HRM 11.5

HR IN FA MILY BUSINESSES

EMPLOYEE HE ALTH PL ANS

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+ Empowering employees at Carl Zeiss + When expats come home + Inside Nokia Siemens Networks

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ISSUE 11.5

CSR TRENDS

Is management speak confusing you?

CONTENTS hrm11.5

COVER STORY 16 The buzz about words

Managers who use unintelligible phrases in meetings might alienate their employees.

HRM finds out if management speak is destroying internal communications

IN THIS COVER STORY “If someone uses the words synergy, paradigm and robust all in the same conversation, they have become a corporate slave and cannot be trusted” Brent Tignor, regional HR manager, Asia Pacific, Stepan Company

SENIOR JOURNALIST

Sumathi V Selvaretnam JOURNALISTS

Shalini Shukla-Pandey Priya de Langen TRAFFIC MANAGER

Patsy Ang

SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Amos Lee

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

John Paul Lozano

REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR

Evelyn Lim

ACCOUNT MANAGERS

Natasha Vincent Yogesh Chandiramani Charlene Lim

GENERAL MANAGER

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

REGIONAL MANAGING EDITOR

PRINTED BY

Kaveri Ayahsamy

George Walmsley

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Richard Curzon

Mark Stennett Opine Design

Times Printers Pte Ltd MICA (P) 158/07/2010 ISSN 0219-6883

Published by: Key Media Pte Ltd 121 Telok Ayer Street #02-01 Singapore 068590 • T: +65 6423-4631 • F: +65 6423-4632 • E: info@keymedia.com.sg

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hrm11.5 CONTENTS

12

24

42 FEATURES

12 Leading with vision

34 The bridge of change

20 Managing the family business

36 Sharing with the community

24 Uniting communities from within

42 Developing the ranks

30 Planning for health

46 When expats come home

Carl Zeiss has been responsible for many innovations in optical design and engineering. Devoted employees and an informal work culture are key factors behind its success, says its MD, Ven Raman Charles and Keith is a classic example of a family-run business that has entered the major league. HRM examines the unique HR challenges faced by such organisations Employees are at the heart of Nokia Siemens Networks. To keep them motivated, the company has developed some radical plans like replacing individual rewards with general profit sharing Good employee health is critical for an organisation’s long term success. Find out how a comprehensive corporate health plan can protect staff while increasing ROI

When dealing with organisational change, HR managers can help employees by setting clear goals to help them leave their ‘the old ways’ and cross the bridge towards transformation Corporate social responsibility initiatives offer a number of business benefits. HRM examines the latest trends and their implications for HR There is no one-size-fits-all formula for employee learning and development. Brady has been tailor-making its programmes to support individual growth Adjusting to life back home after an overseas posting is often not as straightforward as it seems. HRM looks at how organisations can help their employees settle in

REGULARS 4 News

54 Resources

57 In Person

60 Talent Feature

10 Leaders on Leadership

55 Viewpoint

58 Talent Challenge

62 Executive Appointments

50 MICE

56 Talent Ladder

59 Twenty-four Seven

Contact us: Read something you like? Or something you don’t? Perhaps there’s some insight we haven’t considered?

Have your say on HRM’s news, features, and contributions by emailing: info@keymedia.com.sg

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NEWS WORLDWIDE

SINGAPORE

CEOs’ top priority: Talent

Typical online workday includes play

Managing talent has overtaken risk as top Only 30% of companies’ Internet traffic is of the CEO agenda, according to analysis directly linked to work activities. Statistics from PwC’s 14th annual CEO survey. compiled by security firm Niometrics show Some 83% of the 1200 CEOs surveyed that workers mostly use office networks for globally plan to change their firm’s talent non-work-related activities. management strategy over the next 12 Niometrics chief technology officer months and for 31%, these changes will be Kostas Anagnostakis said during the course major. The next priorities are risk of the day, an employee may do a Google management and investment, with 77% and search on competitors, market his company’s 76% of CEOs respectively anticipating latest products on its Facebook page, stream changes in these areas. Last year, risk music and videos from YouTube, play the management was the number one priority popular Facebook game, FarmVille or log on for 84% of CEOs, followed by investment to other sites to trade shares and even (81%), and talent third (79%). download pornography.

Globally, the picture varies from region Temasek Polytechnic’s School of to region. In Asia-Pacific and the MiddleBusiness lecturer Dennis Toh believes East, 92% and 89% of CEOs respectively companies should allow a balance of personal plan to make and work-related computer changes to their usage. “Employers may people strategy, expect their staff to commit whereas in North themselves fully during New jobs to be created America the figure office hours. (However), if in India in 2011 drops to 78%. they do their work within CEOs anticipate the main change to talent management will be using more non-financial rewards INDIA to motivate staff (65%), with CEOs in Latin America the most focused on this issue (80%).

Michael Rendell, Global Human Corporates in India are hiring, but even from a Resource Services practice leader at PwC, pool of 1.2 billion people, HR is finding it tough says, “Staff are not motivated by pay to recruit skilled staff conversant in English. alone. Non-financial rewards can include For example, 24/7 Customer Pvt. Ltd., a increased responsibility and call-centre company, can hire just three out of developmental opportunities, anything every 100 applicants. The average graduate’s which can help people see how they can “ability to comprehend and converse is very reach their full potential. This in turn can low,” Satya Sai Sylada, 24/7 Customer’s head help improve workforce skills, another of hiring for India, said. priority for CEOs.” More than half of India’s population is CEOs believe the main challenge to under the age of 25, and one million people a talent over the next few years will be a month are expected to seek jobs over the next limited supply of candidates with the right decade. However, the National Association of skills (66%), with CEOs in the Middle East Software and Services Companies says 75% (85%) and Africa (90%) the most of technical engineering graduates and more concerned. Another major challenge than 85% of general graduates are according to the survey will be recruiting unemployable in the country’s high growth IT and integrating younger employees (54%), sector and other industries. although CEOs in Asia Pacific don’t see Another survey by Pratham, a nonthis as an issue (38%). governmental organisation that aims to

1.6 MILLION

Mix of work and recreational use

45%

Work-related

30%

Streaming of music and videos

25%

the allotted time at an acceptable standard, then companies should consider giving staff some leeway to do their own activities during office hours,” Toh said.

Anagnostakis concurs, but for a more practical reason. Banning certain websites will only prompt today’s tech-savvy employees to find their way around it. He suggests using subtle tools to monitor employee Internet usage and reducing the amount of bandwidth available instead of banning surfing altogether.

One worker who detested that her company had banned Facebook and instant messaging programmes now finds that her job performance has dipped. “Now I just go to the toilet to use my phone to check Facebook and play the CityVille game. So banning Facebook is useless – in fact, it made me less productive since I’m spending so much time in the toilet,” she said.

Talent falls short

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improve education for the poor, found that about half of India’s fifth graders can’t read at a second-grade level.

Critics say corruption, overbearing bureaucracy, a focus on rote learning, low budgets for teachers’ salaries and outdated curricula are to blame for scores of jobless graduates.

Companies have taken things into their own hands and started bridging the gap between job requirements and the skills of graduates. Tata Group has a 72-day internal training programme for fresh graduates and a special campus in southern India where it trains 9,000 recruits at a time. Wipro runs an even longer, 90-day training programme. The company has also set up a foundation that spends US$4 million annually to train teachers.

Participants attend week-long workshops and then get follow-up online mentoring.

true talent shapes business, true knowledge finds it

More than ever, organisations want to partner with a specialist who has the capability to recruit the right person, first time.

Not just the right candidate on paper, but the right fit for their organisation. We think of this as true talent and everything we do is dedicated to delivering it — from entry level through to senior executive roles.

Offering a diverse range of HR solutions from managed service programs and innovative recruitment process outsourcing models, through to temporary, contract and permanent staffing services across the widest range of specialist industry sectors, Randstad has operations right across the Asia Pacific region.

To partner with an industry leader with the specialist knowledge to understand the true value of your business is its people, contact +65 6510 1350 or visit www.randstad.com.sg

NEWS PHILIPPINES

Lord, bless this CV Jobseekers in the Philippines are now seeking divine intervention to help them land their dream job.

New graduates in the country are getting their résumés blessed by priests before going job-hunting, but bishops continue to remind that individual effort is just as important as getting God’s help.

“It’s okay to ask for help but an individual should also make some effort because a career is not something that is automatically given to us,” Legaspi Bishop Joel Baylon, chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines Episcopal Commission on Youth said.

Quiapo Church rector Msgr. Clemente Ignacio said not getting the job may also be a part of God’s plan, and that He may have something better in store. “All prayers are answered but it depends on how God answers our prayers because sometimes there is a better plan for us,” he added.

MALAYSIA

Tax break to curb brain drain The government is offering a flat income tax rate of 15% for five years to encourage more Malaysian professionals working abroad to return home. Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) secretary, Datuk Thavalingam Thava­rajah, said the 15% tax was very attractive compared with the maximum tax bracket of 26%.

He also said income tax was a major factor to consider for employees.

Former HR minister and economist Tan Sri Dr Fong Chan Onn also lauded the move, saying, “This will go a long way in enticing Malaysian professionals working abroad to return home. The flat rate of 15% tax incentive is highly competitive compared with countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong.”

TAIWAN

Foreign workers profiled Foreign workers in Taiwanese companies must provide their biometric data to the Taiwanese government from the end of this year.

“Since anti-terrorism prevention is a global trend, Taiwan will follow the lead of the United States, Japan, Canada and the European Union in imposing biometrics requirement for foreign nationals entering the country,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said in a statement recently.

Biometrics requirement will first be applied to migrant workers from Southeast Asian countries to prevent those with criminal records from entering the country using fake identities, MOFA stated. It will also be imposed on foreign workers looking to apply for resident status in the country. There are 300,000 migrant workers in Taiwan at present.

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THAILAND

Wage gap exacerbates talent crunch The Thai construction industry is facing a talent crunch, with four million workers needed. There’s a shortage of one million even during non-peak periods. However, low wages make it harder for the sector to recruit workers, especially in the public sector.

According to the Thai Contractors Association, the private sector pays 120-150 baht (US$3.80-US$4.75) per square metre (psm) for cementing jobs while the public sector pays only 60-80 baht psm. At the same time, the public sector pays 95-105 baht psm for tiling, about half of the amount paid by private companies.

“Contractors for public-sector jobs have found it more and more difficult to attract workers, who flock to developers who pay double wages,” Gritsada Chanchumrussaeng, the secretarygeneral of the Thai Contractors Association, said.

While the industry is already facing a shortage of skilled staff, changes ahead indicate an even higher demand for talented workers. New jobs are being created in for the public sector, including a 20-billionbaht new parliament house and an international convention centre in Phuket worth billions of baht, meaning even more workers will be needed.

SOUTH KOREA

Salary gaps revealed Employees in Korean companies have to contend with salary discrepancies even if they have similar skillsets to each other, as revealed by the latest salary figures. Kia staff seem to earn more although their work tenure is lesser than Hyundai staff. The average annual salary of Kia workers was W82 million (US$75,400) and their average duration of service was 16.6 years. Figures for Hyundai were W80 million and 17.5 years respectively.

A Kia staffer said the reason for the anomaly was that employees were paid money owed from 2009 as a result of delayed salary negotiations.

At Samsung Electronics, Korea’s largest manufacturer, a worker earned an average of W86.4 million last year, but the gender gap was on average a whopping W40 million. The salary for men was nearly W100 million but women earned a mere W59.7 million.

Samsung Electronics says this is because a high percentage of women work on assembly lines and they have fewer years of service with the company. Men have spent on average 8.9 years with the firm, as against 5.5 for women.

At LG Electronics, the average income was W64 million. While men in the mobile phone division earned the most with W69 million, women in the air conditioner division earned the least with W40 million.

NEWS WORLDWIDE

UK

Hospitality grads not keen on the Middle East

Workers denied leave

Only six per cent of hospitality graduates show interest in the Middle East for their first role after graduation, according to a survey by Hospitality Graduate Recruitment.

“These results continue to throw up a challenge to the industry, most notably for the Middle East region. For a region with such high levels of hotel development, and consequently large recruitment needs, more must be done to market the location to international hotel schools and students/ graduates,” says Jeff Ross, Managing Director, Hospitality Graduate Recruitment.

“Perhaps (lack of) cultural awareness of the region is the major issue.”

Asia is seemingly perceived as a region that will offer better and safer career opportunities than the Middle East. “Hotel schools internationally must continue to try to gain a better grasp of the employment opportunities and intricacies of the emerging

SINGAPORE

Thousands of workers across the UK are being denied time off, according to a report markets and regions in order to better educate

by Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB). the future job seekers,” Ross adds.

The report, “Give us a break!” reveals Europe continues to be by far the most that denial of paid holiday entitlement is attractive destination for students and graduates widespread, especially among small yet remains one of the harder locations in employers in low-profitability sectors of terms of visa and work permit restrictions (for the economy. While most working people non-EU nationals). take their right to paid holidays for granted, many others are forced to work all year without a break, or only allowed Figure 1: Geographical area of interest unpaid leave. for first role after graduation From 2007 to 2010, CAB advisers 2010 results 2011 results have dealt with 87,725 such cases.

