on to my power as long as I look invulnerable.

And I do since I won my lionesses from the old king. That day I killed all his cubs, so it would be quicker for the females to give me my cubs.” He let out a rueful chuckle.

“Over time, invulnerability thickens your skin. - page 27

Photography: Fauzie Rasid

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SENIOR APPOINTMENTS

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LAST WORD

This year, don’t be guilty of turning your employees biggest strengths into their weaknesses, says Akankasha Dewan.

“When an overqualified candidate applies for a job, bosses get nervous.” positive view of themselves and perform better.

As a result, they exhibit more of the desired organisational citizenship behaviours, such as interpersonal compatibility and enthusiasm.

With such benefits in store, it is essential for employers to overcome their own nervousness and reluctance and go ahead and hire such staff.

That is why my assumption about my colleagues, especially subordinates, being smarter than me is useful – it forces me to seek to manage expectations and negotiations above all else.

Communicating with staff clearly about the learning opportunities and benefits the job or task at hand is expected to bring, and the compensation they can expect to receive, limits the possibility of any future disappointments.

Additionally, it forces me to demonstrate genuine interest in employees’ work, especially if their methods are difficult to understand. I end up being curious about how or why they do things a certain way and have, in so many instances, asked them to retrace their steps in order to learn more about their process.

Additionally, if an employee does ask a difficult question, I am compelled initially to show competence and knowledge from my prior experiences at work.

Essentially, managing employees who are smarter than me inspires me to review my own management process – making it a win-win situation for all.

Have you ever stepped up, and embraced the opportunity to manage employees smarter than you? Why or why not? Write to me at the e-mail address below. akankashad@humanresourcesonline.net

Photography: Stefanus Elliot Lee using Nikon D810 – www.elliotly.com; Makeup & Hair: Michmakeover using Make Up For Ever & hair using Sebastian Professional – www.michmakeover.com

Why I love managing staff smarter than me

This year, I’m going to take a leap of faith and assume everyone around me at work is smarter than I am. As implausible as it sounds (I mean seriously, this is me we’re talking about here), there’s a couple of reasons for doing so.

The first one is pretty simple – to constantly motivate myself to learn more, know more and do more. The last thing any professional needs is to become conceited and assume he or she knows all the best and possible ways of doing their job.

The second one is more pragmatic. In today’s drastically evolving global and multi-generational business landscape, it’s always possible to encounter a situation where you are able to work for or with someone who is smarter than you – be it in terms of skills, academic qualification or even life experience.

By assuming these colleagues know more than I do, I’m not displaying any form of insecurity about my own strengths, rather doing it in order to inspire myself to learn from the strengths of others.

But it’s a different thing altogether when I don’t have to work under or with a smarter colleague – but rather manage one.

The reason here is, again, simple.

When a candidate with a flawless track record applies for a job he or she is clearly overqualified for, employers become nervous.

First, they feel that such staff won’t be happy working for a manager with less experience than them. They fear these individuals will become bored in their positions as they won’t have as many new skills to learn or leave as soon as they find a better opportunity. Employers also fear these job seekers might expect a higher salary or lack genuine interest in the company.

But as studies have repeatedly shown, hiring smarter candidates is, in fact, beneficial for companies and managers alike.

It has been proven that overqualified staff do, in fact, demonstrate higher levels of performance not just in their role, but in terms of discretionary efforts of going above and beyond what the job description states.

This is mainly because when over qualification becomes a norm rather than the exception within a team, the overqualified employees have a more

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