Human Resources Director Singapore 3.02

HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR HRDMAG.COM.SG ISSUE 3.02

BREAKING THROUGH Asia’s Top HR Teams

STEERING A BEHEMOTH Johnson & Johnson's global CHRO profiled

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GUT INSTINCT OR ALGORITHMS? HR’s delicate balancing act

HIRING FOR THE ‘MARZIPAN LAYER’ Talent mapping in focus

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ISSUE 3.02

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CONTENTS

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UPFRONT 02 Editorial

Why machine learning should be embraced – with some provisos

04 Statistics

Why trust in business matters

06 News analysis

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HR has been urged to drop its reliance on ‘gut feel’, but can algorithms beat instinct?

FEATURES

08 Upfront: Technology update

The business world has changed.

Has your recognition program kept pace?

How to get your CEO to invest in HR tech

MOVING WITH THE TIMES

10 Upfront: L&D update

How a growth mindset can enhance business performance

12 Head to head

What role does HR play in fostering a culture of innovation?

13 Opinion

Re-engaging employees who have ‘checked out’ isn’t effortless, write Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick, but can be well worth it

PEOPLE 54 Career path

With an appetite for transformation and an international perspective, Ilja Rijnen has long been an agent of change

38 FEATURES

RECRUITING FOR THE ‘MARZIPAN LAYER’

Smart organisations are moving away from a reactive approach to executive hiring to one that is far more strategic

56 Other life

HR consultant Amanda Prenty is seeing the world from the seat of a bike

50 FEATURES

HRDMAG.COM.SG CHECK IT OUT ONLINE

SWITCHING (CAREER) GEARS

The MBA remains the shining jewel of postgraduate study – here’s what you need to know

18 COVER STORY

ASIA’S TOP HR TEAMS

Want to lead the pack? It may be innovation that sets you apart. In HRD’s annual Top HR Teams list, we highlight Asia’s most innovative HR practices PEOPLE

GUIDED BY A CREDO

HRD chats to Johnson & Johnson’s global CHRO about how big data is helping to debunk myths and why the company’s credo remains its North Star

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UPFRONT

EDITORIAL www.hrdmag.com.sg

THE MACHINE THAT LEARNS

T

he concept of machine learning sounds like something out of science fiction. When I hear those words my brain jumps to machines like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey or the Terminator in James Cameron’s film series. The reality, of course, is not quite as dramatic or sinister. Machine learning is a method of data analysis that automates analytical model building. Using algorithms that iteratively learn from data, machine learning allows computers to find hidden insights without being explicitly programmed to do so.

All of the technology that is currently providing HR with data analysis could be considered part of the machine learning phenomenon.

The more information these machines gather, the more they learn, which in turn helps to hone the decisions that are made. However, rather like a ‘choose your own adventure’ novel for kids, different data inputs can produce different outcomes – and it’s those inputs that are a possible red flag for HR practitioners.

Any time humans are involved in decision-making there is inherent bias

Machine learning allows computers to find hidden insights without being explicitly programmed to do so involved, and selecting the data points that go into the machine will invariably involve human input.

As our News Analysis on page 6 reveals, while HR data insights are certainly adding to HR’s standing in business, the human input that remains also needs to be considered.

Given this issue’s cover story, it’s highly appropriate that future what-if scenarios are being referenced. The HR practitioners featured in our Top HR Teams list are pushing the boundaries of HR processes and strategies.

Companies that thrive in the future will embrace innovation – and those on this year’s list are doing so already.

Iain Hopkins, editor

ISSUE 3.02 EDITORIAL

SALES & MARKETING

Editor Iain Hopkins

Marketing & Communications Manager Lisa Narroway

Journalists Hannah Go Paolo Taruc Production Editors Roslyn Meredith Bruce Pitchers

ART & PRODUCTION Design Manager Daniel Williams Designer Marla Morelos Traffic Coordinator Freya Demegilio

Commercial Manager - Asia Gareth Scott

CORPORATE Chief Executive Officer Mike Shipley Chief Operating Officer George Walmsley Managing Director Justin Kennedy Chief Information Officer Colin Chan Human Resources Manager Julia Bookallil

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Human Resources Director is part of an international family of B2B publications and websites for the human resources industry HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR AUSTRALIA iain.hopkins@keymedia.com.au T +61 2 8437 4703 HC AUSTRALIA ONLINE hcamag.com HRD MAGAZINE CANADA hrmonline.ca HRM NEW ZEALAND hrmonline.co.nz

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UPFRONT

STATISTICS Global

WHERE HAS THE TRUST GONE? Faith in established authority is falling around the globe, necessitating a new approach to how business is conducted ACCORDING TO the most recent Edelman Trust Barometer, trust in four key institutions – governments, businesses, media and NGOs – is dropping worldwide. While business doesn’t currently suffer from the same level of distrust as governments or the media, Edelman did discover that trust in business had declined in 18 of the countries it studied. What’s more,

CEO credibility dropped 12 points globally to an all-time low of 37%, plummeting in every country surveyed.

The good news? Respondents had faith that businesses can win back that trust: 75% agreed that companies have the power to improve economic and social conditions in the communities where they operate.

2016 2017

50 47

2016 2017

49 52

US

A WORLD OF ERODING TRUST In the last year, the average level of trust in institutions dropped three points globally.

The global trust index is declining in 21 out of 28 countries, and two out of every three countries surveyed now fall into the category of distruster.

TRUST INDEX

50%

53%

of respondents feel that globalisation is taking us in the wrong direction

of survey respondents feel the pace of change in business is too fast

53%

of respondents think it is “completely true” that the system is failing

100%

of the 28 countries surveyed exhibited declines in CEO credibility

Truster Neutral Distruster

60-100 40-60 0-40

Source: Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report, 2017

DRIVING COMMON FEARS

BUILDING TRUST

Business plays a role in stoking societal fears – more than half the global population worries about losing their jobs to factors such as automation, offshoring and cheaper incoming labour.

Respondents who say they’ve lost faith in the system generally have higher expectations of what companies must do to build trust with the general public.

HOW IMPORTANT ARE THE FOLLOWING ATTRIBUTES TO BUILDING TRUST IN A COMPANY?

60%

60%

60%

50%

58%

55%

System failing: 72% General population: 62%

54%

Listens to its customers

30%

System failing: 67% General population: 58%

20%

Pays its fair share of taxes System failing: 66% General population: 56%

10%

Has ethical business practices Lack of Foreign Immigrants Jobs moving Automation training/ competitors who work to cheaper skills for less market Source: Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report, 2017

4

Offers high-quality products/services System failing: 68% General population: 59%

40%

0%

Treats its employees well

System failing: 65% General population: 56% Source: Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report, 2017

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Russia

Canada

2016 2017

2016 2017

56 49

Hong Kong

China UK

2016 2017

2016 2017

42 40

39 34

2016 2017

73 67

47 44

UAE

2016 2017

66 60

Singapore

2016 2017

64 60

India

Australia

2016 2017

65 72

2016 2017

49 42 Source: Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report, 2017

MOST CREDIBLE? EMPLOYEES

TOP 5 BUSINESS NO-NOS

Respondents across the globe agreed that the most credible source to communicate on a topic related to a company is an employee. That was consistent across subjects ranging from a company’s treatment of employees to views on industry issues.

Survey respondents were asked which actions taken by businesses would damage trust the most – these were the top five:

CEO Senior executive Employee Activist consumer Academic Media spokesperson

% OF RESPONDENTS WHO WOULD TRUST THIS SOURCE 53

38

21 17

20

22

31

29 22

21

23

24

22

33

32 26 26

25 21

30 29 22 23

16 9

Treatment of employees/customers

2. Paying executives hundreds of times more than workers

37 29

28

1. Paying bribes to government officials to win contracts

9

Financial earnings and operational performance

11

Business practices/ crisis handling

13

11

Innovation efforts

21 23

Views on industry issues

3. Moving profits to other countries to avoid taxes

22 14

Partnerships/ programs to address societal issues

Source: Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report, 2017

4. Overcharging for products that people need to live 5. Reducing costs by lowering product quality Source: Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report, 2017

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UPFRONT

NEWS ANALYSIS

DO ALGORITHMS BEAT INSTINCT? HR has been urged to drop gut feel from decisionmaking, but have we gone too far?

THE ANALYTICAL capabilities derived from big data have been a revelation for HR professionals, and are cited by many as finally giving the function and the insights that will help it talk the language of business and thus help sustain its position at the executive level.

However, there is a growing concern that by using algorithms – which assist with machine learning (the tools used in HR data analysis) – HR is relying on automated decision-making and is therefore exposing itself to a degree of risk.

Conventional thinking posits that algorithms are objective, efficient and remove bias from the decision-making process. For example, an increasing number of businesses

Gal cites an example. Consider a manager who wants to assess the performance of their employees over the previous year.

There are a number of ways in which the manager can do that, including collecting data on how much revenue they have generated for the company over the last 12 months, how many clients they have interacted with or how many leads they have generated.

“So we have three data points to access what we call performance, but why these three? We could have used any other combination of data points,” says Gal, who suggests that other alternatives could equally be valid, such as feedback from customers, feedback from colleagues, how much time

“About 54% of heads of HR or heads of data analytics are concerned about the data quality” Aaron McEwan, senior director, CEB are using these algorithms to identify their ideal candidate, believing that doing so removes manager bias from the process.

However, there’s a problem.

Associate professor Uri Gal from the Discipline of Business Information Systems at the University of Sydney Business School, says these same algorithms might be rejecting candidates without HR being aware of it.

“Ostensibly, the process is meant to be objective and rational,” Gal says. “But the problem is that algorithms are not really objective in the sense that collecting big data actually involves a significant amount of human judgment.”

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they spent on email, or how many days they were absent from work.

Furthermore, when algorithms rely on inaccurate, biased or unrepresentative data, they may systematically undermine racial and ethnic minorities, women and other historically disadvantaged groups.

An additional contentious issue is the weight applied to each data point. In the above performance example, do each of the three data points deserve equal value or importance?

Or is one more important than the others?

“We might or we might not decide that one data point is twice as important as the

other one and the third one is only half as important as the second one, which again involves human judgment,” Gal says.

In short, Gal suggests there is no one correct way to assess the performance of employees. “This definitely involves human judgment, which is subjective rather than objective,” he says.

Aaron McEwan, senior director at CEB agrees there are some dangers inherent in an over-reliance on data analytics in decisionmaking. While he is an advocate of the use of HR data analytics, he uses the saying “garbage in, garbage out” to highlight the risk. “About 54% of heads of HR or heads of data analytics are concerned about the data quality,” he says.

It’s also critical to understand which decisions HR is trying to shape with the data.

Where is the organisation going and what data is going to help inform decisions about that direction?

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REMOVING BIAS An analysis (Kuncel, Ones, Klieger) of 17 studies of applicant evaluations showed that a simple equation outperforms human decisions by at least 25%.

The success rate holds in any situation with a large number of candidates, regardless of whether the job is on the front line, in middle management or in the C-suite. The study results, published in Harvard Business Review, cite the human propensity to be thrown off by cognitive biases, irrelevant data points, arbitrary comments in conversation and candidate compliments as reasons why we might need some objective help in our hiring decisions.

Supervisors’ ratings 29% 22% Number of promotions 33% 29% Ability to learn from training 25% 14% Algorithms

Human judgment

The bars above show the percentages of above-average employees (as gauged by three different measures) hired through algorithmic vs human judgment. The numbers show improvements in three key areas for those selected based on algorithmic decision-making.

“We have three data points to access what we call performance, but why these three?”

Uri Gal, associate professor, University of Sydney Business School “That’s the most important thing: if you are asking the wrong questions, you are going to be collecting data that doesn’t actually support the decisions you are trying to make,” McEwan says.

As to the human element involved in data-based decision-making, McEwan agrees there is a genuine risk of poor choices being made. For example, a manager might make a decision about whether or not someone has the potential to be a high performer.

Does the manager start collecting data that confirms the initial hypothesis and reject data that doesn’t confirm it? “There is always

a human element both in the selection of what data we choose to analyse and then also in the analysis of that data,” he says.

However, the alternative – and the traditional means by which decisions were made – is not ideal.

“Traditionally you’d have had a group of leaders with their own personal biases making subjective decisions about people’s futures in terms of pay rises, promotions and so on. The addition of objective data, even if it’s not perfectly objective, I think increases the accuracy of these decisions.”

The key, he adds, is evidence-based

collection practices and evidence-based analysis practices to ensure at least some of the subjectivity is minimised.

Gal also does not dismiss analytics and says there is room for having certain technologies in place to assist people making decisions. However, he urges a “more aware approach” in what these technologies are being used for.

“It’s fine to have certain tools in place to help go through large amounts of data, because computers and algorithms are more effective at that than human beings. But I think it is probably wise to maintain some sort of human oversight over this process.”

He adds that, inevitably, algorithms are trying to construct models of human behaviour.

These models are always going to be simplified versions of a very complex phenomenon that occurs in reality: the way in which people behave in organisations.

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UPFRONT

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE NEWS BRIEFS Singapore among most connected countries Singapore is the third most connected country in the world on professional networking site LinkedIn. Of its 500 million plus registered members, over 118 million users are from the Asia-Pacific region.

Singapore alone has over one million members, and site users in Singapore had an average of 152 connections.

In terms of job functions, those in HR ranked first, with an average of 415 connections, followed by individuals in product management, with 324 connections, and those in business development, with 283 connections.

Female misconceptions about STEM careers remain Female students remain reluctant to pursue science and technology careers despite improved job prospects. A 2016 survey by Mastercard showed that 84% of AsiaPacific women with STEM degrees found their first jobs in less than six months, with 60% very satisfied with their job options. However, results also showed persisting misconceptions by young girls and women about STEM courses: 39% of young girls believe that STEM subjects are difficult, and two in five believe girls are less likely to choose STEM because STEM jobs are still perceived to be male dominated.

Can Singapore adapt to robots in the workplace?

The adoption of digital technologies in manufacturing remains a “key priority” for Singapore, according to Minister for Manpower Lim Swee Sway. The objective is to make work “more manpower-lean, efficient and effective”, he said. Instead of robots

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replacing workers, technology will create new and better jobs. Lim cites the case of Panasonic’s refrigeration compressor business unit, where local workers were retrained to work alongside the robots added during their upgrade – creating the idea of “cobotisation”. This has resulted in increased productivity and a 35% increase in the median salary of the local staff.

AI to help ease hiring bias Science technology company Gooroo Ventures is utilising big data, machine learning and sociometrics to introduce blind recruitment to the IT industry. “IT skills and talents and ability to deliver are not predicated on gender, geography or culture. IT has its own universal language,” said Gooroo Ventures CEO and founder Greg Muller. The platform uses AI and hard data to generate an anonymous shortlist of qualified and verified IT talent. “As a data and science driven platform, it made absolute sense to us to remove some of the known human barriers and biases in recruitment,” said Muller.

Aviva offers retraining to those losing their jobs to robots A global insurer is offering employees retraining for another role in the company, should they admit that their respective jobs could be done better by robots. Aviva has extended the said offer to some 16,000 of its employees in Britain. The offer is considered the world’s first, as other employers have introduced automation without consultation. Aviva’s staff who work in call centres, assess customers’ credit ratings and calculate the price of insurance policies are most likely to have to retrain.

HOW TO GET YOUR CEO TO INVEST IN HR TECH The senior VP of HR at NexJ Systems offers her advice on how HR professionals can prove the value of tech to their senior leaders Over the last few years, HR technology has pushed the industry to new heights, and organisations now leverage myriad modern tools to get the most out of their workforces – but it seems that some HR professionals still face an uphill battle when it comes to securing senior-level buy-in.

“Unfortunately, many HR professionals do not have the experience or tools to express the value organisations would realise from implementing HR technology,” says Jennifer Bouyoukos, senior VP of HR at NexJ Systems.

According to Bouyoukos, one obstacle that often stands in the way of securing top-level investment is HR’s inability to show how technology can solve major organisational challenges and avoid costly problems down the road.

“Data is key here,” Bouyoukos tells HRD. “Show where the key bottlenecks are in measures like delays in hiring and productivity, add up the employee hours it takes to work collectively on one process, turn that number into dollars, and show a cost savings. Then show the same scenario if you don’t do anything. The data creates a compelling argument.”