Country Percentage Country Percentage The report finds that while some (%) (%) non-compliance stems from a lack of 49 45 Europe Europe awareness and understanding of the US & Canada 22 US & Canada 17 law, much appears to be deliberate, 18 Asia 23 Asia with rogue employers using a range of Middle East 8 Middle East 6 excuses to avoid meeting their legal South America 7 South America 5 obligations to their workforce.

The Hospitality Graduate Recruitment Survey 2011 was sent to a sample of 1000 recent international hospitality graduates and 500 current students Often those affected are unaware from 50 different hotel schools in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. of their basic workplace rights. Others decide against taking action for fear of losing their jobs, or are put off by the daunting, stressful and time-consuming prospect of an employment tribunal – at present the only option open to workers denied their right to paid holiday.

Randstad Regional Director, Singapore & Gillian Guy, Chief Executive of Citizens Malaysia, Karin Clarke said, “While it (social Advice Bureau states: “As a result, tens of media) provides an opportunity to attract thousands of the most vulnerable workers in potential quality candidates, sensitive and the UK economy do not benefit fully from negative content can go viral very quickly and the legal framework of fairness in the outside of the organisation’s control. This can workplace. They include many of the cause serious harm to company reputation in a restaurant and bar staff, cleaners, shop very short period of time.” workers, clerical staff, builders, decorators “Providing social media guidelines to and care workers that the rest of us rely on.” employees is therefore very important to help “Left unchecked, the behaviour of such protect company information and employer rogue employers creates injustice not only brand, while also providing advice to employees for the workers they exploit, but also for on managing their personal brand and reputation law-abiding employers who quite rightly in the dynamic online environment,” she added. want – and are entitled to expect – a level Other findings include the fact that 87% of playing field on which to compete fairly, employees in Singapore have social media within the law,” he added. accounts and half of them (52%) have access The CAB, is a charity organisation to it at work. While many people (75%) use which has 34 offices in the UK and social media mainly for personal purposes, to Ireland, that provides information and help connect with family and friends, a third of on various social services such as those surveyed profiled themselves as an employee and consumer protection. It is employee of an organisation. partly government-funded.

Social media influences workers More than half (60%) of workers in Singapore will not apply to an organisation if negative things are being said about the employer on social media. This shows just how much social media plays an influential role in the workplace and job search environment in the country.

The Randstad Workmonitor Survey, which polled respondents from 29 countries, found that 56% of employees use social media to find out more about employers before an interview, while 61% use social networks to find out more about a potential employer’s working culture from comments made by its employees.

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NEWS WORLD

UK:

Leaders not aligning business strategy

Succession planning an issue

About 80% of business leaders say that their companies are not effectively executing business strategies, according to research commissioned by SuccessFactors, Inc. and Accenture.

Organisations agree there is a critical need to execute strategy, yet only 20% of companies claim to communicate strategy very well internally. Only 18% say they are very good at converting corporate strategy into priorities and goals while 15% are very good at aligning employee activities to corporate strategy.

The study, ‘The Link between Strategic Alignment and Staff Productivity’, released in April 2011, surveyed 450 senior decision makers from companies that hired more than 3,000 employees worldwide.

According to the results, enterprises are failing to monitor, motivate and retain employees as only 17% of organisations

know all of their top performing employees and are looking to develop them for future roles.

“Achieving business success in the next economy is more than simply being on the right course or redefining a new strategy,” said Erik Berggren, Vice President of Customer Results and Global Research for SuccessFactors. “It is essential for business leaders to align their team’s work with the overall business strategy and it is clear that most don’t know how to do this effectively.”

Vinzenz Kremer, Managing Director and Executive Partner at Accenture, has a solution. “Winning organisations will have strategic HR people up front and will have invested in systems that empower them to align their workforce through a combination of goals, targets, pay for performance, reviews and effective communication of strategy,” he says.

Succession planning is not a priority for firms in the UK, according to a research

by XpertHR, a HR solutions company.

Study results indicate that less than one organisation in four (23.3%) currently runs a formal process for succession planning while less than one in three (31.5%) companies uses an informal system. The 2011 XpertHR study surveyed 146 employers on their succession planning practices.

Employers indicated several reasons for not establishing succession planning – it was not a UAE business priority; their are unemployed in Canada organisation lacked the resources or HR expertise needed to run this process; Workplace bullying is becoming a serious issue, says a new US study. According to the staff turnover was low; and the size or report released by job website, CareerBuilder, 27% of workers have felt bullied in the nature of the workforce made it irrelevant. workplace with the majority neither confronting nor reporting the bully.

Also, results showed that large The study surveyed more than 5,600 full-time workers nationwide. It compared organisation were more likely to have a genders and age-groups as well as the types of bullying that employees faced. formal process in place, with 44% of One-third of the women (34%) reported a higher incidence of being treated unfairly at organisations employing more than the office compared to 22% of men. Looking at age groups, 29% of employees aged 55 1,000 members of staff doing so. years and older and 29% of employees aged 24 years and younger reported being bullied However, this practice is less prevalent on the job. in companies with staff between 250 The most common culprit is typically the boss revealed the study, as 14% of workers and 999 workers or with fewer than 250 felt bullied by their immediate supervisor. While 11% felt bullied by a co-worker, 7% said employees. that the bully was not their boss, but someone else higher up in the organisation.

The most common roles covered by Respondents said that bullying can come in a variety of formal succession planning systems forms and 43% stated that their comments were dismissed were managerial, professional and or not acknowledged while 40% noted that they were falsely skilled positions. accused of mistakes.

However, the findings suggest that “Bullying is a serious offense that can disrupt the work succession planning remains secretive, environment, impact morale and lower productivity,” said with fewer than half of those surveyed Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of HR, CareerBuilder. “If considering their planning process to be you are feeling bullied, keep track of what was said or done sufficiently transparent and more than a and who was present. The more specifics you can provide, the quarter (27%) saying that their stronger the case you can make for yourself when confronting succession system was effective in the bully or reporting the bully to a company authority.” terms of diversity.

Workplace bullying is a problem

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1,435,000

leaders on leadership

Great expectations Tell me about the expectations you create for staff. What are they? What factors do you consider in setting/communicating expectations?

Margaret Toh

Executive Director / HR Director, YCH Group

YCH Corporate Philosophy, ‘RISE’ – Reliability, Integrity, Sincerity, and Enterprise guides the entire organisation towards achieving supply chain excellence as an extended family enterprise. In particular, we encourage the spirit of Enterprise in our YCH employees (YCHees) to innovate, take calculated risks and “own” the project that they are managing. This not only boosts their morale, it also hones their capabilities to think and act more strategically.

Next is our never-say-die attitude. In our expansion strategy, YCH embraces the Chinese saying that can be translated into “first bitter, then sweet”.

It has directed the company to invest strategically for the long term and develop long-lasting, symbiotic partnerships with our world-class customers.

Given our strong focus on Quality & Innovation as we optimise our end-toend supply chain management solutions, a culture that is conducive for knowledge-sharing and open communication is of utmost importance.

Communicating an overall vision that the employees can ‘feel’, and constant alignment of business strategy to our team is crucial as YCH grows and expands as a dynamic, living enterprise.

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Chia Kim Piow

Chairman and Managing Director, Rotary Engineering Ltd

As an oil & gas infrastructure services company offering Engineering, Procurement, Construction & Maintenance (EPCM) services, safety comes above all else. Teamwork and continuous work improvement are also built into our company culture. Our employees are expected to take pride and ownership in whatever work they engage in and strive towards excellence in all efforts to achieve goals.

In return, Rotary recognises employees’ contribution and development of their potential. For instance, Rotary’s HR department has been instrumental in promoting the learning and development of Rotary employees, with the objective of developing, motivating and retaining good employees. Based on the Training Needs Analysis conducted annually, our HR department is able to identify the relevant core business, people and functional skills training programs to improve the knowledge and skills of each employee so that they can truly become an effective globalised workforce.

Several factors are considered when setting/communicating expectations: » Employee’s job scope and deliverables » Employee’s strengths and areas of improvement » Performance enhancement plans for employees » Employee feedback & comments

Karim Klaa

General Manager, Montigo Resorts – Nongsa, Batam

The expectations I set is an optimum balance of performance in relation to individual goals and objectives, and maintaining the very important element of individual personality.

The expectation that people who join the hospitality industry are supposed to be service-oriented, positive and proactive is a given. However, as more and more hotels open, the talent that many hotel companies look for which is often one and the same becomes tougher to find. I therefore set the expectation that in the beginning of the cycle, at the point of selection, individuals are chosen for their ability to learn fast and in turn find joy in teaching others. In this way, we allow people to learn while celebrating their diverse backgrounds and experiences.

In order to set and communicate expectations, I look into the depth of resort’s leaders understanding of the values, goals and objectives, brand, vision and mission of the resort and the company. I also consider the methods of how this information is shared – the clarity and frequency of the message and its potential to motivate staff. Finally, expectations, as they are essentially performance indicators, have to be measurable so we are able to determine gaps in skills and organise training programmes to improve them.

leaders talk hr

Leading with

vision

Carl Zeiss Group has been responsible for many innovations in optical design and engineering during its 165-year history.

Ven Raman, Managing Director of Southeast Asia (SEA) and India, says that the key to the organisation’s success is its informal work culture and devoted employees

By Priya de Langen

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“I

like having scotch and discussing the work day with my managers in the evenings on the terrace. We call it the ‘scotch talks’,” says Ven Raman smiling, on his unusual working relationship with his staff.

Raman, Carl Zeiss’ Managing Director (MD) for SEA and India for the past six years, is definitely an atypical manager – he says he prefers holding meetings outdoors and likes taking his staff for walks along beaches and cafes for informal discussions. Understandably, the idea of informal talks was received with scepticism by his managers at first, but by taking the managers on a ‘test run’, he convinced them that it was a good way to get to know employees.

He also candidly states that the culture in the company is “informal and communal and people laugh a lot around me”. Raman admits that it took time to cultivate this culture. When he first took over as the MD, he realised that his employees had low motivation and did not have fun at work. “I focused on the emotional aspect of the organisation and worked on recharging the employees.”

An open and transparent culture

Besides an informal work environment, the company also practices a collaborative and transparent culture, which Raman has painstakingly cultivated with his staff of 380 in India and SEA. He maintains daily communication with his management team and keeps an open-door policy with all employees so that they can discuss work or personal issues with him anytime.

“I have a Facebook account where I interact with the Zeiss community.

Also, I write monthly emails to the organisation mainly about where we are in targets, what we need to do and what to look forward to. If there is bad news, I hold a staff address,” he adds.

leaders talk hr

Carl Zeiss Facts The company was founded by Carl Zeiss as a workshop for precision mechanics and optics in the German city of Jena in 1846. Presently, the Carl Zeiss Group has businesses ranging from semiconductor technology to consumer optics and employs over 12,000 people across more than 30 countries worldwide.

Business Groups + + + + + +

Semiconductor technology Medical systems Microscopy Industrial metrology Consumer optics/optronics Vision care

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leaders talk hr

“Loyalty does not come by itself as we need to create the right value system in the organisation.

Empowering our employees is one example on how we can develop loyalty” Ven Raman, Managing Director of SEA & India, Carl Zeiss

This transparency and openness was especially helpful during the financial crisis. Employees at Carl Zeiss were kept in the loop on the performance and losses of the company’s various business units. The organisation has business units from consumer lifestyle optical products such as camera lenses to lenses for laboratory equipment. During the crisis, the semiconductor business unit suffered losses but the research and development unit grew.

“One of the key points that we learned during the crisis was to be very open with our communication. Our staff knew exactly what we were doing and we had their complete understanding,” recalls Raman.

This work culture helps in promoting what he believes is the quintessential quality of a Carl Zeiss employee – loyalty. It is not surprising as Raman himself has worked 17 years in the company, starting in a Sales Manager position to eventually become MD. “Loyalty does not come by itself and we need to create the right value system in the organisation,” he says. “Empowering our employees is one example on how we can develop loyalty.”

At Carl Zeiss empowering staff starts when they join the company. New employees undertake on-boarding activities to help them settle into their new jobs. Raman also makes the effort of spending one to two hours presenting the company’s rich history, current issues and future direction to better prepare new staff.

Recognising and rewarding staff

Recognition for a job well done is the most common concern cited by employees, Raman says. “They want to know about their development and where they are headed in the organisation,” he explains.

The company provides a level playing field for employees, whether in recognition or rewards in order to enhance staff retention and career growth.

“We have long-term incentives, career progression and promotion plans, and employee development programmes. We also constantly watch and benchmark ourselves with what’s happening in the market in terms of employee remuneration and benefits,” he says.

These programmes have contributed to the low staff attrition rate in the company. In fact, Carl Zeiss India’s team turnover rate is less than five percent.

Various leadership and management programmes are also utilised to identify potential leadership candidates and hone their leadership skills. “A good performance management system identifies the leaders or high-potentials and they are on the radar screens for any business unit or support unit,” he explains. In a leadership advancement programme conducted in 2009, 90% of the participants either got a promotion or greater responsibilities in SEA, India and Japan.

Besides career progression, employees who are interested in acquiring international experience can take advantage of the company’s ‘Global Mobility’ programme, in which they are assigned to Carl Zeiss offices

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leaders talk hr

me-myself-i around the globe on short- or long-term assignments. The company’s HR team also utilises this programme as another source to pick talent from its global pool of employees.

However, Raman admits that this programme can be disruptive in the short-term but is eventually advantageous for both the organisation and employees in the long-run. “If a team member is recognised as high potential and deputed to another geography, this may mean temporary challenges for me but a larger win-win situation for the company in the long-term, so why would I forgo it?” he asks.

Carl Zeiss also has a good benefits system to reward employees, particularly the ‘Basket of Benefits’ programme. Under this programme, each employee can choose benefits that would suit their lifestyle.

“Employees may subscribe to benefits of their choice, for themselves, family or grandparents up to $5000,” Raman says. All employees get benefits from lifestyle memberships to insurance plans for their parents.

+ I love: Peace in my surroundings + I hate: Chaos or lack of direction + My inspiration is: Bringing happiness to the people around me + My biggest strength: My intuition + My weakness is: Not listening to my intuition + In five years’ time, I’d like to be: Whatever comes to me + Favourite anecdote: You get what you deserve and not what you desire

Looking towards the future

The organisation is presently expanding its facilities in the Asian region and will continue to do so over the next few years. According to Raman, “The future success of Carl Zeiss globally will be determined by what the company does in rapidly developing economies such as China and India.”

In February this year, Carl Zeiss opened a Research and Application Centre in Bangalore, India, and it will also be setting up a manufacturing facility for its Industrial Measuring Technology business unit in India.

He believes that the company should learn to understand the needs of these markets and adapt to them. “The needs of these markets and how we develop technologies for these markets would be very different. We need everyone in the organisation to understand this as this will be one of our strong statements in the corporate agenda for the next five years.”

In addition, the company is also increasing its business in the SEA region with a focus on sales, services and applications activities.

While Carl Zeiss’ focus might be shifting to emerging markets, Raman promises to remain steadfast on the company’s policies of open communication and performance-based career progression.

Bio brief Ven Raman worked as a Service Engineer in Jebsen & Jessen in 1988 prior to joining Carl Zeiss in 1994. He started out in Malaysia as a Sales Manager and was promoted to Regional Division Manager of the Medical Business Group for Carl Zeiss India and SEA in 1998. He worked his way up to become Managing Director of India in 2002 and eventually took over the reins as Managing Director of SEA and India six years ago. Raman has spent the past 17 years working for the Group.

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15

The

buzz words about

Is management speak confusing you?

cover story

Managers who utter unintelligible phrases like “eat our own dog food” in meetings may alienate and confuse their colleagues. HRM finds out if management speak is destroying internal communications

By Priya de Langen

P

icture this: You are sitting in an office meeting and the manager is explaining the details of a new project that the team will be undertaking when he says: “Let us get our ducks in a row!” As the meeting continues, he liberally litters his speech with phrases such as “mission critical” and “joined-up thinking”.

At the end of the meeting, you would have either understood him or left the room scratching your head, wondering what ducks have to do with the project.

Sounds familiar? In a corporate environment, one can be assailed with business jargon, management-oriented neologisms and Management or business speak: acronyms such as ROIs Refers to a particular syntax often used in and KPIs. Though many large organisations. The term implies the are industry-related use of long, complicated, or obscure words, terminologies, some have abbreviations, or acronyms come to be negatively recognised as buzzwords or management speak – words or phrases that are incomprehensible, overused and only meant to impress.

In a BBC Radio 4 show three years ago, author and Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaways ruthlessly lampooned the amount of buzzwords used in businesses. She argued that they have so permeated everyday language that even farmers use the phrase – “going forward”.

The talk was followed by hundreds of comments by listeners who said that some

VIEW FROM THE TOP

phrases used by managers were confusing, and at times, downright unintelligible. Listeners contributed to the ‘50 office-speak phrases you love to hate’ that included “drill down”, “low hanging fruit” and “looking under the bonnet”.

Similarly, there are numerous blogs and websites lamenting the use of incontinent management speak. Jane Wells, CNBC correspondent, wrote in a blog last year that corporate America has ruined the English language by using buzzwords, where individuals use them to “try to sound smart rather than speaking plainly.”

When communication becomes a quagmire

Managers agree that overusing management speak could demonstrate a lack of knowledge and those on the receiving end could also find it condescending. “It has become more synonymous

Top 5 HR buzzwords HR buzzword

Meaning

Core competency

A specific factor that a business sees as being central to the way it, or its employees’ work

Employee empowerment

Strategy and philosophy that enables employees to make decisions about their jobs and take responsibility

Employee engagement

To fully involve an employee in his or her work

Presenteeism

Act of attending work while sick

Talent acquisition To recruit someone issue 11.5

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cover story

“I do feel that there is an increase in management speak and that this can actually prevent you from getting to the heart of a matter and understanding what someone really wants to achieve” Kate O’ Shea, Director, Impact Asia

with the ‘spinning’ of negative situations to present a more positive outlook and those on the receiving end can find it at best patronising, and at worse, evasive,” says Kate O’Shea, Director of Impact Asia.

Management speak can prevent a person from getting to the heart of a matter, she adds.

In 2008, consultancy Investors in People, surveyed 3000 working adults to ascertain their views on management lingo. Results of the poll showed that most had a low opinion of colleagues who used buzzwords – more than half did not like managers using phrases such as “the helicopter view” and “think outside the box”. One in five people surveyed also said that managers who used such language were untrustworthy.

Nicola Clark, Director at Investors in People explained: “Bosses need to lead by example, ditch needless buzzwords and concentrate on communicating clearly with their employees.”

Similarly, employees find it disingenuous when employers use language that is filled with more ‘fluff than stuff’. Laurence Yap, a taskforce member of Malaysia Workforce Competencies and Competitiveness (under the Malaysia Economic Model) says that he personally dislikes buzzwords such as “commitment” and “engagement.”

Yap recalls he had a general manager who used various buzzwords such as “commitment”

Gore gets bingoed!

Al Gore, former US Vice-President, is a technophile known to use many technology-related buzzwords in his speeches. During his speech for MIT Sloane’s 1996 graduating class, the graduates decided to play ‘Buzzword Bingo’ with his speech. A well-known satiric game, it was invented so that players can tick off the number of times they hear a buzzword in a speech or meeting and eventually shout “Bingo!” At one point in his speech, the students cheered and he asked, “Did I say a buzzword?”

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and “groom your talents” in meetings but did not demonstrate the qualities that he preached at the workplace. “I think his staff did not believe him.

Overusing buzzwords can have a negative impact if we do not mean what we say.”

Brent Tignor, Regional HR Manager, Asia Pacific, Stepan Company, affirms this and says that his biggest pet peeve would be “a lack of authenticity when using management lingo”.

It is obvious when someone uses the business phrases just to impress others, he says. “The most common situation where I’ve heard management jargon being used excessively is when a consultant of some type is visiting a company. I think oftentimes these consultants believe that using a vocabulary that is full of fancy business words will make them sound impressive,” he states.

Speak plainly or be disconnected

Managers point out that some buzz phrases are unavoidable as they help to put a point across.

O’Shea explains that many companies use “acronyms, hybrid words or phrases to bond their employees internally, which is fine as long as there is a collective understanding behind their use and there is a need for them.”

She adds that when business speak is used to cover a broader term, such as “strategy”, meanings can be confused.

Also, managers say that business speak should only be used in appropriate situations as it could lead to employers becoming disconnected from their workers. “Working in a manufacturing company as I do, there is certainly a divide between white and blue collar workers. It’s common for non-management employees to not fully understand certain business lingo, but it is remarkable how anyone, regardless of level, is capable of discerning authenticity,” states Tignor.

Yap too advises that managers should use day-to-day language as well as try to explain the lingo before meetings with blue collar workers so that they understand what is being said.

cover story

Understanding the audience is also important, according to Tignor, who recalls that when he first moved to Asia, he used baseball-related business phrases such as “home run” and “out of left field” – which received confused looks from nonAmericans. “It’s important to use terms that your audience will understand and connect with, as opposed to phrases that are lost in translation or viewed as only being used in an effort to demonstrate how smart you are,” he notes.

The corporate environment will always have its share of lingo but employers should assess the context and environment before littering conversations with management lingo.

Tignor jokingly puts it: “If someone uses the words synergy, paradigm and robust all in the same conversation, they have become a corporate slave and cannot be trusted.”

Top 30 management buzzwords Buzzword

Meaning

Buzzword

Meaning

360-degree thinking

Looking at an issue from all angles

Joined-up thinking

50,000 foot view

Highest management view

Taking into account how things affect each other - not looking at something in isolation

Bangalored

Fired after the position has been transferred to India

Low-hanging fruit

The easiest target

Looking under the bonnet To analyse a situation

Blue-sky thinking:

Idealistic or visionary ideas and not always with practical application

Mission critical

Critical to the functioning or success of a business or project

Brain dump

To tell everything you know about a particular topic

Move the goalposts

Increase targets when someone is close to achieving the old ones

Better not let the grass grow long on this one

Do not wait too long to handle the issue

Moving forward

Making progress on an idea or scheme

Delayering

Laying off staff

Open the Kimono

To share information or to reveal

Deliverables

Something that has to be done by a certain date to be verified by another party

Paradigm shift

A significant change in an approach or thinking

Pre-meeting

A small meeting before a big meeting

Drilling down

To get into the details of a plan

Push the envelope

Going outside normal boundaries to achieve a target or goal (such as exceeding specifications)

Synergy

Two things working together to form a greater whole

Taking it offline

To discuss something in person or on the phone, rather than via e-mail or instant message conversation

The helicopter view

A high-level view or and explanation

Eat your own dog food or Use the same product that is sold to your dogfooding customers, especially if it is bad Face time

Speaking face-to-face

Gain traction

To gain momentum or acceptance

Get all our ducks in a row Have arrangements efficiently ordered Going forward

A confident gesture towards the future, but generally vague on timing

I hear what you say

I am listening

Throw a few darts and see if they stick

Try a few options and see which one is the best

Idea showers

A term that is used instead of brainstorming – basically to come up with ideas

Wouldn’t want to wrong side the demographic

Would not want to offend a group of people

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feature

Managing the

family business Family-run businesses present a unique set of occupational challenges for HR professionals.

HRM explores these challenges and details the steps to successfully overcome them

A

t first glance, there seems to be little similarity between packaging manufacturer Plastipak Holdings and the farm products behemoth Cargill, with its annual revenue of about US$110 billion. Yet, there is – both companies are private enterprises that started out as family businesses.

Family owned and run businesses come in all sizes – from behemoths with billions of dollars in revenue to smaller outfits starting out in backyards or garages. While they face a number of unique issues, family businesses stand out because of the

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passion that can be a unique source of strength to these companies.

Like any enterprise, family-run businesses face many teething problems ranging from budget issues to implementing proper HR policies. “Most SMEs are the effort of individuals and quite naturally, family members will be recruited for support,” says Gerard Ee, Chairman for Council for Third Age, an organisation which is dedicated to creating an active ageing culture in Singapore. Ee has had years of experience working with family

feature

businesses, from auditing to helping resolve several family disputes in companies.

Family-run businesses, especially those in their early stages, are often unable to put elaborate HR policies in place as they need to keep costs down, and instead prefer to recruit family members who would be willing to work longer hours for lower pay.

However, what happens when such companies start expanding and need more employees? While loose policies might work for family employees, a more formal HR structure is needed when it comes to processes such as recruiting good external candidates. Moreover, family businesses have to be impartial in their treatment of all employees in order to earn their loyalty and retain non-family employees.

Developing a structure

Developing a formal structure in the early stages is essential, whether it is regarding remuneration or leave policies. Laying such ground rules will help the company to better manage all employees and also attract experienced employees who are used to working in companies with structured policies.

Peter Koh, Managing Director of The Lens Men, says his family-run optical business of 28 years did not have a proper HR structure when it began. “I did not know what a typical HR process required or needed to function effectively.”

Koh explains that although the company did not have an HR team to oversee operations at first, he “knew how he would like to be treated as an employee”. As the company started with three non-family employees, he “trained his opticians to agree to and personify his approach to eye care and customer service and implemented a culture of leading from the top”.

Also, due to the small number of employees, it was easy for him to coordinate leave days and health benefits. Presently, he oversees a staff of 30 while

managing day-to-day tasks such as hiring and payroll. The organisation is currently working with consultants to review and improve its business practices.

Hauw Wee, Group Managing Director of Tuck Lee International, a Singapore ice-making company, believes it is important for family businesses to not only put formal HR structures in place to “ensure the continuity of business and operations” but also to hire a qualified HR person to run the department.

Tuck Lee currently has 70 employees that report directly to the HR Manager, who in turn works closely with the Managing Director and General Manager to develop HR strategies.

There are also other challenges that are specific to a family-run organisation. Conflicts can arise when dealing with family members who have not delivered on expectations or need to be replaced by better qualified personnel. Ee explains: “Disciplining a family member is tougher than that of a non-family member. It becomes a greater challenge. Sometimes, it could a parent who is the recalcitrant.”