Another hurdle that often trips up HR professionals is the failure to secure internal sponsorship, says

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Bouyoukos. If others are on board, the CEO is more likely to see HR tech as a company-wide benefit, rather than just an improvement for one department.

“As the HR leader at an organisation, you instinctively know when it’s time for technology – whether it’s moving manual processes towards modernisation or introducing new ones,” she says.

“What you don’t know, however, is whether others share your pain and see the same opportunities.”

In order to close that knowledge gap, Toronto-based Bouyoukos says HR professionals should be proactive and conduct some preliminary research.

“Understand how HR technology would alleviate pressures in the organisation and who would benefit most” “Get out there and talk to people,” she urges. “Understand how HR technology would alleviate pressures in the organisation and who would benefit most. Describe to these groups what life would be like after HR technology and ask those senior executives to help champion it.”

Bouyoukos also says it’s important to remember that CEOs will have seen many tools come and go, start and fail, or become policed and made into a necessary evil.

“They worry whether the HR team has the necessary selection and change management skills to ensure the right product was chosen and that users will adopt,” she says. “Collecting internal and external research to help present your decision will be critical.”

Q&A

PREPARING FOR FUTURE TECH Jenny Dearborn Chief learning officer SAP

Fast fact SAP touches more than 70% of the world’s business transactions.

It is helping with the decision-making component of these transactions with its own machine-learning intelligence – known as SAP Clea – which is embedded into its cloud platform and all applications.

What are some of the key driving forces of the workplace of the future?

There is a shift in the skills that we are looking for in the future, and this is coming from changes in technology. We are seeing companies like Uber, which are replacing the global taxi.

How do we get our workforce ready to see what’s coming so that [disruption] doesn’t happen to them? That’s probably one of the biggest challenges: to be ready to adapt to the future.

I think a lot of companies are eager to do that, but they just don’t know how to get started. They say they are ready to start learning something new, but what to learn? What do I teach people to do differently?

A great place to start is around a learning culture. It’s the concept of continuous learning, to be ready when we have to be, so that when we eventually do know exactly the content that’s needed we will be ready to learn it. We will be ready to absorb it because we have got ourselves into a habit and a pattern of always learning, always changing.

We don’t know exactly what that new technology is yet, but we all know that something is coming and the best thing we can do right now to prepare ourselves is for everyone to get comfortable with a culture of continuous learning.

How can we prepare for the increasing influence of technology in the future?

I think that what we need to reinforce right now is that anything that can be automated will be automated. For instance, being a software programmer is not a ticket to job security, because we have software that writes software.

So really it’s about understanding what are the skills that are uniquely human moving forward that will not be replaced by artificial intelligence, and getting our future citizens ready for uniquely human roles and responsibilities.

And that involves looking at STEM and then marrying that with traditional liberal arts education around problem-solving, innovation, creativity, cultural sensitivity and emotional intelligence.

What we really need to come to terms with moving forward is the way that we best learn is through experiences and is through relationships. It’s informal learning.

So informal learning, experiential-based learning, is the best way that humans learn, with the highest amount of retention. Consider the forgetting curve – that research where you look at people who remember content over a period of time. The way that they were instructed so that they had the best chance of remembering was through paced learning, learning that happens in little bits over time.

The best way to remember something is to experience it and have it built into a relationship of some kind, like a coach or a mentor.

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UPFRONT

L&D UPDATE

BUILDING ON STRENGTHS Can a growth mindset result in enhanced business performance? One company believes so

on your overall motivation and therefore engagement?”

Schneider Electric’s leadership development approach flips this concept.

“We look for things employees are doing well and look for ways to take this to the next level. We don’t ignore weakness, but instead leverage existing strengths to compensate and prop up weakness,” he says.

Another initiative improving L&D across the

“We look for things employees are doing well and for ways to take this to the next level” Scott Nell, Schneider Electric Energy management company Schneider Electric Australia is improving L&D across its organisation through a strengths-based Positive Leadership philosophy for work and individual development.

Scott Nell, senior manager of organisation development and talent, explained to HRD how the initiative works, and how both learners – and leaders – are reaping significant benefits.

“Traditional models for creating development plans require employees to look at the competencies for their role and then be assessed against those competencies,” Nell says.

“On the surface this seems like a fairly logical

NEWS BRIEFS

thing to do; however, what ends up happening is simply pointing out all the things that a person is not good at.”

Once these perceived weaknesses have been identified, development plans are made to focus on weakness or close the gaps, Nell adds.

“Is it any wonder that people are not inspired to actually implement such plans? In fact, research from the CEB shows that when development plans focus on weakness, overall performance drops by around 24%,” he says.

“Imagine if you were forced to do things that are de-energising to you and you perceive you perform poorly, what effect does this have

Most wanted skills in Singapore revealed

Online job postings in Singapore’s banking and finance sector rose 40% during Q1 2017 from the same time in 2016, according to jobs analysis platform JobTech. Job postings looked for candidates with abilities such as proficiency in Microsoft Office, sales, communication and interpersonal skills, understanding of technical protocols and good practices. Among technical skills, Microsoft Office took the top spot, followed by sales and planning. For soft skills, communication skills, interpersonal skills and responsible character were the top three.

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organisation is Schneider Electric’s Flourish, Ignite and Illuminate program, which promotes growth mindsets among its leaders.

“Based on Dr Carol Dweck’s vast body of research, we have built this philosophy into all our leadership offerings, as well as standalone workshops.”

He adds that Schneider Electric examines how both fixed and growth mindsets play out in sports, with children and in business.

“We really take the time for experiential learning that challenges thinking and looks at ways of treating failure as learning; challenges as opportunity and values effort as a core predictor of success,” he says.

Basic issue of Singapore’s labour market

The basic issue of the labour market is not a soft jobs market, but a mismatch of skills, according to Trade and Industry Minister S Iswaran.

While “ample and good” job opportunities are available, these require new skills that Singaporeans must be willing to learn.

Initiatives such as SkillsFuture Singapore are aiming to achieve that goal by providing education and training opportunities.

Singapore Polytechnic’s Professional Adult Continuing Education Academy works with industry stakeholders to design its courses, which “ensures that the curriculum is validated by the industry”.

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Q&A

Adam Canwell Global leader leadership consulting practice ERNST & YOUNG

Fast fact According to The Energy Project’s 2013 study, What is your quality of life at work, employees are three times more likely to stay with a company that has a clearly defined purpose.

PURPOSE AND PERFORMANCE What is the value of purpose for driving performance in organisations?

An organisation’s purpose has bottom-line implications and is not just some feel-good soft stuff. Our research shows that organisations that are purpose-led outperformed the S&P 500 index by up to 14 times more between 1998 and 2013.

Organisations that have a compelling purpose achieve this performance because they are better able to leverage the intrinsic motivation of their employees.

When employees are personally motivated in this way, they give greater discretionary effort and have more energy for the work.

EY research shows that employees working for organisations with clearly articulated and meaningful purpose are 1.4 times more engaged and 1.7 times more satisfied. And it’s not only our employees who care about organisation purpose. Research shows 73% of global consumers would switch to brands with a clearly articulated purpose that resonates and inspires a call to action in them.

How can leaders bring organisation purpose to life?

Leaders are accountable for crafting a compelling narrative that engages employees on an emotional level, helping them connect to the organisation’s purpose and thereby making their work personally meaningful. This is exemplified in the parable of the two bricklayers.

Two people are working side by side, laying bricks at a

SkillsFuture revises credit claims processes

To reduce the risk of abuse, SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) is revising the claims processes of its credit scheme. Under the new rules, individuals will only pay net fees to training providers after the latter offset the credit. Payments will then be made directly to training providers after credit claims are submitted by individuals. SkillsFuture Credit is provided to Singaporeans over 25 years old to help pay for various skill-related courses, to reskill or upgrade their capabilities. Last February, SSG took action against some 4,400 individuals who submitted false SkillsFuture credit claims.

similar speed. When asked what they are doing, the first says, “Laying bricks,” and the second says, “Building a cathedral.”

For each of us, the purpose of our work is very personal and our leaders’ job is to create a climate where we can articulate our own purpose and connect with a higher order purpose that is bigger than us alone. In this volatile, uncertain, ambiguous and complex [VUCA] environment organisations have to adapt to survive and thrive. A clear purpose provides leaders and staff with a compelling North Star to guide them in making decisions and taking action.

Is purpose just another HR fad?

This idea of organisation purpose is not entirely new. In recent times, Simon Sinek has popularised the concept through his 2009 TED talk How Great Leaders Inspire Action, encouraging leaders to tap into the power of why.

The research around the role of purpose and its links to organisational performance stretches back decades. One seminal study was undertaken by Professor Litwin and Robert Stringer at the Harvard Business School in 1965.

They demonstrated the impact of a positive organisation climate on improved performance. Their research showed that the key dimension of organisation climate to get right is clarity, and one half of the clarity puzzle is the mission and direction of the organisation.

The mission of an organisation and the direction set by leaders is most potent when it is aligned to, and an expression of, the organisation’s high-order purpose.

Corporate training market is about to be disrupted

Josh Bersin, founder and principal of Bersin by Deloitte, has claimed the US$130bn corporate training market is about to be disrupted. As many organisations begin to shift from learning management systems (LMS) and invest in new infrastructure to help employees learn, the potential impact of GSuite, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Workplace by Facebook is massive.

However, in this new world of learning, employers who previously might have had just one solution for product training increasingly find themselves with the ability to shop around.

What does the rise of AI mean for L&D?

Moshe Vardi, a respected computer scientist and professor at Rice University, said that human beings are approaching a time when machines will be able to outperform humans “at almost any task”. Vardi has made the bold prediction that half the world’s population could be unemployed within the next 30 years. The result would be that middle-class jobs could rapidly decrease, while inequality would increase. “I believe that society needs to confront this question before it is upon us: if machines are capable of doing almost any work humans can do, what will humans do?” he said. www.hrdmag.com.sg

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PEOPLE

HEAD TO HEAD

What is HR’s role in fostering innovative thinking?

Be it the next winning product or the way business is conducted, what can HR do to drive a culture of innovation?

Jeremy Andrulis CEO, South East Asia Aon Hewitt

At the centre of successful innovation are people who think and operate differently.

First, hire and promote people with the right mix of behaviours. People who can adapt creative ideas from other organisations or ecosystems and implement the new concepts are critical.

Second, coach leaders to create an innovation culture. Leaders must set the right tone by systematically aligning innovation goals with business goals.

Third, incentivise innovation with clear targets.

Develop metrics for each stage of the innovation life cycle – and reward implementation, not ideation.

Organisations don’t need the one-off breakthrough idea; they require people with the right behaviours, skills, targets and rewards to consistently deliver value from innovation.

Belinda Newman Senior HR manager Kronos, ANZ/SEA

To instil innovative thinking you need to develop an innovative culture. HR leaders and managers have a role to play in nurturing an open and relaxed environment to ensure creativity and risk-taking is encouraged. Hiring individuals with varying backgrounds will build a diverse workforce, bringing different perspectives and concepts to the table.

Once the right people are in place and empowered to speak up, processes need to be implemented to ensure ideas are followed through to execution.

Our role as HR leaders is to remove cultural barriers to innovation and continue to create, maintain, and build an innovative culture.

Klaus Duetoft

Senior director human resources eBay Australia & APAC MyHR After 15 years in the internet sector, one of the fastest-growing sectors in industry, my view is that HR absolutely plays a critical role in fostering innovative thinking. This belief stems from the importance of challenging leaders and leadership teams to create a culture and environment that is conducive to innovative thinking, through to the courageousness to challenge the ‘sacred rituals’ that exist in organisations that limit innovative thinking.

In summary, I think HR should work towards partnering to build a climate that is conducive to innovation, challenge barriers and bring an alternative view to the table, and lastly be a user: use your product or service and share your own innovations.

CHANGING THE WAY EMPLOYEES CONNECT AND THINK In the study Human Capital Practices that Drive Innovation, two out of three of the business leaders consulted opined that integral to adaptability and competitiveness was the fostering of innovation and creativity. The study, from the Institute for Corporate Productivity, which reported input from 327 business leaders, identified using technology-enabled collaboration or social media tools to share knowledge as the top practice employed by high-performing organisations to increase innovation. Thirty-six percent of high-performing organisations used this approach compared to 14% of lower-performing organisations. Among other key findings was the value of defining and promoting values specifically pertaining to innovation.

According to Cliff Stevenson, senior human capital researcher at the institute, the statement of organisation values lends workers a feeling of safety. “My thought is that employees are more comfortable about being creative and innovative once the organisation has expressed its importance – it takes the fear or risk out of suggesting a creative or new idea.”

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UPFRONT

OPINION

GOT AN OPINION THAT COUNTS? Email hrd_editor@keymedia.com.au

CHECKED OUT? CHECK BACK IN Re-engaging employees who have ‘checked out’ isn’t easy, write Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick, but it can be well worth it IT TAKES a concerted effort to re-engage people who have checked out. It forces leaders to become coaches rather than players.

However, the results can be worthwhile, as you learn to harness the full power of all the people in your care. Here are just a few of the steps that we’ve found can have a powerful effect on helping checked-out employees check back in:

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Believe in them again

Can you teach an old dog new tricks?

Often you can. A few years ago, we met Ty (not his real name), a sales rep at a mid-size company. He had worked for his organisation for 20 years and had been a top producer, but a new strategic sales direction had left him floundering. Ty had gone from being in the top 10 in sales to the bottom 10, and the leadership team believed that Ty couldn’t cut it, confiding that they were about to let him go.

“Salespeople don’t forget how to sell,” we argued. “He’s still got it in him – you just have to bring it out.” We worked a little with Ty, but more importantly, his sales leaders invested their time. They let him know they cared and that they believed in him, they actively listened to his concerns, and they started to find ways for him to sell in this new world by playing to his strengths.

Two years later, Ty was the number-one salesperson in the company (out of more than 100 areas). We were there when he accepted an award for that achievement, and he couldn’t hold back the emotion in his appreciation for leaders who believed in him when he was struggling.

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Learn what their aspirations are

Great managers think differently about their employees. They believe their team’s success is not the result of their own genius but a direct outcome of their people’s ingenuity and talent. As a result, they treat people like individuals with their own specific goals and aspirations, and they create opportunities for their people to grow and develop, thereby retaining more of them – and certainly engaging more of them.

Before a checked-out employee will buy

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Root for them

In our research, we’ve found that more than two thirds of managers believe they are above average at recognising great work. The percentage of employees who agree? Less than one quarter. Most of us aren’t as good at appreciating our employees’ contributions as we think we are, and that can be one reason why some become disengaged.

Frequent complaints we hear in our qualitative research include “I do work I don’t get credit for”, or “A simple thank you from my manager would mean a lot”. To rebuild positive, productive relationships with checked-out team members, praise should outweigh criticism by a five-to-one margin.

They’ve been beaten up long enough.

Recognition is not only good for the disengaged, it’s a good overall business practice, says Rosabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard Business School. “In the most innovative companies, there is a significantly higher volume of thank yous than in companies of low innovation,” Kanter says.

In our studies, we have been thrilled to find higher levels of appreciation and celebration

Great managers believe their team’s success is not the result of their own genius but a direct outcome of their people’s ingenuity and talent back into the culture, that person must be able to answer the WIIFM question for him or herself: “What’s in it for me?”

What the best managers do is learn specifically what motivates each of their people – especially those who are disengaged – and then sculpt the nature of their employees’ jobs just a bit to better meet their motivating drivers.

It’s not that all distasteful tasks are thrown out and nothing but plum assignments are handed their way, but savvy leaders are wise enough to know that by adding a few motivating elements or removing a few demotivating activities, they can often re-engage people. As for their employees, who wouldn’t want to work for a manager who really wants to help you achieve your specific career goals?

in not only the most innovative places but also in cultures of high employee engagement.

In the best workplaces, teams have much higher levels of camaraderie, and managers spend much more time thanking their people for strategic behaviours that move the company forward. These seemingly soft skills create tangible esprit de corps and a single-mindedness about achieving the right behaviours.

Chester Elton specialises in organisational culture, employee engagement and leadership.

Adrian Gostick is an organisational culture expert.

They have collaborated on bestselling leadership titles All In and The Carrot Principle.

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PEOPLE

GLOBAL HR LEADER

GUIDED BY A CREDO Iain Hopkins chats to global HR leader Peter Fasolo about how his company is guided by a 75-year-old credo, how big data is helping to debunk myths, and why stepping out of his industry helped shape his career JOHNSON & JOHNSON is a behemoth of an organisation. With over 127,000 employees working in more than 265 operating companies located in 60 countries, it is one of the few companies that can rightfully claim to be truly global. Among its well-known consumer products are Band-Aid, Tylenol, Johnson’s baby products, Neutrogena skin and beauty products and Acuvue contact lenses – some of just a handful of household names.

First incorporated by brothers Robert Johnson, James Johnson and Edward Johnson in 1887, the company is celebrating its 130th anniversary in 2017.

For executive vice president and CHRO Peter Fasolo – who heads Johnson & Johnson’s 2,400 HR professionals globally – the secret to his company’s longevity is not just the innovation of its people but the company’s credo, which is celebrating 75 years in 2017.

While some might scoff that a company credo veers too closely to a mission statement or vision – empty words spouted at corporate get-togethers – there’s little doubt that the Johnson & Johnson credo is the foundation of the company.

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“If you are to know anything about Johnson & Johnson, it’s that our values define who we are as a company. They were written down by the son of our founder, Robert Wood Johnson, 75 years ago, and they are as relevant today as they were back then,” Fasolo tells HRD.

HRD: Can you briefly outline your role at Johnson & Johnson?

Peter Fasolo: I have global responsibility

HRD: Can you outline the credo and why it’s so critical to how Johnson & Johnson operates?

PF: The first and foremost responsibility we have as a company is to ensure we’re providing high-quality, innovative products to the nurses, doctors, mothers, fathers, families that we have the privilege to serve.

The second responsibility we have is to the employees in our company around the world.

Our responsibility is to provide them with

“Be willing to get your hands dirty, because no speech ever moved a company” for HR at the company. I report directly to our chairman and CEO. I’m a member of our executive committee, and I chair our pension and benefits committee. I’m also a member of our management compensation committee. Probably most importantly, I have the real privilege of helping to look after our 126,000 employees and their families around the world.

a safe environment. We therefore pay close attention to their careers and give them a sense of security, and create an environment where their careers can flourish.

The third responsibility we have is to the communities in which we serve around the world. We give back to our communities.

Well over 85% of our employees are involved in some level of community engagement and

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PROFILE Name: Peter Fasolo Company: Johnson & Johnson Title: Executive vice president, CHRO HR experience: 25 years Previous roles: »»Chief talent officer, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (2008–10) »»VP, human resources, Johnson & Johnson (2004–07) »»Various HR roles, Bristol-Myers Squibb (1992–2004) Qualifications: Doctor of philosophy, University of Delaware; master’s degree, industrial and organisational psychology, Fairleigh Dickinson University; bachelor’s degree, psychology, Providence College

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PEOPLE

GLOBAL HR LEADER admin or recruiting – we’ll have the best practices and be able to scale up.

HRD: How does Johnson & Johnson’s HR team tap into big data for decision-making?

“What the analytics team has found is that teams with the best credo scores also have higher engagement” volunteer work. We give over US$1bn worth of products/services back into our communities each year. We are a company that is committed to sustainability and to alternative forms of energy and water conversation.

Fourth is a responsibility to our shareholders. Our credo guides us. If you take care of your patients with high-quality, innovative products and you are committed to your employees and give back to your community, the shareholder will get a fair return. Those constituents and stakeholders are ordered in this way for a reason. That credo, that guidance, has been a real ‘North Star’ for the company for decades. It served us well then and it serves us extraordinarily well today.

HRD: What’s on top of your HR agenda in 2017?

PF: We are literally halfway through a big transformation journey of our own HR function. We are disaggregating the HR function, meaning we’re putting the more transactional, administrative work into a shared service environment in places like Tampa, Florida; in Prague, Czech Republic; and Manila in the Philippines. These are high-service, repetitive support functions.

Things like recruitment, performance

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management, comp management can be done universally and very effectively. It also allows our corporate centres to focus on the talent agenda, for example, the comp strategies, and then our business partners can support their businesses more effectively.

HRD: Where have those shared services functions been based prior to this point?

PF: The HR business partner was essentially doing everything on behalf of the function.

We did have centres of excellence – in recruiting, in compensation – where there were global policies and frameworks in place, but the fact of the matter is that before this transformation our HR business partners were doing a lot of this work themselves.

What that resulted in was unevenness in service levels and lots of different approaches to things like performance management or succession planning.

I want our HR leaders to be in the talent game, to be rewarded for outcomes rather than process. I want to invest in software as a service and cloud technology so we can leverage the scale of J&J and we don’t have to debate the variety of ways to do performance management, employment relations or comp

PF: We’re currently building out a pretty robust people and data analytics capability, because as you go and disaggregate the HR function, you have HR business partners focusing on the agendas I’m describing, and you have to build out capabilities to ensure line leaders and HR leaders have insight into their workforce. So we now have a 15- to 20-person data analytics group, which is providing insights into what works and doesn’t work, what are the best predictors of success, and how people are moving around the globe in terms of their careers. At J&J we do around 25,000 job placements a year: 60% on the outside, 40% on the inside.

That’s a huge number of movements to keep track of. We have thousands of people who are on expatriate assignments, who are third country nationals, as well as undertaking inpatriate assignments. We want to make sure those movements are being tracked and outcomes are being understood so we can leverage insights for maximum impact.

HRD: This is a new area for HR – where have these people been drawn from?

PF: They are a mix. Most of them are PhD industrial-organisational psychologists, some have MBAs, some have come from business, and others come from data analytics. It’s a mix of capabilities, and what we’ve realised is a few things which have become apparent as part of this HR transformation. First, we needed to get a lot better in what I call customer service and service-level agreements. Just because your customer likes you – in our case our internal customers, the employees and line leaders – doesn’t mean you are providing world-class service.

Working with our leaders in the customer service and logistics area, we’ve tried to establish what world-class customer service means and the outcomes we should be

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working to. Then we’ve been building up this data analytics group, who take a series of our policies and our actions and outline what is working and what isn’t working. Then we make adjustments along the way.

HRD: Can you provide some examples?

PF: Our data analytics group has provided really good insights to our workforce on areas like performance management. Does selfrating really work or not? Or recruitment – is it better to hire an experienced person in a certain part of our organisation or to hire college graduates and train them? We were able to break some myths in this area. Our line leaders in some parts of the organisation had a bias of hiring experienced people at the expense of college or university graduates. What we were able to show them is that they were right: for the first year an experienced hire will give you a higher performance level. However, after 12 months those lines started to cross and the college or university hires ended up being higher-performing and more committed. In addition, retention rates were higher and they were more likely to stay with us for a longer period. We’ve since expanded our university hiring and have almost debunked that myth.

Not only is our credo an important part of our values system, but we measure it.

Every other year we do a global credo survey.

Essentially we’re asking our employees whether we live up to our credo for those four constituents: our patients, our consumers and customers; our employees; the community; and our shareholders. We get surveyed responses back and we analyse those responses. Although it’s confidential, every manager gets a score of how well they’re doing.

What the analytics team has found is that teams with the best credo scores also have higher engagement and they also happen to have the highest level of innovation and strategic alignment. So it’s great to have impressive credo scores, but there are also variables that are related to it. It’s hard to say it is cause and effect, but we’re learning that if you can get really good credo engagement then you’re more likely to have an innovative

ALL ABOUT HEALTH Johnson & Johnson has a company-wide goal to become the world’s healthiest company by 2020. There are four strands to J&J’s holistic approach to health and wellbeing: monitor the employee’s own health; educate employees about correlations between health and performance; create an environment that fosters wellbeing and encourages employees to take ownership of their health; and maintain efforts on health initiatives. Although benefits vary depending on location – J&J in the UK, for example, has its own health trust with HR directors as trustees – certain benefits are global. For example, flexible transition back to work, part-time working, and job sharing for new mothers and caregivers in the family are offered around the world. Other benefits in the US for mothers include:

Parental leave Eight weeks of paid leave during first year of birth/adoption, in addition to 17 paid weeks off for mothers

Fertility benefits Maximum of US$35,000 for couples

Breast milk shipping Temperature-controlled delivery service for moms travelling for business

Adoption benefits US$20,000 for each adopted child under 18

Children with special needs Speech, occupational and physical therapy, as well as applied behaviour analysis

environment where people understand where you’re going at a strategic level. That’s a recipe for success.

HRD: On a more personal note, you could be described as a boomerang employee – you left Johnson & Johnson at one point but have since returned. How do you think stepping outside and then returning has helped your perspective on working at Johnson & Johnson?

PF: I think it’s always good to get outside perspectives and learn from other companies in other industries. I stepped out of the industry but I also stepped out of the traditional global corporation and went into private equity [at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co], which has a whole different set of business principles. I came back here with a greater appreciation of the power for good that a company can have on a global scale.

J&J has been here for 130 years – this just happens to be my time, our time, right now

Surrogacy assistance benefits US$20,000 reimbursement per child for services related to the surrogacy process

Childcare benefits Six childcare centres across J&J campuses; discount offered with national provider

guiding the corporation. We feel a strong responsibility to the leaders who gave us the helm, and we have an equal responsibility to hand over this company to the next generation and leave it in a better place.

HRD: What do you believe you’ve personally brought to the executive team thanks to your experiences elsewhere?

PF: I’ve brought other learnings from other industries, especially in the M&A area and the innovation space. Things like speed and agility, and accountability. Our job at the top of the organisation is to articulate where you want to go – call that a vision or strategy – but then you have to allocate people and financial resources to make that vision real. You have to be very good strategically but also operationally; be willing to get your hands dirty, because no speech ever moved a company. A speech gives a vision, but then you have to go in and dig deep, layers down, and really support your people to make that real.

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COVER STORY

TOP HR TEAMS

BREAKING THROUGH Asia’s Top HR Teams Want to lead the pack? It may be innovation that sets you apart.

In our second annual Top HR Teams list, we highlight Asia’s finest HR teams – who are leading by innovating and breaking new ground for the HR function

GLOBALLY, 64% of organisations believe driving innovation will be a priority over the coming 12 months, and three quarters of them hold innovation as a corporate value. The study, by PageUp and Alexander Mann Solutions, found that while there is a desire for innovation, for most organisations around the world the necessary frameworks are not in place to bring this to fruition. While 54% of study respondents had a process in place for submitting new ideas and incorporating feedback to improve outcomes, less than 40% had established processes in place for prioritising these ideas.

These results highlight the opportunity for HR teams to establish and

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drive enterprise-wide innovation capability within their organisations.

From personalised benefi ts programs to smart use of cuttingedge technology and major industry disruptions, the employers listed on HRD’s second annual Top HR Teams list are doing just that. They are pushing the envelope of HR best practice. Twentyfour teams have been selected from a list of over 500 submissions from readers. Some have been acknowledged by external thought leaders such as Great Place to Work and Aon Hewitt; others have picked up HR-specifi c accolades. All are leading the way for others to follow. Want to see who’s made the grade and why? Read on…

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LEARNING CURVE

ACCORHOTELS ASIA PACIFIC Hospitality AREAS OF EXCELLENCE: CHANGE MANAGEMENT; L&D

The AccorHotels Asia Pacific people team is composed of 15 talented individuals who oversee, support, drive and manage the people strategies for a taskforce of 90,000 employees across 19 countries in the region. Over the past five years, the company has been opening on average at least one new hotel per week in Asia-Pacific, and recruiting as many as 10,000 new employees each year. On top of keeping up with the major expansion strategy and recruitment initiatives, and efficiently managing the usual HR tasks, the team provides continual support for the organisational changes that have resulted from a massive HR cultural shift and from the acquisition of new brands. The team successfully transitioned from ‘Human Resources’ to ‘Talent & Culture’ in early 2016, and this entailed major shifts in language, culture and internal branding.

They are also working tirelessly to ensure complete integration of the new brands acquired in mid-2016 (Fairmont, Raffles and Swissotel), which has required new talent strategies.

AccorHotels has a strong learning culture, which touches all areas of the business, from enhancing sales, marketing, revenue management and distribution expertise to supporting the group’s digital transformation.

Key statistics include: • 19 Academie teams around the world provide lifelong learning opportunities to the company’s employees.

• 24 female general managers and senior corporate specialists graduated from the Academie’s High Performing Leaders Program and Women in Leadership Program.

• 324 participants in Asia-Pacific were certified by the Accor Business Campus and over 148 training days were delivered on the specific topics of sales and revenue management.

• 100 additional training days were invested in digital workshops to develop skills in writing for the web for distribution channels and social media.

• 13% improved revenue is projected (according to Genos International) as a result of the increase in overall average EQ score for training participants.

TOP HR TEAMS INDEX COMPANY

AccorHotels Asia Pacific Amadeus Asia Pacific Aviva Ltd Boehringer Ingelheim Regional Operating Unit – South East Asia and South Korea BreadTalk Group Cisco Systems (USA) Pte Ltd DBS Bank Dow Chemical Pacific (Singapore) Pte Ltd Gardens by the Bay Hewlett Packard Enterprise IBM Singapore Indosat Ooredoo

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COMPANY

JTH Group Lazada Group Mandarin Oriental Singapore Marina Bay Sands Medco E&P Natuna Ltd Metro Drug Inc. Mundipharma Royal Plaza on Scotts UBS AG Singapore Unilever Asia Private Limited UTAC Headquarters Pte Ltd Vinci Construction Grands Projets (SCL1103)

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COVER STORY

TOP HR TEAMS AMADEUS ASIA PACIFIC Travel technology AREA OF EXCELLENCE: L&D

Whether within Australia and New Zealand or across all of Asia-Pacific, Amadeus’ HR team remains a top contender in terms of promoting L&D. The team of 35 professionals holds responsibility for 1,700 diverse employees based in 10 countries. With travel at the heart of the organisation, Amadeus offers its employees opportunities to develop careers through secondments to their global locations. These international assignments have strengthened business relationships across countries and made implementation of new global systems and processes more effective. These efforts, coupled with the integration of multiple businesses as ‘One Amadeus’, highlight and strengthen the company’s core value of ‘Working Together’ on a global scale.

Moreover, the emphasis on the international/global nature of the business has made diversity a priority. In line with this, the team recently launched a Singapore Women’s Network to up their game in making Amadeus a truly gender-equal workplace. In addition, its employee-led CSR initiative, Amadeus Cares, contributes to local community development through technology and travel.

AVIVA LTD Insurance AREAS OF EXCELLENCE: TECHNOLOGY; L&D

The digital revolution is changing the way we live, work and play.

As robots and automation are set to disrupt traditional roles, the HR team at Aviva finds it critical to help employees embrace technology and stoke their innovative spirit, while helping them reskill/upskill to thrive in the brave new world. The team believes that, instead of worrying about robots replacing humans, it is about taking the robot out of the human and developing employees to do higher-value work. To achieve this, the L&D team has arranged monthly digital learning workshops, allotting one session for every specific topic deemed most relevant to the business. The sessions involve gamification to make them interactive, hands-on, and more effective in driving home the key

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objectives. Data analytics was chosen as a second development step. The team now taps into predictive analytics and analyses data such as performance rating distribution, attrition rate and engagement score, to hone in on teams that need closer attention.

Based on the analytics, the HR business partners then arrange discussions with heads of departments to plan interventions and assistive measures accordingly.

GOING DIGITAL Aviva’s L&D team worked closely with other departments to create a series of digital learning workshops, in the hopes of achieving the following outcomes: • Creating a mindset shift towards becoming more digital • Raising awareness and commitment to the company’s digital strategy • Teaching the ‘thinking approach’ to developing digital initiatives with customers at the heart

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BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM

SOUTH EAST ASIA AND SOUTH KOREA Pharmaceuticals AREAS OF EXCELLENCE: CHANGE MANAGEMENT; RECRUITMENT

TALENT ACQUISITION TRANSFORMATION The HR SEASK team’s decision to centralise recruiting activities has led to the following results: • 10+ suppliers, trimmed down from 35, thereby boosting efficiency and reducing spend • $72,000+ reduction in agency spend within a few months of the new approach • 20% savings expected for the first full year of revised operations

In 2016, Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) embarked on the most significant business deal in the company’s history – the business swap of Sanofi’s animal health business (Merial) and BI’s consumer healthcare business. The HR team for South East Asia and South Korea (SEASK) led the people component of the project, which entailed developing and executing the change management strategy for both entities’ operations in seven countries, playing a key role in communication and transition plans, conducting analysis of employee compensation, benefits, engagement models and conditions, and contributing to the alignment needed to create a future single structure for the Animal Health business. In September 2016, the HR SEASK Team decided to centralise and standardise recruiting activities in the regional head office located in Singapore. This initiative is in line with the organisational transformation effort that aims to improve efficiency and competitiveness. A centralised recruitment system was put in place to generate meaningful recruitment reports, allow complete visibility of all vacancies across the region, and facilitate internal moves within the SEASK region, as well as to and from BI units in other countries. The initiative has translated to significant cost savings for the company, not to mention increased efficiency and growth of the talent communities.