He mentions that in some cases, a family member might need to be laid off to be replaced by a better qualified employee. “There is usually a need of better qualified personnel after the business takes off. Some family members may find themselves on the list of unsuitable personnel.”

“Disciplining a family member is tougher than that of a nonfamily member.

It becomes a greater challenge” Gerard Ee, Chairman, Council for Third Age

Tips for family-businesses + Establish HR policies applicable to all employees. Businesses could also hire HR professionals to come up with HR strategies + Remuneration and career progression should be based on merit and not familial relationships + Companies that are expanding should consider succession planning in order to maintain business continuity

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feature

Renowned family businesses around Asia Royal Selangor

The renowned Malaysian pewter manufacturer and retailer was founded in 1885 by Yong Koon as Ngeok Foh (Jade Peace). With the arrival of British colonials, the name was changed to Selangor Pewter. In the 1970s and ‘80s, it started exporting to Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and expanded into Europe and Japan. In 1992, the company changed its name to Royal Selangor, to reflect its endorsement from His Royal Highness, The Sultan of Selangor at that time.

Charles & Keith

A popular women’s footwear and accessories company, it was established in 1996 by brothers Charles and Keith Wong in Singapore. Today, Charles & Keith is an international chain with more than 170 outlets in 22 countries including Japan, Cyprus, Brunei and Indonesia. It recently sold a 20% stake to the renowned French luxury house, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy.

Earning employee loyalty

There should be an impartial structure and all employees should be given positions that match their abilities, according to Ee. “In the early history of the organisation itself, the message must be that promotions are based strictly on merit. Placement of members and their duties must be based, as far as is possible, on abilities.”

The appraisal system should also be fair as “if a less competent family member is promoted ahead of contributing non-family members, the battle is lost”, he adds.

Companies such as Tuck Lee and The Lens Men say that they not only treat their employees fairly, but also offer monetary and non-monetary benefits and run an informal working environment.

Wee says that although the company cannot match multinational compensation packages, Tuck Lee is “quicker when it comes to rewarding and promoting an employee’s good performance.”

Furthermore, employees are given in-depth on-the-job training to help them get acquainted with their job functions.

The company also keeps an open communication channel with employees and is “open to new ideas and appreciates creativity from its employees”, he says.

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Koh says that The Lens Men enjoys a low staff turnover rate while the average employee stays with the company at least seven to eight years. In fact, he says that employees who left for further their studies have returned to work in the company after earning their degrees.

The Lens Men also sponsors skills upgrading with the Ministry of Health “the opticians and optometrists to renew their licences to practice annually”, says Koh, who maintains an informal working relationship with employees so they can raise matters directly with him if needed.

The importance of succession planning

There are many examples where small family businesses have successfully carved a niche for themselves (see side box). In such cases, companies should consider succession planning so they can maintain business continuity without disruption. “If the intent is to keep control within the family then it becomes imperative to identify the successor early on and ensure that the candidate is provided with training to carry the organisation to greater heights,” says Ee. In cases where the right candidate is not available from the family, he says “the message must be made clear so that employees with potential will stay long enough to be considered for succession”.

Moreover, Ee says that owners should consider the idea that ownership and management of the company need not be the same. “The entrepreneur should alleviate himself to become Chairman and look for the best possible candidate to take over as the CEO.” Koh affirms this as he says succession planning in family business is “trickier as there are important questions to ask, such as whether or not the business will be kept within the family.”

He says his company is currently working with consultants to establish a succession plan.

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Uniting communities from within

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hr insider

The only constant in high technology is change, which presents a unique set of challenges for HR at Nokia Siemens Networks. HRM delves into these challenges and susses out what makes HR at the telecommunications giant tick

By Shalini Shukla-Pandey

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hr insider

N

Calendar of activities Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has wholly utilised the Success Factors enterprise system for HR processes.

Among other activities, HR engages in the following throughout the year: + January and July: Objective setting + July: Salary review + December: Performance evaluation using a fourcategory expected distribution (Outstanding 10%, Excellent 25%, Solid 60% and Performance improvement required 5%) with 50% weighted on what the employee achieved and 50% on how they achieved it + Quarter 2: Top talent identification – each talent is considered based on performance, aspiration and learning agilities (people, change, results, mental)

okia Siemens Networks (NSN) prides itself in helping staff achieve their potential. “Performance management at the company doesn’t only involve emphasis on what is achieved, but also how it is achieved,” says, Ciaron Murphy, Head of Business HR (Sales) East and Head of HR – APAC for NSN. For example, the company actively supports the 70% on the job, 20% coaching and 10% classroom development scheme and rigorously enforces objectives. Merit-based hiring processes for all open positions also means that staff get fair opportunities to advance their careers in the company.

The HR department drives these initiatives in the organisation by walking the talk.

HR: Customer service champions

A key tenet that NSN aggressively pursues is customer satisfaction within HR, which is divided into two sub-units – HR Connection and HR Consulting (refer to Figure 1). “We have adopted Ron Kaufman’s service excellence approach methodology in HR. In principle, that means our account consultants are encouraged to constantly step up,” Murphy says.

One of the things they do to is to ensure every line manager knows who their dedicated account consultant is. Each line manager is then asked at the end of each half year to evaluate the account consultant on how they have acted as an educator, adviser and consultant.

“Across Asia Pacific, we have a league table. Khoo Adelene, our HR Account Consultant, is in the premier league,” Murphy added.

Figure 1: Distribution of HR department at Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) Nokia Siemens Networks HR Department HR Connection Transactional – serving all administrative needs of employees Dealing mostly with issues related to: » Payslips » Benefits » Leave

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HR Consulting Strategic – Educating, consulting and advising line managers Dealing mostly with issues related to: » Personal Development » Incentives » Promotions

Radical rewards

In most companies, a big part of managing employees is rewards and recognition. However, career analyst Daniel Pink, believes that rewards only work with certain job scopes. For instance, if mechanical skills are required (like say a factory worker), the higher the pay given, the better the performance of the staff. However, if analytical skills are required, larger rewards can lead to poor performance instead. “Reward narrows our focus and restricts our possibilities,” Pink says.

In line with this, NSN did something radical with its incentives this year. The company took 90% of its staff population off individualised Managing by Objectives (MBO) plans and put them on a general profit sharing scheme, although

hr insider

Case study the sales force and other senior managers and executives are still on traditional MBO plans.

“If you check out the latest research on incentives, it suggests that, with the exception of production line tasks, incentives do not yield the results we would expect, and that the key drivers for engagement/ behaviour are autonomy, mastery and purpose,” Murphy says.

The move has proved rather successful for NSN. The feedback from employees has been positive on the whole, as it was felt that the bi-annual process wasted a lot of time and the incentives scheme was also too complex at times.

“I’m part of something”

NSN believes that everybody seeks to be part of something larger than themselves – be it family, community or society. “Our ‘be part of something’ campaign is a tagline for our engagement activities that seek to get employees involved in projects running within the company or in the wider community,” Murphy says.

Being a good corporate citizen is not an option, but a necessity that permeates all of NSN’s business. By practicing and communicating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities and positions to the relevant internal and external stakeholders, NSN employees are able to show that they care. “We contribute to a positive business climate for our company,” Murphy says. “We believe that ethically sound business is in the long-term interest of our company, its shareholders, employees and society at large.”

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has recently collected €25,420 (US$37,081) from employees for disaster relief efforts in Japan. NSN will match the donation dollar-for-dollar. So in total NSN is donating €50,840 (US$ 74,162) to the Save the Children foundation in Japan.

“It is heartening to know that many employees have rendered assistance and support to our colleagues in Japan as well as to the extended Japanese community. Our Japanese colleagues have also responded to the donation drive despite being in the situation themselves,” says Ciaron Murphy, Head of Business HR (Sales) East and Head of HR – APAC for NSN. “This virtue of selflessness is simply remarkable and admirable.”

Who’s who in HR?

Ciaron Murphy

David Crook

Giauw Ling Lee

Yeeleng Goh

Khoo Adelene

Head of Business HR (Sales) East & Head of HR – APAC

Head of HR, Centre of Expertise, Asia Pacific Africa Cluster

Head of Talent, Leadership, Organisation Development, APAC/Japan/India

Head of HR, Global Services, APAC

HR Account Consultant

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hr insider

Busy bee Ciaron Murphy, Head of Business HR (Sales) East and Head of HR – APAC for Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) is keeping busy with various HR initiatives including: + A successful merger with Motorola + Using a ‘Responsibility Assignment Matrix’ framework to ensure NSN has zero ambiguity in its sales roles + Designing a ‘New Venture Incentive Plan’ to ensure the sales teams are appropriately rewarded for selling new products + Running a pilot in the Asia Pacific region using the Miller-Heiman sales competency model to determine how to better support the development of the sales team + A Payroll Request for Proposal/Request for Information for APAC

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Building on the strong heritage from Nokia and Siemens in community involvement, NSN has aligned its CSR programs with the activities and targets of its core business. The company believes in taking a hands-on, long-term approach to corporate social responsibility programs, where it can make a difference with its expertise and technology.

Community involvement is important for NSN’s business and brand. “Our customers are increasingly interested in our corporate responsibility track record and in our involvement within the communities in which we operate,” Murphy says. “These activities are also important motivators for employees.”

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corporate health

Companies provide their employees with various workplace benefits, of which, most notable is a health plan. HRM looks at the range of schemes and what companies are doing to protect their staff while growing great ROI

By Priya de Langen

Planning for

health

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corporate health

Tips for companies

A

ny company funded health plan needs to cover various groups of employees while being cost-effective in the long run. For this, insurance organisations offer a variety of group health plans ranging from dental to hospitalisation coverage for companies to choose from.

Besides the general policies, companies are increasingly looking into flexible health plans.

These offer core benefits like hospital and illness insurance coverage as well as optional benefits such as supplementary medical support and even gym memberships.

General policies for companies

Health insurers advise companies to make sure that their health plans are not only cost-effective but are also sustainable in the long-run so that employees get the same benefits even during economic upheavals.

“Corporate health plans must be sustainable in the long-term as a part of employee-benefits package. It is unwise to offer very rich corporate health plans in good times and subsequently withdraw or reduce the benefits during bad times as this will affect staff morale,” explains Raymond Wong, Vice President and Head of Department, Corporate Solutions of the American International Assurance Company (AIA).

With various health care policies to choose from, insurers note that some of the basic programmes that companies are interested in are medical reimbursements of inpatient care – hospitalisation, or outpatient care such as clinic visits for employees.

Kelly Leong, Senior Manager, Great Eastern Benefit @ Worksite Team states Great Eastern offers a wide range of health plans to fit the needs of its over 3,000 corporate clients. At the basic level, the insurer offers the “Group Hospital and Surgical Plan”. “This is a medical reimbursement plan which covers expenses incurred as a result of hospitalisation and surgery due to illness or injury,” she says.

AIA also “has a comprehensive range of health plans for corporate clients with benefits such as

+ Choose a cost-effective plan that will cover the needs of various groups of employees + Create a feedback infrastructure to ascertain and monitor the changes in the needs of employees + Visit the back office of the third party administrator – find out their best practices guidelines and procedures so that they ensure data security and confidentiality + Ensure that the provider can give real time information such as sick leave patterns and individual utilisation reports + Do a reference check with existing clients of the plan provider

out-patient, in-patient and dental coverage,” says Wong. Plans such as “Group Hospital & Surgical Benefit” cover expenses for hospitalisation and surgery fees while the “Group Maternity Benefit” helps employees cover pre-and post-natal consultation fees.

Managed-care programmes are also utilised by many employers. It provides them with access to a network of clinics and specialists for outpatient care.

MHC Asia Group provides a network of more than 870 of General Practitioners, specialists and dental clinics for corporate clients to visit for medical care.

Great Eastern too has “SupremeCare” that allows members to visit more than 250 clinics island wide to receive outpatient treatment on a cashless basis by simply producing a member card.

Plans go flexible

Although most companies buy group health plans that fit the general needs of employees, the ‘one size fits all’ mentality is gradually changing. As more workplaces are boasting a diverse workforce, organisations note that different groups of employees have different medical needs.

Patrick Kerrigan, Head of HR for Credit Suisse, Asia Pacific says that the company has a general group health plan for all employees, which encompasses a variety of medical benefits from flu vaccinations to maternity allowance and outpatient care. “Employees at Credit Suisse are provided with suitable medical plans designed to meet the needs of our employees. Dependents of employees are also covered under the plans.”

However, he notes that in the past three to five years there has been a change with what employees want. The bank has received feedback from issue 11.5

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corporate health

Portable Medical Benefits » Portable Medical Benefits Scheme (PMBS): An employer makes additional contribution (at least 1% of gross monthly salary, subject to a minimum contribution of $16 per month) to employees’ Medisave account every month.

Employees will use the Medisave contribution to purchase Medishield or Medisave-approved medical insurance to cover their inpatient needs » Transferable Medical Insurance Scheme (TMIS): An enhanced group hospitalisation & surgical insurance purchased by employer. It offers extension of inpatient coverage up to a maximum period of 12 months when an employee leaves employment.