BREADTALK GROUP Food & beverages AREAS OF EXCELLENCE: COMMUNICATION; L&D

A caring workplace, a high-performing and dynamic workforce, and exceptional HR support – these are the three key pillars the people team at BreadTalk Group has in place to guide the company towards becoming an employer of choice. In order to arrive at these outcomes, the team has identified communication and transparency as among their top priorities. Thus, a ‘Townhall Series’ (covering Singapore, China and Thailand) was organised to bridge the distance between employees and senior management, and truly foster two-way communication. To reinforce a performance-driven culture, the team redesigned the performance management framework to clarify work expectations and align performance reviews to achieve set targets. BreadTalk Group also takes pride in being an accredited Approved Training Organisation due to its excellent in-house training capabilities. The group offers a whole suite of nationally recognised in-house training courses (eg WSQ programs) that are tailored to its operational needs. BreadTalk Group’s substantial investment in young talent through the Management Associate and Management Trainee Programs has also created a pipeline of future leaders in the company.

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COVER STORY

TOP HR TEAMS

Cisco HR ASEAN Team Korea

Cisco HR Team Singapore

CISCO SYSTEMS (USA) PTE LTD Telecommunications AREAS OF EXCELLENCE: EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Though Cisco Systems’ HR team for ASEAN and Korea has individuals/groups spread across six different countries and has assigned different functional reporting, their goal is to continue working together as ‘OneHR’ team through the major areas of HR’s mandate – from talent attraction to retention. In 2015, the team evolved its EVP into its ‘People Deal’ and came through with a clear articulation of who the company is; this definition shapes every aspect of the employee experience throughout their career journey. The company’s ongoing initiatives, such as Benefits EXPO, Bring Your Kids to Work, Movie Day and Family Day, all show an emphasis on work-life balance and wellbeing. The team launched a Step-a-thon activity for teams to clock in as many steps as possible within 100 days to encourage an active lifestyle. As part of an initiative called ‘Moments That Matter’, employees are given an extra day off on their birthdays, and five TimeToGive days for them to participate in any community/CSR activity of their choice. In addition, the team facilitated a shift from traditional individual performance ranking to a focus on enhancing strengths and ‘Power of Team’. Through an integrated platform called ‘Team Space’, leaders and team members are able to keep each other abreast of their priorities for the week, activities that energise and motivate them, and the support they need from their leaders.

DBS BANK Banking AREA OF EXCELLENCE: L&D

DBS defines what ‘PRIDE!’ means to the company: Purpose-driven (create impact beyond banking); Relationship-led (collaborate to win); Innovative (embrace change); Decisive (think. act. own); E! (everything fun!). In order to keep to these PRIDE! values, the company is working hard to ‘future-proof’ its employees and inculcate a digital mindset. The team at DBS has conducted digital masterclasses and hackathons to encourage employees to embrace experiential learning and experimentation. The human-centred design workshops and hackathons involve working with start-ups to develop solutions to business challenges, and effectively exposing employees to the digital culture, an agile methodology, and other digital working concepts. L&D is a business priority; 2017 initiatives include the Future of Learning program, and a learning platform called Horizon, which allows employees to learn anywhere, from anyone, in any mode they prefer, at any time. Learners are given 24/7 mobile access, not to mention AI-assisted personalised learning recommendations.

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GARDENS

BY THE BAY Themed attractions AREAS OF EXCELLENCE: DIVERSITY & INCLUSION; HEALTH & WELLBEING/ WORK-LIFE BALANCE

DOW CHEMICAL PACIFIC (SINGAPORE) PTE LTD Chemicals AREA OF EXCELLENCE: BENEFITS

To ensure that resources are maximised, the Dow team regularly reviews existing employee programs and proposes timely adjustments and alternatives. Employees are given a ‘FlexBenefits’ program, which allows them to decide how they wish to spend a designated amount – on medical, health, or wellness and enrichment activities, or on themselves or their family members. Periodically, the FlexBenefits packages are compared with the trends and practices of other organisations to ensure they are in line with current market practices. Apart from staying updated on market trends, the HR team also connects with employees and leaders through focus group discussions, during which they talk through the results of the annual engagement survey and subsequent action plans.

CHANGING BENEFITS As an example of a benefits program review, a housing interest loan subsidy was identified as an obsolete benefit that catered to only 20% of Dow’s employee population. The benefit was phased out, which resulted in total savings of $140,000 per annum. The savings were in turn redistributed to all employees through an increase in their Term Life and Personal Accident insurance cover for an additional 12 months.

One of the most iconic landmarks in Singapore, Gardens by the Bay, has proved itself to not only be an attraction for all ages but also an attractive employer for different generations. Each age group, from baby boomers and Gen X to Gen Y and millennials, is almost equally represented in the company’s workforce, which is quite a feat for a company with just four years of operating history. The company considers its low attrition rate and very high ratio of employees with long service as the ultimate hallmarks of their success on the HR front. Despite being relatively new on the block as an employer, Gardens by the Bay believes in investing in employees right from the start, whether through training and development or promoting health and wellbeing. In 2016, the HR team managed to clock an average of 39.2 training hours per employee for the year, ensuring that people development remains an ongoing emphasis amid the frantic demands of operations. The team also regularly facilitates programs – seminars, health-related activities – that promote work-life balance, which is also very much in line with the nature of their work: highlighting the importance of nature and leisure in the midst of urban living.

HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE Information technology AREA OF EXCELLENCE: CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Hewlett-Packard Singapore split into two firms at the end of 2015, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and HP Inc. HPE sells business IT solutions and services, and HP Inc focuses on PCs and printers. Since then, the company has been on a transformational journey, and the Singapore HR team of HPE has been instrumental in supporting this. The team hopes to ensure that a positive employee experience remains a top priority as the company settles in as a new entity. In line with this objective, the local team developed and initiated an exemplary onboarding experience, which included an onboarding module that was successfully deployed mid-2016 and subsequently replicated in other countries. Success has only been possible due to a true collaborative effort involving the input of HR generalists, business partners, talent acquisition and total rewards teams. Employee engagement remains a prioritiy, and the HR team regularly organises and hosts activities to keep employees engaged. These activities have not only fostered camaraderie and promoted fitness but also led employee teams to receive accolades, particularly for external sports competitions such as dragon boat races and triathlons.

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COVER STORY

TOP HR TEAMS IBM SINGAPORE Technology AREAS OF EXCELLENCE: TECHNOLOGY; EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

IBM Singapore in 2017 has a ‘re-imagined’ HR team that is operating in a novel structure consisting of HR Client Partners, Manager Solutions Centers and Workforce Centers of Excellence. This structure transforms the HR Partnership to align with the value needs of the Business. Apart from working with cloud-based, mobile-enabled HR tools for self-service transactions, employees are now provided with curated, instantaneous HR advice by cognitive bots, which has greatly enhanced the employee experience. To empower managers, HR at IBM now provides analyticsbased decision support tools in the form of talent playbooks, which provide recommended actions for management as well as inferred skills assessment based on employees’ digital footprints. In the past year, the company launched several initiatives to bring about cultural change and enhance employee engagement. Initiatives included the introduction of a casual dress code, a newly designed office with agile workspaces and creative thinking design studios, birthday leave, and a 10,000-step challenge in partnership with NTUC to promote health and wellness as well as community service.

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INDOSAT OOREDOO

JTH GROUP

Telecommunications

Technology

AREA OF EXCELLENCE: EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT; WORK-LIFE BALANCE

AREAS OF EXCELLENCE: GRADUATE RECRUITMENT; CSR

The team at Indosat Ooredoo believes it is up to them to help “create the condition for change, [to] retain, attract, and empower people to deliver and achieve the corporate objective”. To achieve this, the team developed a program called Work, which revolves around three key elements: an open and agile workspace; activities measured based on output; and efficient mobile-based systems. The purpose is to present a ‘no boundaries’ work environment and improve productivity and engagement through enhanced mobility, collaboration, and a great deal of trust and empowerment. With this program and other efforts in place, the company has received an engagement score higher than the average scores for the tech and telecom industry.

JTH Group’s management and HR team came up with the JOS Innovation Awards – an IT project competition that enables all full-time students in Singapore to propose creative IT projects and solutions. Nine teams (from 80 initially) entered the finals to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges on how they could be actualised in the real world. Through the competition, the company was able to identify young talent for internship opportunities and as potential hires upon graduation. As another hallmark of an employer of choice, JTH Group has also committed to a social initiative led by the Jardine Matheson Group, called the MINDSET initiative.

The aim of the initiative is to change people’s attitudes about mental health by increasing awareness and fostering a nuanced understanding of related issues and how they affect work.

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LAZADA GROUP E-commerce AREA OF EXCELLENCE: CHANGE MANAGEMENT

In April 2016, Alibaba became the majority shareholder of Lazada Group. With this change, the company needed to define a long-term strategy and transition from a start-up made up of focused ‘doers’ to a full-fledged company with a long-term vision and mindset.

Before achieving Lazada’s transformation, management needed to firstly see a transformation of the People team, in order for them to be properly equipped to handle the significant changes ahead.

This meant moving away from the traditional HR mentality of being a support function and becoming a true strategic business partner. To do so, the key leaders came up with a structure that would better support the organisation in the long run, with four key ‘people’ areas identified: Care (for the vital administrative responsibilities); Performance (for talent acquisition, management and development); Connect (for communications and employee relations); Science (for KPIs and the big data approach on people matters). The People and Strategy functions joined forces to ensure that the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ worked in perfect harmony, and that everyone’s agenda would revolve around envisioning the four-year-old start-up as swiftly having the mindset and outlook befitting a 100-plus-year-old company.

SUCCESS MEASURES The Lazada HR team keeps an eye on these key metrics as a measure of how effective their changes have been: People Net Promotor Score – From negative to 20% positive in just eight months. Since revamping the People team, employee satisfaction has dramatically improved, along with overall performance.

Monthly attrition levels – Lowered by more than half from Q2 to Q4 2016.

The leadership attrition level has dropped to an all-time low. Across all levels, there has been a clear shift towards creating a more resilient operation by allowing junior or mid-level team members to take full ownership of their businesses.

Efficiency – Optimisation of sales volume per staff member is on track to hit a 50% year-on-year improvement.

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2

3

MANDARIN ORIENTAL SINGAPORE Hospitality AREA OF EXCELLENCE: HEALTH & WELLBEING

The HR team of Mandarin Oriental Singapore (MOSIN) is composed of seven members with different backgrounds, ranging from finance and management to intelligent building technology and even weapons training. It is led by a director who has over two decades of experience in managing regional and local hotel operations. The diversity of the team has empowered them to go beyond performing the usual HR functions and choose to focus on innovation, workplace wellness, protecting professional rights and highlighting CSR, all the while believing that HR and L&D can only be effective if done by design and not by accident. One key example that covers their emphasis on wellness, CSR and inclusion is the team members’ commitment as active Jardine Ambassadors for the MINDSET initiative, which supports people with mental illness.

In terms of cultivating a learning culture and promoting innovation, the company has chosen to champion the Lean Hotel Initiative, a program led by Workforce Singapore and supported by the Singapore Tourism Board to help hotels achieve higher productivity and more sustainable growth through transformation projects that will yield leaner manpower solutions.

RESULTS ON THE UP AND UP The MOSIN team is more engaged and productive than ever, and they have numbers to show for it.

Productivity (guests served per colleague) Participation (engagement survey) Turnover

2015

2016

215,015

222,197

84%

87%

31.02%

24.73%

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COVER STORY

TOP HR TEAMS MARINA BAY SANDS Hospitality AREAS OF EXCELLENCE: RECRUITMENT; EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

The Marina Bay Sands HR team comprises 73 team members split into four teams: Talent Acquisition, Talent Development and Management, Team Member Relations and HR Total Reward & Operations. The HR management system is collaborative and consultative in nature, supported by a team of eight leaders forming the HR Leadership Team. Since the opening of the Integrated Resort in 2010, the team has delivered various human capital initiatives and programs for close to 10,000 employees. To fulfil the property’s workforce requirements and in keeping with the Singapore Core and government objectives, the team has worked on attracting all levels of hires by organising recruitment drives with local agencies, developing traineeship schemes, and putting on a career fest and a staff referral scheme, to name a few. In terms of training, in-house programs on personal and management effectiveness have been conducted, resulting in an average of 10,000 annual learning days accomplished. Best of all might be the annual ‘firesale’ bazaar of the property’s assets, with proceeds donated to charity, sports clubs run by volunteer staff to promote a healthy workplace environment, and local festival celebrations for major ethnic groups.

MEDCO E&P NATUNA LTD Energy AREA OF EXCELLENCE: CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Medco E&P Natuna Ltd was recently acquired by a publicly listed energy company in Indonesia, which involved the transfer of 1,100 employees, a fully operating oil and gas company with offshore operation facilities, and a gas transportation facility for Singapore and Malaysia. Prior to the deal being finalised, the long-standing uncertainty was taking a toll on the morale of the employees. Thus, after the deal was closed, the new management immediately turned to the HR team for support in facilitating a smooth transition process within just months.

One critical point for the team was to ensure a proper migration of the HR system, which was a small but significant step for the new owners to gain the trust of the employees. During the transition, the team conducted a gap analysis of the system before beginning the migration process. They proceeded to implement a new system while continuously keeping employees updated through various communication channels (union, informal group discussions, site visits). The team also made sure to keep external stakeholders abreast of the developments and report the changes to the pertinent government office for approval. Four months after the acquisition, the team was able to meet all the demands, including the system migration, payroll run and review of remuneration, within the expected timeframe and budget.

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METRO DRUG INC. Pharmaceuticals AREA OF EXCELLENCE: COMMUNICATION

HIGHLIGHTS IN NUMBERS 2015

2016

Turnover rate

12%

10%

Inclusive growth/internal promotion

36%

82%

Succession planning (targeted management positions with successor)

54%

62%

Multiple internal awards, as well as a 2016 citation from HRD Magazine as an Employer of Choice, are testimony to the hard work of the HR team at Metro Drug Inc. (MDI). Yet it hasn’t been an easy run. These awards are the result of efforts by the HR team that began back in 2011 when MDI embarked on a transformation, anchored by the implementation of a new ERP system. Significant operational changes resulted, with leadership focusing on continuity of operations and keeping commitments to clients on track.

Employee engagement took a hit. A fresh approach was taken to re-engage employees, addressing key areas such as leadership, management style and teamwork. The HR team took on board employee suggestions via engagement surveys and proceeded to create programs to improve communication and make leadership more visible and accountable to employees. To cite just a few engagement initiatives, development programs were introduced, such as a Management Trainee Program, a Rising Stars Program and an Accelerated Development Plan for High Potentials. In 2015, the company achieved all-time high engagement scores as a result of these initiatives.

MUNDIPHARMA Pharmaceuticals AREAS OF EXCELLENCE: L&D

Mundipharma’s HR team of six provides support to its employees across the globe while being based in Singapore – the place they consider to be “the heart of this organisation”.

Since 2011, the company has grown its workforce from 750 to now over 3,000 people operating in 22 markets.

To cover all bases in terms of the global structure and local operations, the team has both corporate and local duties, with members duly assigned to each. The corporate aspect entails creating and implementing key elements in line with the organisational culture, including setting up a performance and career framework and a corresponding compensation and benefits framework, making provisions for flexi-working and introducing leadership development initiatives. One notable accomplishment is the well-established top talent and succession planning process, which has resulted in nearly all of the key leadership roles being filled internally. Apart from their proprietary leadership development programs, the team also manages an Academy that delivers learning programs to employees through their desktops and mobile devices, via traditional e-learning and an innovative bite-sized gamification platform that supports on-the-go learning.