Employees covered under TMIS plans will be treated as continuously insured when he joins a new employer who has also purchased a TMIS plan » Provision of Shield plan (i.e. MediShield or Medisave-approved private integrated plan): Employer provides inpatient medical benefits in the form of Shield plan to his employees.

Source: www.mom.gov.sg

employees via various employee networks as well as through a study, “Total Reward Optimisation”, which was commissioned last year in its Singapore and Hong Kong offices.

“In the market generally, the biggest change has been the introduction of flexibility into medical plans where employees have the ability to tailor their benefits according to their needs. This is something that Credit Suisse is working towards for all its employees in Asia Pacific based on positive feedback from a recent internal survey,” explains Kerrigan.

Extended coverage

Health insurers also state that companies are requesting portable medical benefits for their employees.

Portable medical benefits provide continued medical coverage for employees who are in-between jobs and even for individuals who have retired.

“The most common request companies have is extending the coverage for staff when they leave the organisation as they understand that employees are concerned on coverage lapse once they resign and may not be able to buy a health plan on their own,” says Wong.

But why should companies continue to extend health plans for employees who are no longer tenured with them? Employers who utilise such plans can enjoy higher tax reduction for medical expenses of up to two per cent of total employee’s remuneration. (See side box).

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Simplifying the process

An organisation would have to deal with a substantial amount of paperwork when it comes to processing medical claims or writing reports and this could be a tedious process, especially if it has a large workforce. Companies, however, could enlist the help of third-party administrators to help them with paperwork.

“A typical employee makes an average of five visits to see the primary care doctor per year.

Companies with large headcounts often end up having to process large volume of outpatient receipts and reimbursement manually,” says Dr Low Lee Yong, CEO and Founder of MHC Asia Group.

He explains that companies have various needs when looking for a third-party administrator that include a “comprehensive web-based system to manage their medical benefit programmes”. In addition, employers want online access to “view the utilisation made by employees” and a system to audit and review claims submitted by clinics.

So far, MHC has processed over 1 million outpatient claims in Singapore from numerous corporate clients, including StarHub and NTUC Fairprice. Besides automating the medical claim processing, Dr Low says: “HR is empowered with online information and corporate profile of disease patterns, expenditures and sick leave patterns which allow them to do budgeting and planning.”

Great Eastern, which also offers similar services through its ‘Managed Care Programme’, is popular among companies, especially those with “bigger staff strength as they could outsource the administration of expense reimbursement as well as enjoy the risk management under an insured medical programme,” explains Leong.

Dr Low suggests HR managers to do a reference check on the administrator with existing clients. He adds that companies should visit the office of the third-party administrator to find out their practices in order to ensure that staff data is secure and confidential.

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This is the Master NTUC Income logo which is made up of two elements, the NTUC logo and the logotype.

This version without the corporate tagline will appear on all materials that are determined to have a long lifespan (e.g. corporate stationery, signage etc) The NTUC Income logo is made up of two Pantone colours. The full colour version of NTUC Income Master Logo comprises a single colour (NTUC Income Orange) wordmark made of six specially drawn characters and a single colour NTUC logo (NTUC Income Grey) locked together in a predefined arrangement.

NTUC Logo NTUC Income Grey

Since it is unique, do not attempt to redraw or rearrange it or alter its colour in any way. Always apply the appropriate master artwork provided within this manual.

NTUC Income colours wordmark NTUC Income Orange

Spot Colours : COATED UNCOATED

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The

bridge change of

When dealing with organisational change, HR managers can help employees by setting clear goals to help them leave ‘the old ways’ behind and cross the bridge towards transformation

By Kris Cole

P

eople may like new clothes or a change in hairstyle, but when it comes to their work, most people prefer things as they are. Whether you’re merging your organisation with another or introducing new technology or new ways of working with customers and suppliers, change makes its recipients uncomfortable – after all, they don’t know for sure what their working lives will be like once the change is in place.

When people don’t understand what is happening or why it’s happening, it makes sense to cling to ‘the old ways’ with all your might - that’s why communicating before, during and after a change is so vital. People resist what they haven’t had a part in creating - that’s why involving people is so important.

Yet all systems must grow and develop or they will die -- including organisations. Those that don’t develop and move forward are destined to wither and disappear. This makes strong change management skills a musthave for HR people.

Use the image of a bridge to help you introduce and manage change. On one side of the bridge is the old and on the other, the new. Your goal is to help people leave “the old ways” behind, cross the bridge quickly, and grasp what lies on the other side - the new - with energy and commitment.

Step 1:

Help People onto the bridge

People generally feel abandoned, anxious and bewildered when change looms. They may feel dismayed about having to learn new skills, new approaches, new methods, or new technology, or worried about having to work differently or harder.

guest contributor

Letting go of the old ways of doing things, old work groups and old routines can be difficult and painful. Yet people can’t move forward until they let go. Your goal is to help people make a break with the way things used to be so they can move forward. To do this, you must paint a clear picture of what their working lives will be like after the change.

Provide plenty of information about what life will be like on the other side of the bridge. What lies ahead for them, personally as well as for their team, their department, and their customers? How exactly will the change affect their work habits, routines and relationships? What specifically is expected of them in the way of learning new skills, or working with new colleagues or systems?

How will you measure their performance? What do they and their customers stand to gain? Explain what won’t change, too, to provide a sense of certainty.

Step 2:

Help people cross the bridge

Step 3:

Help people step off the bridge

The bridge itself is the transition from the old to the new.

It’s a neutral zone where people often experience a sense of unreality, emptiness and confusion. As the world as they know it is falling apart, they grapple with the changes, groping for how to manage them and trying to find a new comfort zone. Not surprisingly, people often “go through the motions” as if in a state of shock while they’re on ‘the bridge’.

Your goal is now to speed them over the bridge and help them step off it as quickly as possible. Calm their disorientation by providing as much stability and routine as you can. Set clear short-term goals for the change to provide a sense of progress and achievement. Keep communicating. Involve people in deciding what needs to happen to implement the change and make it work. Treat everyone as a source of creative input and find ways for everyone to contribute.

With a clear way ahead, a sense of hope begins to emerge and employees can approach the far side of the bridge with optimism and energy. Things might not be as bad as they feared, after all!

When it comes to change, there is no such thing as overcommunication. Let these two words be your motto: precision and frequency.

The more precisely and often you define the change and let people know precisely how it affects them, the sooner they can see what is on the other side of the bridge, and the sooner they will be willing to step off it.

Your goal then becomes finding ways to make the change stick. Familiarity and the pull of old habits make it all too easy to revert to the old, even when the change has been operating for a while. Formally and informally, reward those who change and withhold rewards from those who don’t. Support the supporters until you reach the ‘critical mass’ needed to turn the change into the status quo.

Use ‘The Bridge of Change’ to ensure your organisational change efforts aren’t among the 75 per cent of those that fail. Let it help you bask in improved productivity and soaring bottom lines, not manage a hostile and burned out workforce. + Kris Cole is the author of several best selling books that have been translated into seven languages, including Management: Theory and Practice, The Penguin Team Leader’s Toolkit, Call centre Communication and Crystal Clear Communication. She can be found at www.bax.com.au. issue 11.5

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Sharing with the community

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is increasingly important for companies, their shareholders and communities.

HRM speaks to experts and professionals about the latest CSR trends and examines the implications for HR

By Priya de Langen

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C

SR is often dismissed as a warm and fuzzy concept with no real business benefit. However, that view is changing as companies realise there are broad business and other benefits to good CSR. A global IBM study, for example, found that many companies now see CSR as a growth opportunity rather than just a regulatory compliance or philanthropic effort, with 68% focused on generating revenue through CSR activities while a further 54% believe CSR initiatives help provide a competitive business advantage.

Ultimately, however, CSR is about so much more than the bottom line.

Consumers, investors and employees all look for indicators of long-term success and strategy, and not just the bottom line, says Olivia Lum, Founder of the Hyflux Group and the President of Singapore Compact, a national society created to progress Singapore’s CSR framework.

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To stay ahead of the curve, she says employers should look to implementing CSR as a good business strategy as “it aligns sustainable profits with social development goals”.

Banking with a heart

“50% of our new graduate applicants cited our approach to CSR a factor when choosing Standard Chartered over other companies’ graduate programmes”

The banking community in Singapore has taken a proactive approach to CSR, and Standard Chartered Bank is one bank that has met with measurable success in its CSR initiatives.

Ray Ferguson, Regional Chief Executive for Singapore and Southeast Asia, Standard Chartered Bank, says the bank has always been attuned to building a sustainable business that is “aligned to the needs of the community”.

Ray Ferguson, Regional Chief Executive The bank is involved with several community and charity programmes, a for Singapore and Southeast Asia, significant one being ‘Living with HIV’. The programme is a peer-to-peer Standard Chartered Bank education initiative to raise awareness of HIV in the community.

Ferguson explains that the programme was launched in 1999 by employees who realised that their colleagues were absent due to their own or their family members’ ill health in Africa. The bank realised that HIV was having a “detrimental impact on many employees in key African markets”.

With the programme, Standard Chartered has reached out to 50,000 individuals in schools and companies in Singapore to educate them about HIV. As the founding member of the AIDS Business Alliance in Singapore, the bank’s senior management has given talks at workshops and seminars at places such as NTUC and Singapore Management University. The bank was also SMRT has raised over involved in the seventh Singapore AIDS conference on how to implement a HIV/AIDS workplace programme.

However, Ferguson candidly says there are challenges for needy elderly in adopting CSR programmes in any company, and in Standard Chartered’s case, that challenge is achieving active participation. “Employees may not fully understand why volunteering is so important and may be reluctant to take part in the activities. But over time, we have created a very strong culture, led by our management team,” he says.

The bank has undertaken various measures to take get its staff involved, including three days of volunteering leave in a year.As a business strategy, the bank’s CSR initiatives have not gone unnoticed. Standard Chartered has been attracting new talent because of enhanced public perception due to its CSR programmes. “Fifty percent of our new graduate applicants cited our approach to CSR a factor when choosing Standard Chartered over other companies’ graduate programmes,” says Ferguson.

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Case Study:

Singapore Compact plays its role Singapore Compact was launched by the National Tripartite Initiative (NTI) in 2005 to advance CSR in Singapore. The organisation aids in broadening the base for collaboration among various stakeholders, in developing coordinated and Olivia Lum, President, effective strategies to promote Singapore Compact CSR in Singapore.

It is also a participant and focal point of the United Nations (UN) Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate citizenship initiative, in enhancing corporate practices through ongoing dialogues, networking, seminars, training, collaboration and practical project implementation.

Leading the way with charity

Singapore’s biggest transport provider, SMRT Corporation, has been involved in CSR programmes for years so it was no surprise when it received the President’s Social Service Award in 2010.

“At SMRT, we recognise that we are part of a larger community and therefore must play a part in supporting and growing it,” states Goh Chee Kong, Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Communications for SMRT. The corporation adopts three charities each year, provides volunteering services with more than 6,000 staff involved in fundraising and also provides grants for helping the elderly. One of SMRT’s biggest CSR initiatives is the “SMRT Silver Tribute Fund” (STF), which was set up in 2006. The STF is a fundraising initiative to support critical programmes “that will enable needy elderly to live out their twilight years with dignity and security. These are the elderly who have no family or are abused, abandoned and/or forgotten, and living alone,” says Goh. SMRT has raised more than S$3 million for more than 10,000 needy elderly over the past four years. In 2010, The STF donated $90,000 to help 500 needy elderly in the north-west district to help repair homes and purchase essential household items. More than 850 SMRT and ITE College Central staff and student volunteers undertook household repairs and installations in these homes.

Goh says that staff enjoy meaningful community work, but admits that the corporation found it challenging to find a cause that it and the staff could identify with. “One of the challenges for us is identifying areas/causes which we can leverage on the The Ministry of Trade and Industry, strengths of the company to serve and give back to the Singapore, surveyed 500 companies and community. Staff must also be able to relate to these found that only 40% were aware of CSR causes so that they remain committed,” Goh said

CSR FACTS

(Source: CSR Asia: The Real Picture)

Law with a cause

Apart from associations with non-government agencies and charitable institutions, many organisations are committing their personal time to social projects. At law firm Rajah & Tann (R&T), staff and management are actively involved in several volunteering efforts that include pro-bono legal work to singing in a band for charity.

Gregory Vijayendran, Partner at R&T, says that the firm lends a hand at the Legal Aid Bureau and the Legal Clinic. The Legal Aid Bureau usually assigns cases to a panel of solicitors and R&T is on this panel. “Through this avenue, we have the privilege of helping indigent individuals who face bread and butter legal issues,” says Vijayendran, who adds that it enables lawyers to represent such individuals “to have their day in court”.

Though the biggest challenge for lawyers is to take time to do their pro-bono work during their busy schedules, he says they are enthusiastic about the work, especially junior members. It is an invaluable opportunity for

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the firm’s lawyers as junior members get to “interface with clients”, which they would otherwise be unable to do on a daily basis, says Vijayendran, who adds that it provides junior members with “a meaningful and valuable training ground” to assist them in becoming better lawyers.

The solicitors of R&T also provide a pro-bono helping hand to the needy at the Bukit Batok Legal Clinic, where they offer legal consultation on various cases ranging from matrimonial disputes to bankruptcy.