KEEPING AND BUILDING TALENT 90–100% – Key leadership roles filled internally Over 80% – Employees sourced directly and via employee referrals 4.8% – Attrition rate for 2017, well below local market norms

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COVER STORY

TOP HR TEAMS ROYAL PLAZA ON SCOTTS Hospitality AREAS OF EXCELLENCE: BENEFITS; WORK-LIFE BALANCE

Earlier this year, Royal Plaza on Scotts was named as one of Asia’s Best Small & Medium Workplaces 2017 by Great Place to Work. Before qualifying for this award, the hotel team was first recognised on the national Best Workplaces list, which comprises 60 winners out of 1,400 submitting companies, selected based on their assessment on the Trust Index and the Culture Audit Management Questionnaire.

The emphasis on trust is of utmost importance to the company: “Royal Plaza on Scotts is one company that treats their employees with utmost respect and care, and their attention to employees’ needs is remarkable. No need for clocking in or out; no need to submit medical certificate; employees’ very own gym and chill-out lounge; education subsidies for their children; flexible benefits for families... the list goes on,” said Great Place to Work Singapore’s managing director, Evelyn Kwek. To celebrate the achievement and further confirm that it is committed to and cares for its employees, the company organised a luxurious six-day high tea buffet feast at its award-winning buffet restaurant, with the hotel’s chief experience officer, Patrick Fiat, personally handing out giveaways to employees at the end of the week-long celebration.

RULE OF THREE The relaunched UBS University comprises three pillars: • Group Academies – for group-wide offerings • Divisional Academies – for divisionally aligned programs • Thought Leadership – for partnerships with stakeholders on innovative talent development and management initiatives

UBS AG SINGAPORE Banking AREA OF EXCELLENCE: TALENT DEVELOPMENT

Becoming efficient, becoming agile, and being responsive – these are the Three Keys to Success for UBS Singapore’s team and are the defining pillars of the corporate culture. As the business continues to grow, one of the team’s major responsibilities as a key business partner is to support the whole bank by facilitating collaboration across various divisions. An example of this is through both cross-divisional and divisionally aligned talent programs that have been set up to equip employees with the necessary skill sets to thrive within the company and its business areas. In 2017, the team is set on relaunching the UBS University as part of an ongoing commitment to talent development. The university will utilise ‘the three E’s’: 70% Experience (assignments, cross-divisional projects, etc), 20% Exposure (mentoring, cross-functional meetings, etc), and 10% Education (classroom-based learning, e-learning, etc). The HR team also launched a new online learning platform this year, which includes collaborative learning features such as the capacity to design and participate in MOOCs (Mass Online Learning Courses) and new courses that are aligned with evolving learning trends.

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UNILEVER ASIA PRIVATE LTD Consumer goods AREA OF EXCELLENCE: TALENT MANAGEMENT

Recognising how brands with purpose tend to grow exponentially, Unilever launched a movement called ‘People with Purpose’, which aims to help employees discover their individual purposes and bring them to life through their careers in the company. Beginning with recruitment, the team at Unilever launched a state-of-the-art digital selection process for its management trainee program, which has not only made recruitment more fun and engaging for applicants but also ensured a fair and more objective selection process by eliminating opportunities for human bias. In terms of talent management, the company has chosen to do away with talent labels and forced performance rankings, replacing them instead with personalised development plans that take into consideration individual needs and goals. A people-centred leadership philosophy is inculcated in leaders across the organisation, encouraging them to invest in their people’s development by providing them with unique feedback and work experiences. To foster a stronger experimentation culture, the HR team has been instrumental in the opening of LEVEL3 co-working space in the office. This has allowed Unilever, start-ups and entrepreneurs to come together and forge new business partnerships while stimulating innovation. These transformations have begun to translate into real and meaningful impact not only for the business but also for the communities in which Unilever operates.

Manufacturing

VINCI CONSTRUCTION GRANDS PROJETS (SCL 1103)

AREA OF EXCELLENCE: CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Construction

UTAC HEADQUARTERS PTE LTD

AREA OF EXCELLENCE: TALENT MANAGEMENT

UTAC’s transformation journey began in 2012 under its new CEO, whose first step was to hire a new CHRO to spearhead the people agenda. A corporate HR council was then put together in 2013, which comprised functional experts from the corporate office and experienced HR business partners from manufacturing plants in Singapore. Since then, the council has launched a significant number of people initiatives, such as managing an effective global search and hiring of C-suite leadership team members; developing a values-driven behavioural competency framework that now serves as a foundation for all the key people interventions; introducing contemporary work practices that include flexible working hours and substantial investment in and upgrade of HRIS; and streamlining of HR staff in Singapore through a framework of HR business partners and shared services.

While many other employers are struggling to keep up with the changing nature of the workforce given the influx of millennials, Vinci Construction Grands Projets (SCL 1103) is heading in the opposite direction: its HR team has a shortage of younger workers in their industry, and when combined with an ageing workforce they anticipated a significant business impact unless action was not immediately taken. The team has chosen to embrace the challenge with a positive viewpoint, firstly by coming up with a ‘Golden-Age’ program. The program is designed to promote cooperation between generations and help employees sustain motivation throughout their professional lives; it also involves facilitating continuous transmission of knowledge and skills through partnerships, and provides healthcare in the form of medical plans for colleagues ages 60–70.

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SECTOR FOCUS

RECOGNITION

MOVING WITH THE TIMES The business world has changed. Has your recognition program kept pace?

IT SEEMS all facets of the business world have been disrupted in the last five years but there’s one area that remains locked in the past: the approach to employee engagement. Have organisations moved with the times on this all-important driver of organisational success?

A recent global study by BI Worldwide indicates that although there is a keenness to learn about new approaches to engagement, many organisations are still playing catch-up.

Prior to undertaking the research, BI Worldwide established that there had been three fundamental changes in the relationship between employer and employee. These three changes included the great global recession; the rise of the millennials and having five generations in the workplace; and the rapid growth of the internet and social media.

BI Worldwide partnered with an outside researcher on the study, which was initially conducted only in the US. Once the initial results were returned, it was quickly realised that a worldwide study would add invaluable insights on engagement. The results were summarised as the 12 rules of engagement and outlined in detail in a book titled Widgets: The 12 New Rules for

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Managing Your Employees As If They’re Real People by Rodd Wagner.

ENGAGED EMPLOYEES… Have a manager who understands them

Have a positive outlook about the future

Are compensated fairly

Have low stress, and work-life balance

Are excited about what comes next

Have a cool/exciting place to work

Are recognised for their best work

Work as part of a cohesive team

Have the opportunity to lead on projects

Have a strong sense of accomplishment

“The key was that the rules were universal, although naturally some of the rules are stronger in certain parts of the world than others. I think that goes to show that people are more alike than they are different,” says David Litteken, Vice President of Asia Pacific, BI Worldwide. “We’re living in this new age, but many organisations are still proposing ideas and concepts that are outdated and not appropriate to the new workplace. We wanted to know why.”

Two key themes Two key themes emerged from the research.

The first was that statements like ‘our people are our greatest asset’ were no longer appropriate. Litteken explains: “If you look at corporate annual reports or at corporate websites, these businesses think it’s great to refer to employees as their greatest single asset. But in today’s new world, people are actually finding this type of language off-putting. People are not owned by a company. You can’t put a tag on it and then say ‘we’re going to capitalise on you over the next three years’. We have to stop thinking about employees as belonging to the employer. Instead it’s a mutual relationship between employer and employee.”

The second theme was that employee happiness drives engagement. So in order to get engagement, people must be happy in their lives and in their work. Without the cultural aspect it’s impossible to get engagement, Litteken says.

“You can’t go out and tell your employees, ‘we want you to be engaged’. Or ‘we’re developing programs because we’re looking for an engaged workforce’. It’s a bit of a buzzword from that perspective. We must be careful about how the term is used and look at what we’re trying to accomplish with it.”

Recognition takes centre stage One other recurring message from the study was how important recognition is to employee happiness and, in turn, engagement. There is one rule of the 12 specifically focused on recognition – the notion of an employee being recognised for their best work. However, recognition also impacts on and influences several other rules. For example, another rule is to create a cool or exciting place to work.

A supporting reward and recognition strategy can certainly make work exciting – especially if it focuses on areas like health

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Brought to you by

MODEL TO CREATE A HIGH-PERFORMING CULTURE age and eng ill reach w u o y s loyee ore emp se, the m u u o y nition of recog re types o m e h T

Employee-to-employee

REACH

Manager-to-employee

Corporate-to-employee

Recognise results

Leader-to-manager

Recognise competencies

Recognise behaviours

Recognise accomplishments

FREQUENCY Drives achievement

Drives focus

Drives progress

Reinforces core values

Annual

Occasional

Occasional

Frequent

Formal

Semi-formal or informal

Semi-formal or informal

Informal Source: BI Worldwide

and wellbeing and having ‘fun’ at work.

Another rule suggests it’s critical to have ‘a manager who really understands me’. “Frontline managers are responsible for creating, enhancing and nurturing the culture of a company,” says Litteken.

“However, too many times managers aren’t held accountable for doing that or not doing that. To me, a great recognition program also provides recognition to great managers who are doing a good job. These programs look at the levers and what the needs are for each type of employee and management group in the company.”

Even more important, a recognition strategy can reinforce values, desired behaviours or elements of a culture that need to be emphasised. They can also be

TECHNOLOGY AND RECOGNITION How has technology changed how recognition is handled in organisations?

David Litteken responds: “Gamification has been a big game changer. People can earn virtual badges, which can then be used to go into a lucky draw or be accrued to win rewards. It’s also very visual for people – it can be shared through social channels and they can take their badges and go online or into our app to choose an appropriate reward. But even though today the delivery method has changed, it’s still the words that matter. Most people today, if they receive an electronic card with a great message, will appreciate the sentiment. It doesn’t matter if you typed it or you wrote it with a felt-tip pen – it’s the words that matter. Specific, timely and heartfelt recognition still matters.”

used for rewarding high performance.

“Recognition programs can be used effectively in results-oriented workplaces,” says Litteken. “That is, they’re not purely used for creating a more collegial type of work environment – although they can certainly do that. But programs can be built

around sales or productivity performance or innovation. These are the elements that connect to a larger purpose.”

The power of peer-to-peer recognition Litteken suggests that typically organisations will utilise a few fairly standard recognition

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SECTOR FOCUS

RECOGNITION Brought to you by

7 BEST PRACTICE TIPS 1. Manager strategy. “The program needs to have the ownership and thought leadership of managers at the top.”

2. Manager training. “Managers should understand the power and responsibility they have for creating a recognition culture.”

3. Flexibility with program. “The program needs to be flexible and the program structure needs to be varied.”

4. Measurement & accountability.

“There’s power in measurement, and that comes down to the data you extract from your systems.”

5. Communications campaign.

“There must be a communication strategy that is measured and generates its own data.”

6. Events and celebrations. “The events and celebrations are still very important – gala dinners, weekly roundup meetings to share anniversaries, birthdays, or sales wins.”

7. Recognition & rewards. “Too many companies just focus on the recognition, the reward. It’s far more effective to work on all seven of these best practice standards.”

BI WORLDWIDE BI WORLDWIDE is a global engagement agency that uses the principles of behavioural economics to produce measurable results for its clients by driving and sustaining engagement with its employees, sales and channel partners and customers. Today, BI WORLDWIDE is helping clients and their brands to engage with a new generation of socially connected, tech-savvy, multicultural audiences. We bring experience, with global reach and resources, with offices in Australia, Canada, China, Latin America, India, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.

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programs (see ‘Model to create a highperforming culture’ chart on p31). The first is manager-to-employee, where a manager can recognise someone who has made significant accomplishments – these typically have a one- or two-level approval process.

Then companies will have programs that recognise results, which could be branded as ‘corporate-to-employee’ programs. Team of the year, employee of the year, handed out monthly, quarterly or yearly. Milestone awards like long-service awards or retirement gifts also fall under this category.

The newest addition – employee-to-

way towards highlighting what tasks are being worked on.

Because employee-to-employee recognition is really about recognising certain cultural attributes or values, it can also generate valuable data, as Litteken explains: “Which cultural values are being recognised? Which ones aren’t? That can give you some good insight into areas you pay some lip service to, things you classify as a value but really it’s not. Or it might be a value that people don’t understand; they can’t articulate it or see how it fits to their job. That’s the great thing about data – it

“When companies add employee-toemployee recognition – which really doesn’t have to include any type of reward – it’s going back to people thanking each other” David Litteken, BI Worldwide employee recognition – is currently making the biggest waves. “If you’re really going to have a culture of recognition it’s not always about receiving; it’s also about giving recognition,” says Litteken.

“When companies add employeeto-employee recognition – which really doesn’t have to include any type of reward – it’s going back to people thanking each other, and the beauty is you can have your manager copied in on the recognition. It can reinforce core values and behaviours – and importantly it can be informal and timely.”

Litteken adds that with so many people today working in cross-functional teams, particularly in service-oriented businesses, often managers may be unaware of exactly what everyone in the team does. This peer-to-peer recognition can go a long

tells you what is happening and also what is not happening. That provides you with some power.”

And that power can be used to bolster HR’s argument about the return on investment of recognition programs.

Litteken says that while it’s difficult to isolate the impact that a recognition program has on certain metrics, including engagement, it’s a component that must be considered alongside employee satisfaction scores, staff turnover and other industry benchmarks.

“Looking at that dashboard of data, you know that a well-thought-out recognition program is going to give you a ROI even if you just look at employee turnover.

Ultimately their employees will be more productive, more innovative,” he says.

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SECTOR FOCUS

EMPLOYMENT SCREENING

TIGHTENING THE NET

There are new talent challenges in 2017, including the rise of contingent workers and the increasing globalisation of the workforce. Are you doing everything you can to ensure the people you hire are who they say they are?

FIRST, THE bad news: more than one in five (21.5%) background checks conducted on job candidates in the Asia-Pacific region in 2016 identified inaccuracies in the information supplied by candidates.

This finding was based on the results of background checks performed by HireRight in the APAC region last year.

Fortunately, there is some good news: this discrepancy rate has decreased significantly from 29% the previous year, and rates have likewise dipped slightly in key APAC markets, with Hong Kong, India, the

Philippines and Singapore experiencing the largest decreases.

The decrease in numbers can be attributed to two possible reasons. The first is that an increasing number of APAC employers are integrating background screening into their talent acquisition processes, so the increasing volume of background checks being conducted is making the number of discrepancies seem relatively smaller.

The other is that there may be greater knowledge and understanding among candidates of the screening process and its

SINGAPORE’S TOP DISCREPANCIES Almost one in four (24.7%) background checks conducted in Singapore in 2016 contained discrepancies. Singapore’s discrepancy rate remains above the APAC average (21.5%), but has seen a notable decrease from 2015 (28.4%). Professional licence checks – confirming that a particular licence is held and has not lapsed or expired – was found to be the area in which the highest number of discrepancies occurred. This check is relevant for workers in a range of professions, including accountants, engineers, auditors and doctors.

50

2015 2016

40 30

40.9%

20

18.3%

10 0

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Education qualifications and history

25% 16%

16.5%

Employment history

13.8% Professional licences

potential impact through high-profile CV fraud cases being publicised widely in the media. This, in turn, could be deterring candidates from misrepresenting their credentials – consequently resulting in improved candidate accuracy when submitting job applications.

“Background screening has long been adopted as a best practice by employers in Western countries, while it is only more recently gaining traction in APAC, with multinational corporations spearheading this growth,” says Camilla de Villiers, managing director, APAC, HireRight.

She adds that the number of candidates screened by HireRight in APAC grew by 42% from 2015 to 2016.

Industry nuances While the general uptake in basic checks such as education and employment history verifications should be conducted for all industries, background screening procedures do vary according to industry. For example, employee fraud would be a concern in the retail industry. From the selling floor to the stockroom and warehouse, retail employees need to meet high standards of loyalty, performance and credibility. In such a valuedriven industry, criminal record checks and credit history checks can play a major role in an employer’s risk management process.

Financial regulatory checks are usually mandatory in the financial services industry, especially for roles regulated by government authorities such as the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

Motor vehicle record checks would be needed for the transportation industry or if a company is looking to hire a driver.

Up – and down – the corporate hierarchy There are also differences to note in terms of job seniority. For example, de Villiers says

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there’s a misconception that senior executives and high-ranking board members are not susceptible to credential fraud because they have earned their stripes, accumulating job experience over the years.

“In fact, 37% of respondents in the 2017 HireRight APAC Employment Screening Benchmark Report indicate that their organisations use a different screening standard for senior executives, and 31% note that senior executives have to go through fewer tests and interviews to get a job as a CEO than entry-level hires in their organisations do,” she says.

HireRight’s research also showed that 41% of APAC companies have known people in their organisations who rely on ‘gut instinct’ when hiring for high-profile positions.

De Villiers warns that despite “the perceived notions of infallibility” related to senior hires, employers should still recognise the importance of rigorous hiring and screening processes for senior executives, especially because they will most likely hold greater responsibilities within the organisation and have access to confidential data. Moreover, a senior executive found to have embellished his or her CV could result in a serious public relations challenge for an organisation, so rescreening existing employees, regardless of their experience, could go a long way towards mitigating that risk.

Indeed, the failure to screen people who have moved up the corporate hierarchy or moved elsewhere within a company is a potentially damaging oversight. According to HireRight’s research, only 28% of APAC companies rescreen employees who have been promoted or who have changed roles.

This suggests that significant risk exposure exists as there is no telling whether a person continues to be ‘fit and proper’ as they work their way through an organisation.

“This lack of diligence usually happens when companies assume that the initial screening conducted when the candidate was

CANDIDATE DISCREPANCY RATES SOUTH KOREA CHINA

2016 2015

22.2% 25.9%

25.8% 28.3%

2016 2015

JAPAN

33.9% 34.6%

2016 2015

HONG KONG

2016 2015

21.3% 26.9%

INDIA

2016 2015

20.1% 28.3%

PHILIPPINES

29.8%

2016 2015

47.6%

MALAYSIA

24.2% 24.3%

2016 2015

AUSTRALIA

2016 2015

SINGAPORE

2016 2015

23.2% 25.7%

24.7% 28.4%

“The lack of cross-border due diligence presents a huge gap for APAC companies” Camilla de Villiers, HireRight hired is sufficient,” de Villiers says. “However, promoted employees may have additional responsibilities beyond those assessed in the initial screening. In these instances, the background check performed at hire may not be sufficient to address the criteria associated with added responsibilities.”

Indeed, some employees end up rising

through the ranks in the same company, and move into key leadership positions without ever having been through a thorough background check.

International candidates Even though the world is becoming increasingly connected and companies are

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grand copthorne waterfront hotel singapore SECTOR FOCUS

EMPLOYMENT SCREENING Brought to you by

DON’T FORGET CONTINGENT WORKERS According to HireRight’s benchmark report, while seven in 10 (70%) APAC companies are familiar with procedures for screening non-employee – or contingent – workers, only one in four (25%) actually screen these workers.

Camilla de Villiers confirms that because contingent workers tend to be hired on an on-demand basis, many employers tend to forego screening them because they think it is a substantial cost to incur for someone who will only be there short-term.

“However, screening still serves a significant purpose since they will likely still have the same access to office premises and potentially confidential data as any permanent employee would,” she says.

embracing access to a widened talent pool, there is a sharp disparity in the screening of international candidates – and this is a concerning trend for jurisdictions with higher levels of international hires, such as Singapore. HireRight’s report suggests that while 83% of APAC companies screen local employees, only 48% of them screen international employees.

“It is especially concerning that many international employees are unscreened, because moving to a different country for work could potentially be a means by which

According to HireRight’s research, only 28% of APAC companies rescreen employees who have been promoted or who have changed roles candidates try to escape negative records,” says de Villiers. “The lack of cross-border due diligence presents a huge gap for APAC companies.”

Keeping up with a changing workforce

HIRERIGHT HireRight delivers global background checks, employment, and education verification services through an innovative platform to help companies hire the right candidates. HireRight offers extensive screening solutions that can be tailored to the unique needs of the organisation, and its platform can be integrated with existing HR platforms, making it easy to use and giving candidates the best possible experience. Learn more at www.HireRight.com/apac.

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to a standardised, streamlined experience via an intuitive and digital platform called the Applicant Centre 2.0,” says de Villiers.

Additionally, an increasing number of younger candidates, namely millennials, make up a growing percentage of the workforce every year. True to their digital native selves, these millennial candidates typically desire a tech-savvy digital experience, even when it comes to the recruitment process. Increasing the use of HR and mobile technology therefore helps employers engage with the growing

As recruitment functions become more efficient, so too do screening processes – largely thanks to developments in technology. However, rather than seeing technology as disrupting the candidate screening space, HireRight believes it allows them to provide more efficient and tailored services to clients that, in turn, help them better achieve their business goals and objectives.

“Within HireRight, we’ve embraced technology in our screening processes to help HR achieve a higher recruiting efficiency and provide an enhanced candidate experience by giving them access

proportion of tech-savvy millennial candidates in Asia who use mobiles as their primary devices – and speeds up the screening process as well.

HireRight’s report suggests that 45% of APAC companies are unlikely to add a mobile-friendly screening process for candidates in the next 12 months. With 50% of APAC companies reporting a reduction in time to hire as one of their biggest screening challenges, de Villiers says there is an immense opportunity in the adoption of mobile-friendly experiences. This, she suggests, should be a significant part of HR’s efforts to keep abreast of a rapidly changing employment landscape.

“The HireRight 2017 Employment Screening Benchmark Report focuses on how dynamic the global workforce really is, and how employers today need to be able to adapt to the evolving trends in the job market to attract and retain the right talent.”

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1/06/2017 2/06/2017 1:23:15 6:09:34 PM AM

SECTOR FOCUS

TALENT ACQUISITION

RECRUITING FOR THE ‘MARZIPAN LAYER’

Smart organisations are increasingly moving away from the traditional reactive approach to their executive hiring to one that is far more strategic VOLATILE, UNPREDICTABLE, complex, ambiguous – these are the words most commonly used to describe the business climate of 2017. It means that just about every business function operates with a wary eye on the lookout for disruption. Talent acquisition is no exception, especially when it comes to executive hiring.

they want to build strategic talent acquisition strategies, but the pace of change can lead to inertia or a focus on business as usual – simply because it’s so challenging to get a robust plan looking to the future in place,” he says.

The businesses that take a proactive approach to talent acquisition are those with a progressive board and a strong leadership

“You’re reaching out to a passive talent pool and beginning to open up engagement, building a relationship according to the needs of a client” Matthew Mellor Matthew Mellor, CEO of Armstrong Craven, suggests that when it comes to attempting a more proactive approach to talent acquisition, too many organisations have been overwhelmed by the rapid pace of change – so they opt to continue with what they’ve always done.

“Often clients want to do the right thing;

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team that is very clear on future directions, Mellor adds.

“What we’ve seen are some progressive organisations that really give strength and confidence to the talent acquisition team.

This team is privy to the strategic direction of the business and can plan talent requirements against those plans. They are the ones that

have the strongest, most robust approaches to executive hiring and are getting in place and executing on succession plans.”

Local nuances The Singapore market has added complexities that can serve to further hamper strategic talent planning. Not only are there increasing expectations that organisations will hire locals over expats, but there is also a unique mix of competencies required.

“Singapore by its very nature is a very diverse country in many different ways, especially in terms of talent,” says Mellor.

“What we see with clients in the region is that organisations need to be culturally very agile; they must understand cultural differences – and that demands skills in terms of how you build those teams and bring different leadership styles into play.”

There is a stronger focus on gender diversity, especially the hiring of female leaders in the region, which Mellor says overlays another layer of complexity in finding suitable talent.

There is also an expectation that seniorlevel talent will have, as a minimum, ASEAN or APAC experience, and even more desirable is global experience. Overlaid with this is an increasing demand for talent with digital economy experience and knowledge of emerging areas like data analytics, cloud and mobile technology, and information security.

All these factors combined mean the ‘ideal’ candidate is often hard to find.

“It can make for a fantastically challenging talent environment, and that’s just at the very top executive level of business,” Mellor says.

The ‘marzipan layer’ Indeed, it’s the talent that sits just beneath this top executive level that can suffer the most from reactive approaches to talent acquisition. Armstrong Craven refers to this cohort as the ‘marzipan layer’ – and Mellor says it has been overlooked for too long.

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TALENT MAPPING FOR NICHE ROLES “In large organisations you’ll see executive recruitment firms handling C-suite hires, and then you’ll see RPO operating for lowerlevel roles, but there’s almost like a squeeze in the middle, and it’s this middle layer who I believe is underserved,” he says.

He adds that many businesses may have a divisional leadership team – if not a headquarters – based in Singapore. It means that this leadership team, as well as the senior management team, might be considered the ‘marzipan layer’. Armstrong Craven has used the term to describe this group of professionals in the UK, where typically their salary would fall between £80,000 and £200,000 (S$144,000 and S$360,000).

“When you transfer that to the Singapore market, you can widen it and bring the band lower in the bottom end,” says Mellor.

Talent mapping and pipelining To encourage a more proactive approach to talent acquisition for this marzipan

Matthew Mellor says that, in addition to the ‘marzipan layer’, talent mapping for niche, hard-to-fill roles is a “perfect fit”. “Talent mapping is less suitable for more generic roles, but when you’ve got a very specific need and your client is looking to understand where that talent is located, it plays extremely well. For example, talent in life sciences. What do they look like in terms of qualifications and experience? Is that talent clustered or is it scattered across different geographic regions? Talent mapping in that early phase can help a client understand and progress their thinking around how they want to shape roles, where they want to locate roles, and so on, according to that scarce talent.”

layer, Armstrong Craven is urging clients to trial approaches they may have adopted when grooming internal talent for future roles – namely, talent mapping and talent pipelining. While Mellor says the terms are often used interchangeably, he describes talent mapping – the ability to map the external talent market to identify the very best talent – as being the first critical step.

“Talent mapping requires you being clear on the skills, the experience, and the quality of people who might exist on the talent market – and for that you may need to look internationally as well as locally,” Mellor says.

“What does that talent look like, what is its composition, where is it clustered? It’s the ability to understand where that talent is, but then it’s knowing what it looks like that is so critical. You can then use that knowledge as a foundation for next steps.”

Importantly, external talent mapping can also be used as a way to compare and contrast internal talent bench strength. It can help leaders think about where they wish their talent to be located. Alternatively, it can be used to see the profiles of people performing particular roles and perhaps show that some people may not have the ideal background or experience for such a role – but may in fact

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SECTOR FOCUS

TALENT ACQUISITION Brought to you by

14% – casually looking a few times a week (13%)

be excellent candidates. “It can actually be a beginning point for succession planning,” Mellor says.

It’s also logical to assume that talent pipelining is the next phase. Armstrong Craven defines talent pipelining as engaging that identified talent and building a relationship with them with a view towards bringing them on board in the future.

“You’re reaching out to a passive talent pool and beginning to open up engagement, building a relationship according to the needs of a client,” says Mellor. “When you get that right it can be very powerful.”

20% – reaching out to personal network (15%)

All about relationships

40% – open to talking to a recruiter (45%)

Successful pipelining is all about relationship-building with potential new

WHY PASSIVE CANDIDATES MATTER LinkedIn research shows that three quarters of the fully employed workforce around the world consider themselves passive candidates, or not actively looking for their next job. In Singapore, the statistics generally follow the global trends: 13% – actively looking (12% global)

13% – completely satisfied; don’t want to move (15%) Source: LinkedIn Talent Trends 2014

ARMSTRONG CRAVEN Armstrong Craven is a global talent mapping and pipelining business working with some of the world’s biggest and fastestgrowing companies and brands.

The company focuses on a number of key sectors, including Technology, Healthcare and Life Sciences, Professional and Financial Services, Consumer and Industrial.

Clients are able to benefit from AC’s deep knowledge of markets, organisations and individual motivations and aspirations.

Contact: Heather Travis, Director Asia Pacific – heather.travis@ armstrongcraven.com or + 65 8869 7728.

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particular skills and the ability to develop that you’re very interested in, that’s often a better option. We prefer to focus on smaller numbers and pockets of individuals,” says Travis.

From there it’s about managing expectations and continuing the relationship through.

Mellor is aware of statistics showing the high number of senior hires who come through an executive search firm and fail within six to 12 months, but says the Armstrong Craven approach minimises this risk.

“When you have a candidate who is very open about their own aspirations, their own position in their existing careers, it’s not about a rush to fill a role. It’s the whole experience of onboarding. Our business is all about ensuring those people can progress quickly and successfully in an organisation.”

“If you’ve identified the five to 10 people externally with particular skills and the ability to develop that you’re very interested in, that’s often a better option” Heather Travis hires as well as client organisations. Heather Travis, Armstrong Craven’s Director Asia Pacific, says the Armstrong Craven model is about a partnership with internal acquisition teams and taking the time to learn their challenges, their strengths and capabilities.

“It’s about being a window to the market for them,” she says.

Such a partnership allows the Armstrong Craven team to identify open vacancies and the talent requirements needed in the short term, as well as longer-term talent requirements.

“Sometimes the terms talent mapping and talent pipelining can conjure up images of hundreds of people, but actually if you’ve identified the five to 10 people externally with

Mellor concedes it can sometimes be a challenge to keep external candidates ‘warm’, especially as circumstances – both for the individual and for the client organisation – can change rapidly. “A more mature, grown-up approach always wins over a clandestine sort of approach,” he says, when asked about how much should be revealed to a potential hire at the outset of the relationship.

“For the external market it’s about managing expectations and timeframes. If you’re open with individuals, to the extent you can be about the exact nature of a role, you must manage that. Sometimes the timing isn’t right for an individual, but they want to stay in touch – that’s great. The contact has still been positive.”

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FEATURES

INSIDE HR

LEARNING ON THE JOB There’s a good chance the last locomotive you saw or the diesel engine that propelled the last boat you travelled in was powered by GE. Iain Hopkins discovers why GE’s global leadership institute at Crotonville lies at the heart of the global giant’s operations

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ASK MOST HR professionals what they know about General Electric, and the answer will invariably be either “Jack Welch” or “performance management” – and sometimes the two are tied together. Welch was the visionary CEO and chairman of GE from 1981 to 2001. A pioneer in the company’s use of the formally known ‘vitality curve’ – less formally known as ‘rank and yank’ – GE’s approach to performance management was groundbreaking for the time. Key to the process was the annual performance review. From there, each employee’s performance was tied to a number, and they were judged and ranked against peers. Underperformers in the bottom percentage (10% in GE’s case) were then fired.

21-year company veteran, the spirit of Jack Welch is still very much alive and well. Having been at the company during Welch’s reign, Kaviris can see a distinct difference from during and after his time.

“People still believe that the Jack Welch approach is still very much alive at the company,” she says. “One consistent element from when Jack was here to now is that GE has always very much been a meritocracy. However, the difference in the approach today is that it has moved from a once-a-year performance management process to a process of continuous feedback and insights all year long.”

Kaviris adds that the ability of employees

The average GE employee will likely visit Crotonville a number of times throughout his or her career, and the leadership programs are pitched at each level of experience GE disposed of formal, forced rankings around a decade ago, and over the next few years the company will be matching other players on the global stage by abandoning formal annual reviews and its legacy performance management system for its 300,000-strong workforce. In their place will be a less regimented system of more frequent feedback via an app. For certain employees situated in smaller experimental groups, for example, there will no longer be numerical rankings.

For Athena Kaviris, senior human resources leader at GE Transportation and a

and managers to share real-time feedback has been much more impactful than a single discussion. “People have a stronger opportunity to then act on a specific insight given in the moment versus something they may have had months ago,” she says. “It’s fostering a sense of actionable insights, which we label as ‘continue to considers’, around a very specific example where someone is doing well and where they might have the opportunity for improvement.”