The road ahead

Lum of Singapore Compact thinks the major obstacle to CSR in Singapore is a lack of understanding and misconceptions about CSR. However, she says there is a growing trend of companies adopting CSR programmes.

“It is interesting to note that despite Singapore’s economic and social development, there is a relatively low level of CSR compared to other countries. This does mean that there is ample room for growth.”

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HR Summit preview

Humour in the workplace can help managers increase the energy levels in their office, says business-savvy satirist Terry Williams.

At this year’s HR Summit 2011, Williams will share hard facts about what employers can offer to infuse some fun at work and earn employee loyalty in return

real &f un

Keeping it

T

erry Williams leads a self-confessed dual life – he’s a serious business manager and trainer by day and a stand-up comedian by night! Author, speaker, emcee, trainer and comedian, Williams has not only done it all it seems, but has also amassed a lot of experience and success in his working lifetime to allow him to positively influence the lives of others.

Before starting his companies seriouspeople Limited and seriouscomedy Limited, Williams worked in the financial services, gaming, telecommunications and local government sectors in training as well as operational and Terry Williams’ presentation will be a part of the opening Plenary customer service management. Being a manager Session at the HR Summit 2011 on the 26th of May, 2011 at and business owner enabled him to have a Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. Williams will share how to: greater involvement in broader organisational » Use humour in the office as a tool to increase staff retention development but you’ll see the spark of passion » Learn how grabbing attention, creating rapport and being in him when he’s in front of the room helping memorable can help you get a job, gain promotion, make learners learn and, even more importantly, sales or get more out of your team transferring that learning into practical, tangible » Walk away entertained and re-energised.

Terry Williams and measurable results in the workplace.

Top three takeaways

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HR Summit preview

Often he’s entertaining or hosting corporate events and conferences for clients such as Sony, Mercedes and even the New Zealand national rugby team, the All Blacks. Williams’ point of difference as a speaker is that in addition to his business experience and knowledge he has also been a professional stand-up comedian for ten years. He challenges himself to do two dangerous things a year, which is how he got into stand-up comedy.

Consequently his business presentations are engaging. “Appropriate fun reinforces learning,” Williams says. His earliest forays into professional speaking were about humour in the workplace and how some skills of a comedian could make non-comedic businesspeople better managers, leaders, salespeople and communicators.

“Some skills of a comedian can make non-comedic businesspeople better managers, leaders, salespeople and communicators” Terry Williams, Author and International Business Speaker

The big idea

Why do people really leave? Why do people, especially talented and desirable people with options, come and go or stay? What can workplaces consciously and proactively do to influence that? These questions and more will be answered during Terry Williams’ HR Summit exclusive presentation.

Williams will take advantage of his strengths as a business-savvy satirist and share hard facts regarding what employers can offer, and be seen to offer, to make them an employer and workplace of choice. He will examine what it means to be a workplace of choice and whether it justifies itself in business results.

Williams believes that to succeed in the future, modern workplaces need to become a network of inter-relationships that are deliberately managed rather than left to chance as in the traditionally rigid hierarchical organisation.

“It won’t just happen by accident. You’ve got to consciously plan and create the conditions for a fun workplace,” Williams says. He believes that employers don’t need Terry Williams’ book ‘The Guide: How to Kiss, to become clowns themselves to do this, but Get a Job and Other Stuff You Need to Know’ is overflowing with life skills for the young and rather, look at the techniques that comedians young at heart. The Guide is perfect for Gen Ys use – basic communications, rapport building, starting out in the corporate world and Gen Xers accelerated learning techniques – and use wishing they could start again. them in serious workplace situations that The comprehensive, well-structured and people faces every day in the business world. practical advice is delivered in an entertaining and “Using humour at work will help accessible style. It’s a resource to influence others managers and office administrators increase without being a preachy treatise. the energy in their office,” Williams says.

Topics include everything from goal setting and “Benefits also extend to team leaders who personal effectiveness to dealing with sales people want to learn fun and fresh ways to and the ever popular and controversial kissing chapter. communicate effectively with staff to increase productivity.”

The Guide

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corporate learning

Developing the ranks

Brady employees at a corporate training session

T

As every employee is different, a one-size-fits-all approach to learning and development is seldom effective. HRM finds out how Brady Corporation has been tailor-making its training programmes to support the individual growth of its employees

he highest mileage in your business comes from your people, says Vincy Ng, HR Director, APAC, Brady Corporation. “When you provide them with specific skills, they can make a difference to the organisation.�

Brady, which manufactures facility identification products like signs, tags, labels and printers, revisited its training and development initiatives during the financial crisis in 2009. Limited resources during this period meant that the company had to come up with a more efficient approach towards talent development. As a result, it now runs tailored training programmes that cater to the different needs of top-tier, mid-level as well as emerging talent.

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corporate learning

Nurturing high-potential employees

“You’re only as strong

Exploring the different competencies of its as your weakest employees is the first step in assessing talent within Brady. Top performers at the company undertake an link and so we want executive assessment, conducted by global executive to make sure that search firm Egon Zehnder. The assessment everyone is equipped comprises in-depth interviews as well as 360-degree reference checks to identify an employee’s strengths with the right skills” and weaknesses.

Vincy Ng, HR Director, When the assessment is complete, employees receive an individual APAC, Brady Corporation development plan that includes a job rotation or international posting for a period of 18 to 36 months. Senior level leaders also mentor and coach them. Alvin Ang, a HR manager at Brady, started his career within the company in staffing. The executive assessment revealed that Ang would benefit from experience in areas such as talent management and learning and development. He recently undertook an HR generalist role to develop his skill-sets in these areas.

Due to the nature of its business, Brady has many employees who are very technically competent. However, a good engineer may not be readily equipped to be a good manager to his subordinates. During a meeting involving employees of different ranks, the company realised that its frontline managers needed better leadership skills, Ng says.

To assist, Brady introduced a five-day course called the ‘Effective Brady Programme’, in which managers learn how to profile different employee behaviours and find ways to bring out their potential. Managers also develop skills in areas such as effective communication and conflict resolution. Since its introduction in October 2010, Brady has trained some 55 managers in this programme at a cost of US$70,000. It plans to train another 145 managers from its Singapore and China offices this year.

High potential managers are also invited to participate in South Asia leaders meetings, in which managers learn about key business issues from key leaders within the organisation. Such talent development initiatives can improve staff loyalty and Edna Lim, South Asia marketing manager, Brady, retention rates, Ng says. “Everybody wants runs through a marketing plan to work for a company that provides career

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corporate learning

In Brief + Origins: Brady was founded in 1914 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, as W.H. Brady Co., and renamed Brady Corporation in 1998. The company began selling products internationally in 1947. In 1984, Brady went public, and started trading its stocks in the Nasdaq Stock Market. In 1999 it moved its stock to the New York Stock Exchange. + Specialisation: Brady’s core capabilities lie in manufacturing, precision engineering and materials expertise. It is a leading supplier to the maintenance, repair and operations market and to the original equipment manufacturing market. + Total number of employees in APAC: 3200 + Current training priorities: Leadership skills, sales force effectiveness, strategic ability, customer-led growth methodology, operations skills training, Brady process training + Training budget: About three percent of total payroll + Training methods: External facilitators, e-learning, webinars and internal facilitators

development. They want to be trained in areas that make them more competitive in the marketplace.”

Improving competencies

Training at Brady is not just limited to its top talent, and the company constantly seeks ways to improve the capabilities of its people right across the organisation. It uses a skills matrix to measure skills gaps and provides corresponding training programmes. “You’re only as strong as your weakest link and so we want to make sure that everyone is equipped with the right skills,” Ng says.

The ‘Discovering Voice of Customers’ programme, for example, helps sales staff uncover the unmet needs of customers through the use of questionnaires. Employees also learn about market segmentation so that they can understand different types of customer behaviour.

Training also helps keep employees up-todate with the latest technological developments. When Brady introduced a new type of filtration technology in manufacturing hard disks, employees had to be trained in the process.

The company also has Brady management staff at a leadership training session an in-house product marketing lab where sales employees can acquire in-depth knowledge on the technology behind new products.

Brady conducts various on-the-job training programmes as well as coaching for employees involved in unskilled labour. These programmes are designed to raise their effectiveness and efficiency. This group of employees are also exposed to soft-skill training programmes in analytical skills and problem-solving, for example.

Cutting waste and raising productivity

Brady is also undertaking measures to cut waste and make its work processes leaner. It is sending employees for training in Lean Six Sigma, a type of business management strategy that aims to reduce inefficiencies and raise quality.

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As part of this, the HR department, had to review its different recruitment channels and identify the most effective source for potential candidates instead of relying on multiple sources, Ng explains. The same methodology is being applied to other parts of the organisation including sales, finance and production.

Brady believes that helping employees improve their work processes can give it an edge over others. “Competitors can just copy products. When you develop your employees, they become more committed to the organisation,� Ng says.

Team-building fun at Brady

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come home When expats

Adjusting to life back home after an overseas posting is often not as straightforward as it seems. HRM looks at how organisations can help their employees settle in and engage upon repatriation

By Sumathi V Selvaretnam

W

When Sam moved back to his local office after a three-year stint at his company’s South American operations, he was in for a shock. He felt no connection with the once familiar environment.

There were many new faces, numerous policies and regulations had changed and he missed his old social network.

While most companies go out of their way to ensure that their employees are properly acclimatised to a foreign setting, repatriation or the process of returning to a person’s place of origin is often overlooked. Most people assume that heading back to a familiar environment and lifestyle is a lot easier.

However, this is often not the case. Employees coming home from a long-term overseas assignment can feel lost and disoriented. Many of them expect their home to be the way it was when they left, only to discover that things have changed, says Craig Storti, the author of The Art of Coming Home, a book on successful repatriation. He refers to this process of reentry as “reverse culture shock.” According to Storti, the process of expats returning home can be a lot more difficult than moving to a foreign country.

Adjustment issues, limited opportunities for advancement as well a general lack of support may cause returning employees to exit the organisation. issue 11.5

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Tips for successful repatriation + Have a career discussion before sending employees on an overseas assignment so that they know what to expect upon their return + Pair employees heading for overseas assignments with local mentors so that they can keep abreast of the latest developments back home + Think about how repatriate’s newly acquired skills and knowledge can be fully utilised in the home country office + Come up with a repatriation contract detailing the employee’s new roles and responsibilities at the home country office so that everyone is on the same page + Be sure to look into the needs of the employee’s family members and factor these into the repatriation strategy. If family members have trouble adjusting, it could take a toll on the employee’s concentration and performance

According to a 2010 Global Mobility and Effectiveness survey by Ernst & Young, some 12% of employees resign from their company in the 24 months after repatriation. Despite this, two-thirds of companies have no formal repatriation strategy linked to career development and retention, according to another survey by global relocation company Cartus.

Job fulfillment

No employee coming home from an overseas assignment would want to feel that they are returning to their ‘old job’. Storti advises organisations to plan for an employee’s return at least one year out and keep in mind a suitable position that they could fill upon their return.

Employees want to know that they are returning to a job with new prospects and opportunities for growth. Expatriates at VISANOW, a global immigration services company, are required to demonstrate their leadership skills in implementing business development plans at their home country upon repatriation.

They are also often promoted within their department.

“From a business investment standpoint, if the expatriates feel like they are returning to their old job, the company was not successful in investing the resources to develop or enhance their global competitive edge,” says Yen LeBavis, Global Mobility Manager, VISANOW. Organisations can also encourage returning employees to attend counseling sessions where they can discuss the work that they have done overseas and how they can apply the skills that they have picked up to their new role. Some organisations also assign a mentor to repatriates. The mentor keeps them in the loop about changes in the organisation as well as possible roles and responsibilities that they could undertake upon their return.

It also helps to keep employees connected with their home country even while they are away, says Le-Bavis. This can be done via periodical newsletters and updates or documentation that has been specially prepared for expatriates to keep up in a larger corporate setting.

Practical considerations

Repatriates need to address a few practical considerations before they are able to perform at their best. A well thought-out repatriation strategy is usually able to address these concerns.

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The main concern of repatriates is finding suitable housing. This challenge increases with the duration of time the employee has lived overseas with their family, says Andrew Soon, Regional Director, Corporate Services, South East Asia and India, Crown Relocations Singapore. For example, housing norms in the home country might have changed during the period of the overseas assignment, Soon explains. A part of the services offered by his company include keeping clients up-to-date on changes in the housing market. Expatriates are also assigned a representative who helps them with their search for accommodation.

Finding suitable schools for their children is another pressing concern for expatriates, who might have been exposed to a different education system overseas. Relocation service providers can also help employees with their school search. For example, Crown is able to identify schooling requirements, coordinate school tours, explain testing and interview requirements and assist with application and enrolment.

Employees would also want to make sure that their spouses are able to find their feet as well. Cartus works with a global alliance partner to provide career counseling and labour market research for the relocating spouse, partner or family. Some of these services include career and skills assessment, résumé preparation, job market research and pointing out potential leads.

G l o b al S t r a t e g y . A sia n

“Employees coming home from a long-term overseas assignment can feel lost and disoriented” Craig Storti, author, The Art of Coming Home

Ap

p li c at

ion s .

mice feature

It's showtime!

The Shaw Premieve movie experience

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inema operators across the island are sprucing up their screens to draw in the crowds with many offering premium movie viewing experiences ideal for MICE outings.

Shaw Theatres Lido will be unveiling Singapore’s first and only digital IMAX theatre system in mid-May. The 170kg, three-storey high screen was delicately hoisted by a crane through an opening made in the curved façade of Shaw Corporate groups looking for a unique space House. It promises a more could check out the Screening Room at Ann immersive movie Siang Hill. The larger of the two rooms available experience. “IMAX’s for rent can host up to 70 guests. Organisers are customised theatre geometry free to screen any movie of their choice as long maximises your field of as they bring along the original DVD. Staff at the vision and the high-gain Screening Room can help organise a themed screen works with the event with food and drinks. A recent corporate projection system to bring screening of the movie Wallstreet featured a you brighter and sharper green theme, with details like “Million-dollar” images,” says Mark Shaw, shooters, “Money” martinis, chocolate gold executive vice president of coins and spring rolls shaped like money bags. operations, Shaw Theatres.

Cinema operators are also paying more attention to comfort. Earlier this year, Shaw opened two Premiere cinema halls at nex mall in Serangoon.

Apart from extra legroom and freshly washed blankets, MICE groups can enjoy a selection of

Movie-themed parties

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Western and Continental dishes prepared at a dedicated kitchen.

Cathay is also upping the ante with its newly launched Platinum Movie Suites, a cosy 28-seat theatre that comes with reclining leather seats.

Corporate groups can relax at the exclusive Platinum Movie Lounge which offers Wi-Fi access and complimentary usage of iPads. There is also a gourmet selection of food, from light snacks to full three-course meals. These can be served at the lounge or at the seat.

According to Cathay, corporate companies do not just book cinema halls but also request for pre-screening cocktails to be arranged at lounges, cinema lobbies or foyer areas. “These provide them with the opportunity to network with their guests before the commencement of the movie,” says Suhaimi Rafdi, CEO, Cathay Organisation.

Cinema halls are also doubling up as creative venues for corporate meetings. At Golden Village Cinemas, corporate groups can hold a “Cinemeeting” where a traditional meeting ends with a private movie screening. This concept rewards participants for staying through a presentation. Over at Cathay Cineplexes, MICE groups can request for special screenings of corporate videos, as well as the delivery of speeches in the cinema auditorium prior to the start of the movie.

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Thai Spirit of Happiness and Fun

Tawandang Microbrewery Have your next company event at Tawandang Microbrewery.

Whether it’s a year-end party, meeting, seminar, product launch, promotion, or birthday party, Tawandang is the best choice for corporate hospitality

T

awandang is the world’s best Thai-German bar and restaurant (as noted by Time Magazine in 2003). Established in Bangkok as the Tawandang German Brewery in 1999, Tawandang has become one of the premier nightlife destinations in Asia and is often regarded by Thais as the most famous and successful bar and restaurant in the country. The Tawandang concept revolves around three elements: modern Thai cuisine, original German beer, and lively entertainment. This unique concept has attracted loyal followers throughout the world and given Tawandang the label as the World’s First Asian Microbrewery.

With modern Thai cuisine from some of the top chefs of Thailand, freshly-brewed German beer from a professional Bavarian brewmaster, and lively entertainment from a professional six-piece Thai band, all in an Asian Style Microbrewery setting, Tawandang offers something for everyone and an enjoyable time for all. And it’s all available right here in Singapore as well.

Tawandang Microbrewery is the perfect destination for your next company event with two convenient locations at Dempsey Hill and Suntec City.

Tawandang @ Dempsey

With lush greenery and old world charm in a historical location, Dempsey Hill is the premier lifestyle destination in Singapore and the ideal setting for any company event. Tawandang Microbrewery @ Dempsey Hill offers a seating capacity of 350 with air-conditioned, terraced and al-fresco

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dining. The restaurant features an in-house brewery, live band, entertainment stage, and a 170-inch projection screen.

Tawandang @ Suntec

Suntec City is the leading shopping and entertainment destination in the heart of the city. Designed using Feng Shui to resemble a human hand, Suntec City is aligned to create maximum harmony, and therefore well-placed for bringing fortune and success.

Tawandang Microbrewery is located at the Suntec Convention Centre, which is one of Asia Pacific’s largest convention centres. The newly-opened restaurant offers a seating capacity of over 450 with an air-conditioned dining area and an open-air bar. Tawandang Microbrewery @ Suntec features a live band, entertainment stage, and a 170-inch projection screen.

Both restaurants at Dempsey and Suntec offer happiness and fun for all with genuine Thai hospitality.

Why go to Thailand for your company event, when Tawandang brings Thailand to you in either the lush greenery of Dempsey or the city centre of Suntec. The dedicated and professional staff at Tawandang will ensure that all of your needs will be on hand and that your company event is a success for everyone.

We are able to accommodate any of your event needs and have tailor-made packages to suit every budget. With ideal locations at Dempsey Hill and Suntec, an interesting concept, large seating capacity, impressive restaurant facilities, and unsurpassed experience hosting large-scale events, Tawandang Microbrewery is the perfect choice for your next company event.

+ For more information, please call 6476 6742 or email info@tawandang.com issue 11.5

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resources

Understanding cultural diversity

A

young Scandinavian manager in an IT company, with no prior work experience in Asia, had difficulties coordinating the efforts of his team in Singapore, China and Australia. He was unable to understand why the teams complained about his management style – the China team thought he did not listen to their thoughts and the Singapore team thought he was too-laid back. The complaints highlighted the underlying issues of cultural differences, which had to be resolved by coaching the manager by giving him pointers on how to deal with cultural conflicts.

Cultural behaviour is a difficult issue to discuss and deal with, as the book Managing Mindsets highlights with the above case study.

The authors, Mijnd Huijser and Danaë Huijser, expose the importance of understanding complex and diverse cultural behaviours, especially in a business context through 12 real-life case

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studies, which have been presented by 10 cross-cultural experts.

Using the ‘Model of Freedom’ – a cultural assessment tool that was developed by international coaches and trainers at The Model of Freedom Association – the authors have analysed the cases studies to provide explanations on how cultural conflicts between parties can be avoided.

Managing Mindsets is divided in four parts – Cross-cultural coaching, Mergers and acquisitions, Organisational change and Social integration, and each theme is supported by three case studies.

Managing Mindsets: Applying the Cultural The book is useful for all Advantage in your Business professionals, whether they are Written by: Mijnd Huijser and Danaë Huijser interested in personal growth or are Published by: Ayn Press in businesses that are going through Recommended price: S$30.74 (€16.95) mergers and acquisitions or are Order at: www.ayn-press.com interested in social integration.

At a Glance

viewpoint Korn/Ferry

Identifying and developing agile leaders Many leaders fail because they depend too much on what made them successful in the past, rather than learning new behaviors required for success in new situations

M

ore than 20 years of research confirms learning agility— the ‘ability and willingness to learn from experience and apply that learning to perform successfully in new situations’—is the core factor differentiating high-potential talent from high-functioning performers.

Distinct from intelligence, learning agility is the single, best predictor of high potential. Agile learners tend to know what to do when they don’t know what to do—they are today’s and tomorrow’s most successful leaders.

Introducing viaEDGETM

viaEDGE is the third in a suite of Korn/Ferry learning agility assessments. Designed for ease of use with large groups of individuals, viaEDGE is a self-assessment resulting in low administrative impact on an organisation. The assessment takes 25-30 minutes to complete.

Results include a short summary report, with a detailed report and interpretation provided through Korn/Ferry certified coaches.

Multiple ways to use viaEDGE:

» Assess internal talent for placement of high potentials (including early career, emerging talent), key job assignments, succession plans, and to support development and coaching » Aid in external candidate hiring decisions for roles where learning agility is a core requirement » Identify managers most likely to succeed in international assignments

Pushp Deep

Gupta

Jacqueline

Gillespie

Managing Principals, Korn/Ferry Korn/Ferry Learning Agility Assessments Overview Talent Audience Uses

Learning Agility

Accuracy

viaEDGETM

Choices Architect ®

Self-assessment to provide insight into learning agility and assist in determining potential Internal or external + Succession + High-potential identification + Development + Selection (for roles requiring learning agility) Five factors: + Mental agility + People agility + Change agility + Results agility + Self-awareness And overall learning agility Incorporates mechanisms that determine the accuracy of an individual assessment score

Multi-rater assessment used to identify and validate high potential Internal + Succession + High-potential identification + Development

Learning agile individuals learn most from developmental job experiences; thus, knowing who they are helps organisations accelerate their leadership development. Like all of Korn/Ferry’s learning agility assessments, viaEDGE provides scores on four dimensions: mental agility; people agility; change agility; and results agility.

But viaEDGE goes further, also measuring: self-awareness — the depth to which an individual knows himself or herself, and recognises skills, strengths,

Four factors: + Mental agility + People agility + Change agility + Results agility And overall learning agility

Learning From ExperienceTM (LFE) Structured interview protocol to quantify the job candidates’ learning agility External + Selection

Four factors: + Mental agility + People agility + Change agility + Results agility And overall learning agility

Ratings can be affected by the Requires interviewers be selection of raters e.g., training highly skilled and trained in in evaluation methods, fatigue the LFE methodology

weaknesses, blind spots, and hidden strengths. A recent study cites selfawareness as the #1 predictor of executive success. + Pushp Deep Gupta Lead – Lominger & Talent Management Solutions, Asia Pacific Tel: +65 6231 6139 Email: pushp.gupta@kornferry.com + Jacqueline Gillespie Lead – ASEAN & Leadership Development, Asia Pacific Tel: +65 6231 6140 Email: jacqueline.gillespie@kornferry.com issue 11.5

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talent ladder Corrinne Chan

Regional HR Director, Developing Markets, Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals

Rosie Hollis

Executive VP, HR, Carlson Hotels, Asia Pacific

Pauline Chua General Manager, Human/ Organisation Resource & Development, Fuji Xerox Singapore

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Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals (RBP) has appointed Corrinne Chan as the new Regional HR Director for Developing Markets. Chan is tasked with building HR strategies and structures for the new Developing Markets subsidiary from scratch as the regional office was formed in January this year when RB bought back the global marketing agreement with Schering Plough (now Merck) for RBP products.

Chan has more than 16 years of HR experience and has previously worked for Philips Consumer Lifestyle and SSL International Healthcare as the HR Director for Asia Pacific.

“It is really exciting to be able to build something from a ‘clean sheet of paper’. I aim to work with my team to drive and build the culture we want for our business with this new structure/team.”

Rosie Hollis has been appointed Executive VP, HR, Carlson Hotels, Asia Pacific. She is tasked with articulating a clear HR framework for the organisation to fulfil their Ambition 2015 strategy – to have over 1,500 hotels globally by 2015, and to become the No. 1 hotel company to work for and invest in.

Hollis has been working in the hospitality industry for 25 years. While she does not specialise in any one particular area of HR, Hollis has built strong generalist skills relevant to the hospitality industry over the years.

“I look forward to being part of a strong and successful team which is focused on delivering value to our hotel owners as well as a quality employment experience to our hotel and corporate colleagues.”

Pauline Chua has recently joined Fuji Xerox Singapore as their General Manager, Human/ Organisation Resource & Development overseeing HR, Service, Corporate Social Responsibility and Integrated Office Services. She was previously the HR Director of Wildlife Reserves Singapore and Senior HR Manager of Sentosa Leisure Group.

Chua has more than 18 years of work experience in both Singapore and New Zealand. She comes from a strong consulting background in Recruitment and Organisational Development. “I am looking forward to being part of the exciting growth and development at Fuji Xerox Singapore. It’s excellent to see HR partnering with the business to create an engaged and motivated workforce, committed to sustainability to ensure that we are not just a great but meaningful workplace.”

in person

Che

Yaneza

AVP, Learning & Development, MediaCorp Years in HR? 20 years and counting‌

playing field to bring about innovation, which is one of my notable traits.

Why HR? Having graduated with a degree in Engineering and spent eight productive years in Business Process Re-engineering, I landed up in HR after my CEO offered me the job based purely on my personality.

Biggest achievement?

I have received affirmation from people both in the corporate sphere and outside of work for being able to help them in their careers, discover their strengths and stay positive amidst the challenges they faced each day.

Why MediaCorp Pte Ltd? I have worked in multinational companies encompassing the manufacturing, high tech, education, and financial industries. I believe working in a media company, especially in the biggest and most iconic one in Singapore, paves the way for greater opportunities to fulfil my mission and passion. This company is a good

Family?

I have two teenage children, 16 and 14, and I’m married to another creative man who was my classmate in university.

What happens after hours?

Tennis is part of my routine. It builds physical stamina and also boosts my mental capacity, allowing me to become more creative.

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talent challenge

Picking the best What are some “tough” interview questions you always ask?

I do not ask “tough” interview questions; rather I ask questions that enable me to identify candidates that are most likely to perform well on a specific job. It is Bryan Jasper important for the interviewer to really assess and have a good understanding of Balangue the candidate’s competencies whether it is foundational or technical and the best Country Recruitment way to assess this based on my experience is by conducting a behavioural-based Manager, HR, structured interview.