GE’s contemporary feedback loop also supports the notion of constant calibration of individual performance against business goals. “I think that’s probably been the most

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FEATURES

INSIDE HR L&D AT GE

US$1bn

Amount invested per year in employee development worldwide

1,800

Number of courses offered on campus and virtually from Crotonville, GE’s global leadership institute Akin to a college campus, GE’s Crotonville facility offers a number of different settings for learning & development

1956

Year GE’s first corporate university was established

74%

Percentage of in-person leadership development sessions delivered outside the US

198

Global locations where leadership development opportunities can take place on-site

meaningful change beyond the fact that it’s now real-time feedback,” Kaviris says. “It’s really set up to be based on the business priorities and adjusting those as the priorities change.”

GE Transportation in context GE Transportation is a global digital industrial leader supplying the rail, mining, marine, power and drilling industries. With 10,000 full-time employees located in 65 sites worldwide, GE Transportation is considered a Tier 1 GE business, alongside digital, aviation, healthcare, oil and gas, and renewable energy. Beyond the talent that streams seamlessly across GE business divisions – Kaviris herself has worked in six divisions during her tenure – a common linkage is the ‘GE store’. This is where various

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businesses can come together to support GE client needs.

“Because of our cross-industry expertise and scale, we try to transfer intellect and technology across our industries and around the world,” Kaviris says. “These could be from advanced technology material, software, analytics, or from commercialising our products and leveraging best practices.

What this allows us to do is drive innovation, performance and outcomes regardless of the business and the geography; it allows us to show one unified face to the customer and the communities in which we play.”

The 70 HR professionals in Kaviris’ team support all aspects of business operations, from manufacturing to commercial and

functional teams. The GE Transportation team also partners with the corporate HR team for expertise within GE’s centres of excellence – for example, support for recruitment, compensation, benefits, OD and L&D. “We have the best of both worlds – the HR talent sitting resident in the GE Transportation business, supporting those teams 24/7, and then we have access to centres of excellence for other layers of expertise when needed,” Kaviris says.

Grooming next-generation talent GE has recognised that its people will be critical to staying ahead of the pack. When asked which tenet of HR GE excels in the most, Kaviris doesn’t hesitate: “Our ability to invest in our

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talent,” she says. “A key part of our mission is to build strong leaders.”

It’s more than words. GE’s legendary Crotonville Corporate Campus, located an hour north of New York City, is like having a worldclass educational institution embedded within the organisation. The facility is a lab, a continuous learning environment where GE brings employees together from different segments of the company – Kaviris says it would be rare to have an intact team go through training.

“We think this is a big part of the experience,” she says. “You go through this learning and development experience with people who come from all different industries at GE. The courses can range from a couple of days in some cases to a couple of weeks, but the benefit does not just come from the classroom experience; it’s about immersive leadership development and plenty of best practice knowledge-sharing between peers. We also engage many external speakers because we feel like our markets are changing to the point where we need to bring in either customers or other subject-matter experts to the process.”

The average GE employee will likely visit Crotonville a number of times throughout his or her career, and the leadership programs are pitched at each level, from first-time leaders to more experienced leaders. The Accelerated Leadership Program, or XLP, is one example.

Launched two years ago, the program aims to take in students from various functional disciplines. The course is complemented by on-the-job experiences, stretch assignments and cross-functional rotations. Another option is ‘Leadership Exploration’, intended for more experienced leaders, who are able to immerse themselves in a particular market for a period of time while studying.

So proud is GE of the facility that even customers are entertained at Crotonville; alternatively, they may be brought in to try to resolve a particular challenge alongside the GE team. Kaviris herself has been fortunate to attend several courses at the recently renovated facility during her career at GE. “I don’t know if it was by design – and you certainly go there for the content – but inevitably by participating with

GETTING WOMEN INTO STEM “We feel that a company that wants to change the world really needs to reflect the world,” says Athena Kaviris. With that guiding principal in mind, GE has set a goal of having 20,000 women fill STEM roles at GE by 2020, and obtaining 50:50 male/female representation for all technical entry-level programs.

“It’s not simply the right thing to do; it’s a strategy,” Kaviris says. “It’s necessary to inject urgency into addressing the ongoing gender imbalance in technical fields and ultimately transform ourselves into a digital industrial company.”

A number of initiatives have been launched in recent years with the specific purpose of building talent pipelines among young people. The Women’s Network was created in 1997 to help the women working at GE advance their careers and the company’s business. In 2011, the Women’s Network implemented a series of STEM day camps for junior-high-school girls. Hubs and GE partner universities developed a curriculum that fosters girls’ interest in STEM, with the long-term goal of encouraging more women to enter those career fields.

Further up the chain, Kaviris says progress is being made. GE’s long-standing Edison Engineering program, for example, was able to achieve a gender ratio of 50:50 in 2016. Even more critically, GE’s CEO, Jeff Immelt, has said that putting more executive women in powerful roles is a crucial aspect to the company’s transformation. Jamie Miller, president and CEO of GE Transportation, has been featured prominently in this push, sharing her GE career evolution and outlining how being taken out of her comfort zone has helped her become a business leader.

“One consistent element from when Jack Welch was here to now is that GE has always very much been a meritocracy” Athena Kaviris, GE Transportation other colleagues from around the globe and different businesses, you’ll discover pretty quickly that you’re facing a similar opportunity or challenge,” she says. “That connection is sparked there and continues once you move back to your normal roles.”

She adds that another benefit of the collegiate atmosphere is that it has helped to accelerate her own learning. “Oftentimes I’ve been through classes where I’ve made a connection with someone who happens to be working on something I just happen to be starting,” she says, “and I can accelerate my progress by tapping into them after the class.”

For those not based in the US, leadership development courses are offered on-site in 198 locations spread across 50 countries, including global learning centres in Munich, Shanghai, Bengaluru, Abu Dhabi, Rio de Janeiro and elsewhere.

Despite the infrastructure and support offered to high-potential and high-performing

employees, Kaviris says the average progression from intern to senior leader is “not as scripted” as some might believe. “There are many development avenues to potentially go down,” she says, adding that there are decades of stories of GE employees who have moved up through the ranks – intern-to-CFO-type stories – which demonstrate that if employees know how to navigate their careers and they are provided with great mentoring and coaching and stretch assignments along the way, the sky is the limit.

Kaviris speaks from experience. Although she currently resides in Chicago, where GE Transportation is headquartered, her tenure at GE has taken her to posts in Europe and other parts of the US. “My time in Europe was truly developmental – it changed me and made me the global leader I am today,” she says. “What keeps me with the company is truly the people, the beliefs and the unyielding focus on integrity.”

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FEATURES

INDUSTRY EVENT

HR STRATEGY IN AN AGE OF DISRUPTION ‘The future of work for HR – how relevant is your people strategy?’ That was the theme of a recent roundtable discussion chaired by Rachel Chung, Unit4’s HR director, APAC. HRD sat down with Chung to discuss how and why HR must change with the times HRD: What are the key trends in the HR industry that are shaping the future of the workforce?

Rachel Chung: HR is facing unprecedented levels of change, and in the last few years the pace has accelerated dramatically – with growth and globalisation, technology advancements, disruptive business models, and changing workforce demographics with evolving expectations and demands. It is important for HR professionals to stay on top of this shifting environment, to be proactive in responding to workforce expectations, not reactive. HR should essentially become a business function that helps to lead the way in delivering bottom-line results.

HRD: How can organisations leverage technology to engage and enable the workforce?

RC: For many of us, work is an integral part of our lives; integral to us achieving personal goals, and providing fulfilment. That does not mean we want to spend hours completing unnecessary and tedious tasks or trying to find information that should be readily available. One of the main reasons people put more hours into work than is necessary is that we still haven’t fully embraced the possibilities that digitalisation can provide. Technology has a huge opportunity to deliver positive experiences that will help more people achieve fulfilment in their working lives.

By adopting social collaboration concepts and building engaging environments for sharing relevant information in an easily readable and contextual format, you can avoid people having to scan endless chains of emails or different intranets or file servers to find information. With proper digital solutions to run complex processes like budgeting and forecasting and resource and project management, and deliver online self-service reporting, the need for complex Excel sheets that only a handful of people in the organisation can understand is removed.

In addition, looking at how mobile devices are constantly changing the way we conduct work, enabling employees to be able to work and collaborate anywhere, at any given time, is the key towards ensuring employee satisfaction. By mobilising the company’s workforce through self-service and mobile apps, businesses can offer employees a highly

personalised experience along with the flexibility of constantly being engaged.

HRD: What tips can you provide for organisations to increase workforce productivity?

RC: The global economy is facing an increasingly serious workforce crisis in both capacity and capabilities. Where maintaining consistent productivity within the organisation was the target of the past, today that’s no longer enough. Productivity across the entire workforce must increase significantly due to the workforce challenges mentioned before, on top of maintaining competitiveness and meeting the evergrowing expectations of customers and stakeholders.

Technology will play an important role in addressing the productivity issue. However, many companies are struggling with how to deploy technologies to make the workplace

LACK OF METRICS AND TOOLS IS HOLDING HR BACK

39% have ample data to understand strengths and potential vulnerabilities

38% use quantifiable metrics and benchmarking as part of workforce development strategy

42% know how to extract meaningful insights from the data available to them Source: Unit4

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KEY 2017 HR TRENDS A strategic approach to the new face of work. The future of the workforce is one that is more ethnically and gender diverse. We will also work in more internationally diverse teams as companies continue to grow globally. As companies are relying increasingly on a flexible workforce, the nature of employment itself is undergoing transformation.

Understanding and accommodating these changes is critical in managing the 2020 workforce, requiring HR professionals to take a more strategic approach to HR – and equip themselves with the right tools to manage the new workplace.

“Technology will play an important role in addressing the productivity issue”

more productive. The urgency grows as fewer workers are available to deal with the increasing workloads.

We see four stages of sophistication: 1) Standardise, 2) Optimise, 3) Predict and 4) Drive. To create a solid foundation to support future growth ambitions it’s key to first focus on Stages 1 and 2. Serviceintensive organisations should deploy people-centric enterprise solutions that are optimised to communicate, plan and problem-solve, in a speedy and cost-efficient manner. They need to standardise processes and reduce reliance on manual input, and beyond that optimise and simplify complex procedures so that employees can focus on

serving the customer, and achieving their objectives. To enable them to do the job more effectively, the tools at work should also have the same intuitive and easy-to-use interface as their personal devices and applications.

They can then advance to predict and drive by utilising new, disruptive technology to be future-ready. The future of work will be centred on a collection of new technologies, such as natural language processing, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and augmented reality. These four related developments hold the greatest promise to boost worker productivity overall and collectively act as the most transformative force in the global economy for the foreseeable future.

Driving engagement through a compelling employee experience. Beyond flexibility, most employees expect some level of personalisation in their workplace that resonates with them. When done right, it should not feel like personalisation – it should feel like a great and seamless work-life experience that will effectively engage employees and boost their productivity and performance.

New bot technology is a great example of how employee user experience and interaction with enterprise systems will change. Unit4’s Wanda (or whatever name and identity the customer wants to give him/her/it) is one of the first examples of a truly intelligent, helpful digital assistant for the enterprise.

She represents a new user experience that feeds from core data in the back-office systems, then makes a growing number of essential but non-value-add processes, like completing timesheets and managing purchases and approvals, self-driving. The user simply talks to her through their messaging app to confirm assumptions, ask questions and complete tasks.

Upskilling the workforce for new digital capabilities. There is an increased focus on technology at work, including automation, robotics, machine learning and wearables, as they are likely to have the biggest impact on the workforce in the next two years.

Increased use of analytics. We are seeing increased use of analytics by HR professionals to understand the metrics of the workforce and learn meaningful insights. We rely on data to understand strengths and potential vulnerabilities, and on quantifiable metrics and benchmarking for workforce development strategy.

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VENDOR PROFILE

SAGE

POWERING PEOPLE-CENTRIC ORGANISATIONS HR’s standing in business is on the rise, but it’s vital that it has the tools required to deliver services more effectively Q: How does Sage view HR’s progression from administrators to strategic players?

A: In many organisations, the HR manager faces a dilemma. You’d like to spend more time truly improving the overall work environment for your employees. You want to help company management to find ways to save on workforcerelated costs, to find and hire better talent, and to improve existing talent through training and development. But most days you are stuck doing paperwork. The routine administration involved in day-to-day HR operations drains away the majority of your available time and energy.

Research by Ed Lawler and John Boudreau* from the Center of Effective Organizations found that, on average, over 50% of an HR department’s time is spent processing employee information and answering questions.

Q: HR is accustomed to managing people with the assistance of multiple platforms, but in 2017 this isn’t required, is it?

A: HRMS and payroll can be integrated into a single employee view, offering the following features and allowing employees and HR professionals to manage their own personal progress and information: • employee self-service portals to keep information current and accessible any time, anywhere, on any device

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• flexible solutions designed for easy HR adoption, to practise in-house or be outsourced to a BPO • always up to date with yearly legislation • always up-to-date records of all your employees • automatically calculates tax and statutory deductions • e-payslips in accordance with local legislation for all employees • business financial insights integrated with HRMS solutions A well-planned HRMS can help you: • reduce routine administration and paperwork • automate core HR, benefits, and payroll processes for increased efficiency and productivity • increase retention by providing a high level of service to employees • easily create accurate, timely reporting and analysis • enable harmonisation with all current accounting applications being used in the organisation to allow for fast and easy conformity • reduce the cost of compliance and risks associated with increasingly complex and burdensome regulations, including the avoidance of fines, penalties, and costly litigation

This consolidated view of the business across multiple countries, and multiple companies and entities, at the click of a button will cover analytical details and give you insights into the trends of your company’s HR and payroll investments and opportunities, such as workforce performance, talent availability and job vacancies, which will allow you to make business decisions faster so that you capture business opportunities that come your way, for survival and success.

Q: How can an integrated HRMS/ payroll system help HR do their job more efficiently?

A: Implementing an HRMS eliminates much of the routine paperwork associated with HR. An HRMS automates the most manual and time-consuming human resources functions.

This automation frees up valuable time that you can spend on more strategic initiatives.

Without an HRMS, most HR managers rely on paper to manage employee processes.

It’s a struggle to track employee information using a combination of home-grown spreadsheets and office filing cabinets.

Hiring information, payroll records, benefit plan elections, and training certifications for a single employee might be stored in four or more different locations.

This invites errors as information becomes lost and outdated. You must replicate each change to an employee’s data across several files. It becomes tedious, if not impossible, to create timely reports and analysis.

An HRMS improves accuracy and saves time by helping you keep all employee data in one place. It also provides standardised processes that you can adopt, giving your organisation more structure than you may have previously enjoyed. Because the data in an HRMS is centralised, there is no need to duplicate the data in order to use it for multiple tasks. *Lawler, E. & Boudreau, J. (2010), Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California.

Retrieved from: http://ceo.usc.edu/news/ how_does_hr_spend_its_time_it.html

For further information on Sage’s suite of HRIS and payroll solutions visit www.sage.com/en-sg

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FEATURES

EXECUTIVE EDUCATION

SWITCHING (CAREER) GEARS They say that a change is as good as a holiday – perhaps it’s time to apply that logic to your own career? The answer may be postgraduate study, of which the shining jewel remains the MBA

THE MBA is still one of the most valuable postgraduate degrees for a professional to have in their educational arsenal – not just because of the weight an MBA designation adds to job applications but because of the relevancy of the knowledge and skills acquired throughout the

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study process. On top of that, the networking opportunities an MBA degree affords students is unparalleled.

And when it comes to MBA programs in the Asia-Pacific region, Singapore is the leader. Three of Singapore’s universities

placed in the top 10 of the QS Global 250 Business Schools Report 2017, with INSEAD’s Singapore campus at the top.

This strong result was repeated in the Global MBA Ranking 2017, published by the Financial Times (FT), in which INSEAD (France/Singapore/Abu Dhabi) also came out on top. Nanyang Business School and the National University of Singapore Business School also made it to the FT top 50.

Staying ahead of the game MBAs have had to move with the times in order to stay relevant in a rapidly changing business world.

“In my view, an MBA education is increasingly important in our fast-changing world today, where new perspectives, insights and skills are needed more than ever before,” says Elaine Tan, group director of marketing, East Asia Institute of Management (EASB).

“The discussion is not about whether an MBA education is still valuable, but rather what learning content a modern MBA should have.”

Tan adds that in today’s age of ‘digital Darwinism’ – in which technology and our society are evolving faster than any organisation could naturally adapt, and disruptive innovations are rapidly becoming the mainstream – a company’s “fitness for ongoing change” has become an essential capability for survival.

“MBA programs that produce effective leaders today need to be regularly reviewed and modernised so as to elevate its relevancy with the contemporary demands of our business world,” says Tan. She adds that the curriculum of a good MBA today should bring in different disciplines, including economics, sociology, philosophy and many other social sciences, as well as important modules such as change management, talent management, and new media literacy, to name just a few.

Contemporary MBAs differ from traditional programs in at least two key respects. First, rather than treat each topic area as separate, today’s best programs focus on integrating knowledge around solving

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concrete, real-life business problems.

Second, there has been a growing demand for programs that allow candidates to combine the breadth of the traditional MBA curriculum with the depth of a specialisation in a particular area like technology or change management.

Indeed, 2016 research covering 1,000 students at 35 business schools worldwide highlighted just how rapidly the MBA space is changing. The resulting report, Time for MBA 2.0, produced by education consultants CarringtonCrisp, with support from the European Foundation for Management Development, pointed to a move away from the traditional two-year MBA towards options such as e-learning and blended learning. In addition, it said, the popularity of specialist MBAs has “soared” to the point that interest in specialist and generalist MBAs is more or less equal – the most popular specialist MBAs are finance, international management, IT and entrepreneurship.

Students were also found to have high expectations that a business school would assist them in finding a job upon graduating. The top five career services that prospective students expected to be provided were career coaching, a mentorship program, career development workshops, consulting projects with a company, and a personalised career plan.

The report also shed light on what skills students expect to develop from MBA study. At the top of the list was leadership, followed by critical thinking skills, entrepreneurialism, negotiation skills and communication skills. Self-awareness came at the bottom of a list of 17 skills.

The report also noted several contrasts between genders. Among them was that men are more likely to want to improve their entrepreneurial skills, with women prioritising being better negotiators.

Business schools have reacted.

Course delivery is the prime example of the attempt to match what students are looking for. Course materials can now be supplied online well in advance of classes commencing, and greater study flexibility is now offered. Australian Catholic University

INSEAD LEADS ON THE GLOBAL STAGE In 2017, INSEAD’s MBA program was announced by the Financial Times as being the world’s best for the second year running. To achieve the top ranking in the publication’s Global MBA Ranking 2017, INSEAD scored highly across several categories, including alumni career progress, international diversity, and idea generation.

In 2016, INSEAD – which has campuses in France, Singapore and Abu Dhabi – became the first school with a one-year MBA program to take the top spot.

2017 ranking

2016 ranking

3-year ranking

1

1

2

INSEAD

France/Singapore/Abu Dhabi

2

5

4

Stanford Graduate School of Business

US

3

4

3

University of Pennsylvania: Wharton

US

4

2

2

Harvard Business School

US

5

10

9

University of Cambridge: Judge Business School

UK

School

Country

Course delivery is the prime example of the attempt to match what students are looking for (ACU), for example, offers both a standard MBA during weekday evenings (which has a more international flavour) as well as the MBA Executive taught part-time in weekend intensive mode. Al Marshall, of the Faculty of Law and Business at ACU, says the MBA Executive program attracts executives from a diverse range of organisations with an average of 17 years’ managerial experience.

The face-to- face intensive weekend mode of delivery provides opportunities to network and engage with industry and business leaders as guest speakers who bring in a wealth of experience.

“It’s no longer enough to teach the basics,” says Marshall. “All our course content must be practical, ethical and global in outlook.

Social responsibility, ethical leadership, governance, sustainability, innovation and entrepreneurship are the cornerstones of our programs.”

Theory mixed with practice The 70/20/10 learning framework, which captures the three types of learning – experiential, social and formal – is typically used in MBAs. Importantly, much of the learning in an MBA takes place outside of a

formal learning environment, and networking among peers is often cited as a valuable part of undertaking an MBA. Practical work-related experience is also an essential part of the learning experience. Some business schools will offer students the chance to participate in industry placements and work on projects in which students work as a team to solve real business problems.

Business schools are also continuing to forge strong relationships with the business world, both to shape course content and to expose students to real-life business challenges.

EASB, for example, keeps itself current on the latest developments in the various industries by having a diverse board made up of industry practitioners. “We also ensure that our lecturers have vast industry experiences and are current in their practices,” Tan says.

In addition, EASB keeps itself active and builds important academic and industry networks in the region so as to provide learning and career opportunities for its students. For example, EASB is one of the founding members of the ASEAN Academic Alliance, which aims to promote education exchanges and research support, with the

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FEATURES

EXECUTIVE EDUCATION goal of promoting the quality of higher education learning in the region.

Going digital The education industry is fast transforming because learners have changed. According to Deloitte’s Millennials Survey 2014, millennials will make up 75% of the global workforce by 2025 – and they favour learning through networking and social media. They want instant information, more flexibility and a more personalised, fun and interactive learning experience.

Hence, business schools have reviewed their education service delivery model. Tan refers to this as the ‘New Blend’, in which traditional face-to-face teaching is enhanced with the three key components of mobile learning, short-form video and gamification to satisfy the needs of millennials for more instant, flexible and engaging learning experiences.

Greater flexibility is also afforded by technology, meaning that some MBAs are now offered entirely through distance education.

Executive MBAs Another relatively recent phenomenon has been the development of Executive MBAs (EMBAs).

These are designed to specifically meet the education needs of managers and executives, allowing students to earn an MBA (or another business-related graduate degree) in two years or less while working full-time. To cite one example, the ESSEC and Mannheim Executive MBA Asia-Pacific program is designed for professionals who have worked for upwards of 15 years in their chosen field. Program director Professor Cedomir Nestorovic says it’s important

“Most people undertake an EMBA, in my experience, for knowledge” Cedomir Nestorovic to clarify the differences between the MBA and the Executive MBA. “The requirements of the Executive MBA are not the same, the time commitment is not the same, and student expectations are also not the same,” he says.

Nestorovic says students usually take on an EMBA for one of two reasons. The first is that they lack some formal education, and secondly because they want some specialisation.

“Concerning the first reason, we have people come in with 10–15 years of experience in marketing or finance or another discipline,

THREE SINGAPORE SCHOOLS IN GLOBAL TOP 10 The QS Global 250 Business Schools Report 2017 identifies the top 250 full-time MBA programs around the world, in 36 different countries. Singapore is leading the way, with three of its business schools in the top 10.

Top 10 business schools in Asia-Pacific for employability: Rank

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but they’ve never really touched other areas.

Maybe their aim is to climb the ladder in their organisation, to become a general manager in the company, or secondly they want to get out and find another job because they believe they cannot go further in their existing organisation.”

On the second reason – to build specialist knowledge – ESSEC specialises in three areas: first is a focus on Asia; second is

Institution

Country

1

INSEAD

Singapore

2

AGSM, University of New South Wales

Australia

3

Melbourne Business School, University of Melbourne

Australia

4

Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad

India

5

NUS Business School, National University of Singapore

Singapore

6

Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore

India

7

UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney

Australia

8

The HKUST Business School

Hong Kong

9

Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University

Singapore

10

Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta

India

digitalisation, with courses on big data, e-commerce, social media marketing, and so on; and third is entrepreneurship and doing business in start-up companies.

“EMBAs operate on a much tighter timeframe,” says Nestorovic. “We can’t have 10 courses on marketing or finance. It’s our goal to balance what is needed for all GMs. That’s why we’ve chosen these three areas of specialisation.”

The ESSEC EMBA is a modular program, requiring 10 weeks of full-week (Monday– Saturday) study, which are scattered throughout the year. Each module will consist of two courses of three days each. For each course, two-and-a-half days will be filled with formal teaching, and a half-day will be spent on a company visit or talk given by a professional.

In addition, there are two weeks of residential study. One of these will typically take place in Korea, and the other week will be elsewhere – for example, UCLA or Georgetown University.

Nestorovic says there are two key benefits of residential study. “First, it’s a unique bonding experience for students who might not get to spend a great deal of time together otherwise. It’s where the networking and idea-sharing happens. Secondly, it gets people out of their comfort zone – they learn a lot from being in a host country or city and being away from home.”

Just as the time commitment is different for students undertaking an EMBA versus a traditional MBA, so too is the expected outcome.

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“Every time we have participants come into the program I have a one-hour chat with them. I want to know their motivations for undertaking a study and what they hope to achieve. Most people undertake an EMBA, in my experience, for knowledge. Unlike a full-time MBA where there’s a strong desire to move from one role to another, here they are mainly keen for more knowledge. This is perhaps why the average age is 50–52 – they have a lot of working experience already, but they want to boost their knowledge. For younger people it’s the same response – they have identified some gaps in their education and that’s why they come to us.

Importantly, that knowledge is shared in the classes. Students from a diverse range of backgrounds, including finance, banking, accounting, marketing and, increasingly, HR, can share real-life practical examples of what’s happening in their own business.

Making the choice With so many MBA programs now on offer globally, how can prospective students make the right choice?

It’s essential to find a university that will support a student on their learning journey – this is critical as most people enrol in an MBA because they want to move up from a specialist role to a senior generalist management position or take their career in a new direction. Students might look at overall satisfaction and good teaching practice for postgraduate business courses (Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching, or QILT). Other key considerations will be price and duration.

Tan suggests: “Review the MBA curriculum and see if the content is contemporary, to prepare you to meet the new business challenges of today and tomorrow. For parttime working professionals, the program structure would also be an important consideration and students are advised to select a program that offers them a suitable structure or sufficient flexibility to allow them to manage their studies, career and family commitments.”

Indeed, perhaps the most critical question to ask is this: ‘What obligations do I have

with work, family, social activities?’

Marshall adds that it’s critical to shop around and look at the alternatives and consider which delivery methods best suit your learning style. Beyond that, it is extremely important to consider the quality of teaching staff. Finally, he suggests students should also think about: yycurrency of content yyflexibility of start dates and time allowed to complete yyincorporation of technology yymanageable class sizes

AN MBA SNAPSHOT

Location: Singapore Website: www.easb.edu.sg/en/ programmes/academic-level/master-sdegree/mba-heriot-watt.html Official name of MBA program: Master of Business Administration Part-time or full-time? Both full-time and part-time available

The future

Course duration: 15 months

As the workforce continues to evolve, major areas of focus within MBAs will shift. From traditional areas such as general management, business schools will likely see a shift towards a focus on responsible management; that is, innovation, sustainability, economic and social impact, and ethical decision-making. There is also a bigger focus on getting closer to practice, and teaching the soft skills of management. We will also likely see: More specialisation – There continues to be increasing demand for MBAs that allow students to specialise in a particular area.

Business schools are working hard to bring new specialisations to market in the next few years.

More flexibility – Students increasingly want to study in a range of modes: online, intensive and face-to-face and mixed.

Closer integration with workplace learning – Most of the business schools contacted by HRD expect to work closely with companies to ensure that in-house workplace learning is aligned to and recognised as part of MBA programs.

Broader connections – A key to the MBA experience is the people you meet and study with. You learn from them, they become your support network, and later they become key resources for you in your career. However, this should not be restricted to just the 20 or 30 people in your class. MBAs should increasingly provide you with entry into a global network that can support you throughout your career, and technology is making this possible.

Intake date(s): March, June, August, December

1

2

3

4

Strengths & emphasis: The Edinburgh Business School Master of Business Administration from Heriot-Watt University is designed for individuals wishing to gain advanced management skills and expertise. The MBA is a broad-based management degree and appeals to individuals from a wide range of backgrounds. The capstone Strategic Planning module develops strategic thinking and the ability to recognise and use the various tools and techniques of the other core courses to identify and solve a wide range of business problems.

Admission criteria: A first- or secondclass business-related honours degree from a recognised university; or passes in three of the MBA courses (one of which must be a core) obtained by self-study; and a minimum of two years’ full-time work experience of a responsible nature; and proficiency in English language (minimum IELTS 6.5 or equivalent) Current number of students undertaking MBA: Information not available Cost: Total fees: S$33,250 (international students – full-time) S$28,650 (Singaporeans/PR – full-time) S$26,950 (Singaporeans/PR – part-time) Accreditation: Awarded by the Edinburgh Business School of HeriotWatt University, UK

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PEOPLE

CAREER PATH

DRIVER OF CHANGE

With an appetite for transformation and an international perspective, Ilja Rijnen has long been an agent of change

During a year spent travelling through Australia, New Zealand and Asia, Ilja Rijnen’s first day of a job as a kitchen hand provided him with a future direction when a manager scolded him so severely as a motivation tactic that he quit. In a roundabout way this incident prompted Rijnen to study psychology at Amsterdam University.

“I’m always very curious about how people are motivated. I was triggered [by that incident] in thinking, ‘What drives people in their ways of motivating others?’”

2005

STARTS CAREER WITH IKEA In Rijnen’s first professional position he was responsible for learning and development for IKEA’s operations in the UK and parts of Western Europe.

He joined the company just after its reorganisation.

“They took a risk; they hired me in a mid-senior role. I had the background but not the experience. I learn best by doing, and I deliver what I promise.”

FINDS A DIRECTION

1998

STUDIES PSYCHOLOGY Back in his native Netherlands, Rijnen’s degree studies were slowed down by the need to care for his mother. After she passed away, he was granted a government scholarship to finish his master’s in psychology. The extra time and money allowed him to do additional internships in his field of choice and indirectly led to his first professional position.

“It gave me quite a bit of experience that brought me to my first real job outside of university.”

2008

MOVES TO DIAGEO

2009

TAKES FIRST HR POSITION Not finding his purpose on the supply chain management side, Rijnen was encouraged to apply for a broad HR role during one of the company’s reorganisations, and despite his reservations he joined HR. “They gave me an option to go into HR, and I didn’t want to; I thought HR was dull – I like the learning side, the transformation side and how HR can be used as a driver of business performance. I thought HR needed a shake-up; and they agreed.”

2015

JOINS EDRINGTON

Having relocated to Singapore with Diageo, Rijnen was approached by Edrington, where he eventually took the role of regional HR director Asia-Pacific and India. Key to Rijnen’s decision to join Edrington was the fact that the luxury alcohol maker – which was in the process of integrating its Asia-Pacific business – was owned by a charitable trust.

“I’m proud that last year we gave £18.5m worldwide. The company has transformed in the last two years. They hired me to lead the Asia HR change agenda.”

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1996

Having hit a ceiling at IKEA, Rijnen was approached by drinks brand Diageo, which offered a change of gears with a global supply chain capability management position.

The company was in the midst of a recasting of emphasis to become more customer-centric. This coincided with the GFC, which itself necessitated a change in model. “It was exciting times, amidst a lot of change.”

2012

SNAGS ROLES IN JAMAICA AND MIAMI The year-long program Rijnen ran to help leaders identify their purpose was integral to attaining his first position outside Europe, when he was asked by a past trainee to join Red Stripe in Jamaica. At the same time he was offered the regional project for Diageo Latin America and the Caribbean, led from Miami.

“In the end I did both [roles]. I wanted to work and live abroad”

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PEOPLE

OTHER LIFE

ON TWO WHEELS

Consultant Amanda Prenty is seeing the world from the seat of a bike

FITTINGLY FOR such dyed-in-the-wool travellers, the idea for a global multi-year adventure by bike came in a cafe in Paris. When observing her devastation that a six-week vacation was coming to an end, Prenty’s husband said, “Let’s not go back.”

The plans born that night took three years to implement until, finally, in August of 2014, the couple “pulled the plug, left our corporate jobs, sold the house” and hit the road on the first leg of a planned 10-year journey.

As well as other accomplishments, such as picking up Spanish, learning to play the guitar, and writing a book specifically for cyclists exploring Cuba, Prenty has maintained her HR consulting career during her travels, with the help of technology.

The one aspect of travelling that has left the greatest impression on her has been the human connections that proved so elusive in the corporate world.

“At first I wanted to see the world, but now I’m more intrigued by the kindness of people. The countries I’m visiting are beautiful, but at the end of the day most of my memorable stories are about the people.”

This latest journey, the leg that began at Inuvik – the northernmost tip of North America by road – is scheduled to wind up at the southernmost tip of South America, poetically known as the End of the World, early next year.

7

Number of times the couple has crossed the continental divide

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218,000m Distance climbed (the equivalent of Mt Everest 24 times)

17

Number of flat tyres on the trip so far

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