IBM Malaysia Some candidates have a “tough” time though because they are not used to this type of interviewing technique but I make it a point to ensure that they still provide the information that I need to know by using techniques such as informing them to take their time to think about the answer/experience and also by paraphrasing the question. Towards the end of each interview, I also ensure that candidates understand the benefits of joining IBM. Ultimately, whether they pass or fail the interview, it is important for any recruitment professional to ensure that candidates have a great experience with regard to their application.

Laurence Yap

I’ve asked many tough questions during the interviews, including “What was your greatest challenge at work and tell me how you solved it. What else was involved in it too?” I will ask this question to access how well the candidate handles crisis and tough challenges. I need to see if they have handled tough situations before. This will allow me to have an idea of how they will function under pressurising situations that may arise at Carsem.

Another question I normally ask is, “What are your values in life? How do you apply these values in your current jobs and give me three examples.” These questions will test the value system of the candidates. With examples, we can know if he walks the talk.

We are also able to assess if the candidate is a good fit, bearing our company’s own values in mind.

Finally, this open-ended question, “How do you ‘change the world’ at your workplace?” helps to see if the candidate really sees his work as career or just as his or her job. People with conviction and passion will answer this with ease.

Senior HR Development Manager, Carsem

George Kwok

One tough interview question I always ask is: “Why should we employ you?”

Good candidates will answer this question by highlighting their strengths with Head of Human real life experiences, especially their accomplishments. What we are looking for Resources, ThaiExpress is a candidate who is the best for the position advertised. It is what the applicant Concepts can do for the company that is important.

I also ask the candidate why he/she wants to work for our company.

Candidates who are truly interested will indicate their passion to join a stable company and how keen they are with their application for the post advertised.

What we are looking for is someone is proactive and decisive about their career goals which in turn shows that they will be committed to work at our Company.

Lastly, I’m interested to know what the candidate knows about our company. Candidates who are prepared have done their homework before the interview. What we are looking for is a candidate who has carried out some research on the current situation of the company and has conscientious interest in joining our Company.

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twenty-four seven

Roy Advincula Head of HR, Microsoft Singapore

6:00am Up out of bed! Engage in my morning rituals: lots of coffee and a bowl of cereal and banana, and planning out the day ahead.

7:00am My ‘Thinking Time’ in the office: zoning in for the day and week, planning the month and quarter. Enjoying the quiet bliss and the view of Marina Bay Sands.

9:00am On Tuesdays is our Country Leadership Team Meeting. This is where I get to understand the business and actively present and discuss the progress of my people plans and activities for the quarter.

11:00am Now, I work through items coming out of the management meeting which require action, alongside catch-up meetings with my client managers.

12.00pm Time for lunch and more coffee to see me through the day!

2:00pm On Tuesdays, I sync-up and planning time with my staff – tracking progress on the quarter’s people plans and activities and planning for the next quarter’s people activities.

3:30pm Involvement in people-working groups weather it’s for the country subsidiary and/or my SEA HR organisation projects.

6:00pm The day’s activities winds down, Email catch up time to ensure I am on top of my inbox!

7:00pm My fitness workouts beckon. Depending on the day, I have a regular fitness regimen that covers spinning, running and swimming.

9:00pm Hit the sack and look forward to the next day’s activities!

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talent feature

The retirement conundrum Employers have a crucial role to play in how they structure employment for older workers

Lynne

ng

Regional Director, Adecco South East Asia

W

hen do we retire? How do we retire? Should we, in fact, retire at all? Plans to raise Singapore’s retirement age have raised many interesting questions over the past year. With HR Summit just around the corner, the subject of mature workers will likely be a hot discussion topic when Singapore’s HR professionals convene for two days of learning and networking at the end of the month.

Raising the retirement age in Singapore would require the actual demand for the hiring or retention of older workers to also increase – meaning that employers would need to make more jobs available to those in their late 60s.

With this would come the necessity for companies to further understand how best to utilise the skills of older workers.

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In some countries, employment trends have shown that when the retirement age is increased, there has not always been a hiring boom for older workers. Often because the type of work offered to them has been too demeaning or physically demanding.

In Singapore, hiring older workers can be a solution to some of the talent shortage situations that exist here today.

Even so, some organisations may still not jump at the chance to hire older workers, due to the many misconceptions that exist about older workers being less productive or more difficult to manage than their younger counterparts claims that are simply untrue.

Research in the US has demonstrated that one of the biggest hurdles to hiring older workers lies

with junior managers. Managers who may be several decades younger than the older workers, it has been shown, worry about the potential conflict in supervising someone far more senior and experienced than they are.

For mature worker programmes to truly succeed, companies need to spend time mentoring younger managers, as well as developing programmes for older workers that include training and workplace integration.

But why even retire? The concept of retirement comes from a time when, for those in manual jobs, life expectancy after retirement was limited to just a few years. With a significant number of children born today expected to live beyond a hundred years, and having not even finished their studies until their mid-20s, if the current rules were maintained many people would be retired for longer than they had worked.

Employers have a crucial role to play in how they structure employment for older workers, knowing that this demographic will become a bigger part of the workforce over the coming years – whether as a result of a legislated increase in the retirement age, or the sheer need for people to continue working to support the longer lives that they are now living. + Adecco is the world leader in human resource solutions. For further details about Adecco in Singapore, please see www.adecco.com.sg

executive appointments

HUDSON IS CELEBRATING 15 YEARS of successful partnership with our clients and candidates in Singapore. 15 years of positive impact on the performance of top companies and talented individuals by finding the best fit for them.

GROWING TOGETHER WITH YOU OVER THE YEARS

With your support, we have evolved, grown and emerged as Singapore’s premier Recruitment Service Provider.

And through each year, we better understand your needs and continuously strive to serve you better.

Continue to grow and improve with us.

Contact our HR specialists at 6339 0355: GEORGIE CHONG MAUREEN HO

HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR Sunrise Industry Dynamic and Fast-Paced Environment Leadership Role for Singapore Operation

HR BUSINESS PARTNER, ASIA PACIFIC US Industrial Leader Challenging New Position Excellent Career Development Opportunity

Our client is an international leading player well known for its integrated service within its industry. It now seeks a dynamic HR Director to join the management team and lead HR initiatives for a key operation.

A global and leading player in the Industrial field, our client is seeking an experienced and dynamic HR Business Partner to join one of its core businesses.

Partnering the Senior Management Team, you will manage all aspects of HR functions and lead the HR Strategic roadmaps. You will direct the development and implementation of strategies, policies, procedures and systems in achieving organizational objectives.

Partnering with the Business Head, you will lead and implement overall HR strategies and execution on site, serving as HR business partner, change facilitator, and trusted advisor to the business.

You are a veteran HR Generalist with at least 10 years of leadership experience within an industrial MNC. A Change Agent, you have demonstrated capability in initiating and driving transformation projects.

With exceptional interpersonal skills, you build, engage and stretch team members to new levels of performance as well as lead cross-functional teams to drive organizational performance. Contact Maureen Ho quoting HRMP/30548/MH.

You are degree qualified with minimum 10 years of solid hands-on HR generalist experience within an industrial MNC. You must have demonstrated capability in performing a regional role and stakeholder management in a highly matrix environment. Highly operationally and strategically minded, you are a strong communicator with an ability to work independently in a demanding environment, and have good project management and implementation skills. Contact Maureen Ho quoting HRMP/30668/MH.

To apply please enter the relevant reference number in the ‘Job ref number/keyword’ section of jobs.sg.hudson.com. Alternatively, email your resume to sgresume@hudson.com quoting the relevant reference number.

HRM_2p_03.indd 1-2

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executive appointments

REGIONAL COMPENSATION & BENEFITS MANAGER Global Consumer Brand Fast-paced and Dynamic Environment Rewarding and Exciting Opportunity

CALLING ALL RECRUITERS! Global and Leading MNC Singapore and / or Regional Portfolio Exciting and Challenging Roles

A reputable multinational, our client is a world leading branded consumer product manufacturer and is seeking an experienced C&B expert to support and manage functional initiatives across an assigned region.

Global and well known industry leaders, our clients have urgent requirements for highly resourceful and dynamic Recruiters to join them in their talent acquisition quests.

You will support the development of C&B strategies and are responsible for the activities in establishing C&B alignment and harmonization for the region. You will provide effective internal consultancy support to line managers and HR Business Partners, and ensure adherence to policy guidelines and governance requirements.

As subject matter expert, you are responsible in delivery high quality staffing service to the business. Partnering with senior management and hiring mangers to identify and develop staffing strategies and requirements, you will perform end to end recruitment activities and guide stakeholders through the entire selection process.

Degree qualified with professional C&B certifications, you have 10 years of specialized C&B experience including 5 years of regional remit. Experience in expatriate management, long-term incentives and global benefits are preferred. You are operationally and strategically strong in implementing related initiatives, and capable of operating independently in a demanding environment. Excellent project management, communication and interpersonal skills are crucial. Contact Maureen Ho quoting HRMP/30492/MH.

You ideally have at least 5 years experience in end to end recruitment within a corporate environment. You are an expert in full lifecycle recruitment activities, preferably with high volume recruitment and agency working experience. Demonstrated capability in dealing with ambiguity and operating in dynamic environment is desired. You possess excellent project management, interpersonal and communication skills, and strong learning and stakeholder management ability. Contact Maureen Ho quoting HRMP/30395/MH.

4/18/2011 11:25:59 AM

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executive appointments

Returning the Human to Resourcing

HR Business Partner

Compensation Consulting Senior Leader

HR Business Partner

Global Consulting Firm Financial Services Sector China / Hong Kong-Based

Premier Bank

This premier global human capital consulting firm specializes in compensation consulting for financial services sector.

This premier bank has a strong global franchise and has recorded impressive business growth in the region.

Reporting to the Regional HRD, you will provide HR business partnering solutions to a multiple group of internal clients.

This encompasses talent management, succession planning and leadership development, organizational effectiveness, reward and performance management, recruitment as well as employee relations and engagement. You will also be expected to work with the Corporate HR on ad hoc group initiatives.

Reporting to the Asia Pacific Head of Financial Services Practice, you will build the compensation practice and execute consulting services for major international or regional financial services companies in the region. Consulting services cover market surveys, valuation services, compensation consulting (covering executive, equity, sales and employee compensation) and analytic services. You will deliver excellent services & solutions to existing clients and continuously originate new clients.

Reporting to Senior HR Leader, you will provide HR advice and services to the Support Function Group (including Technology, Operations and Finance). You will enhance functional performance through appropriate advice and facilitation of robust and integrated people management tools and processes. You will play a diverse role covering performance management, reward and talent management so as to align people objectives with business strategies.

You are HR qualified and have worked at least 10 years in progressive/established multinationals. You are strategic in mindset and operational/detailed in execution. You are excellent in building relationships with senior management and work well in a highly matrixed environment. Candidates with Banking/Financial Services experience will be highly preferred.

Degree qualified, you will have at least 10 – 15 years of experience gained in a major human capital consulting firm with a strong focus on financial services sector or a major financial institution. With strong business development, execution and consulting skills, you are entrepreneurial, driven and commercial in your approach.

Degree qualified, you will have at least 10 years experience gained in a major MNC or bank, including few years covering the support functions. You are proactive, mature, credible and tenacious. You are able to influence priorities and build relationship at all levels.

To apply, please submit your resume to Cecelia Koh at ck@kerryconsulting.com, quoting the job title and reference number CK2798\HRM, or call (65) 6333 8530 for more details.

To apply, please submit your resume to Adnan Atan at aa@kerryconsulting.com, quoting the job title and reference number AA2992\HRM, or call (65) 6333 8530 for more details.

To apply, please submit your resume to Adnan Atan at aa@kerryconsulting.com, quoting the job title and reference number AA3005\HRM, or call (65) 6333 8530 for more details.

Established MNC Strategic Business Partnering Salary circa S$180k + bonus Our client is a globally respected multinational in the oil and gas industry.

Due to internal movements, there now exists an opportunity for a high caliber, self-driven and strategic HR professional to join them.

banking | ďƒžnance | human resources

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Highly Visible Role Senior Manager

executive appointments HRM Awards 2009 Sponsor of the Best HR Manager of the Year Award Asiamoney Headhunters Poll 2009 Best Headhunting Firm - Middle/Back-Office category No. 2 in Asia

Head of HR, Malaysia

Learning & Talent Director

Recruitment Specialist

HR Business Partnering Exciting Growth Phase Salary circa MYR270k - MYR325k + bonus

Industry Leader

US MNC, Diversified Conglomerate Newly Created Position Base Salary circa S$100-130k + bonus

Our client is a highly established European MNC; a leader in their industry. Due to anticipated growth, there is now a need to upscale the HR function and an opportunity for a dynamic HR professional to join them.

Our client is a premier shipping & logistic services company with an established network globally.

Reporting to the Country GM and Regional HRD, you will plan, direct and coordinate HR management activities to maximize the strategic use of human resources and maintain functions such as recruitment and selection, C&B, employee relations, training and development, in support of an employeeoriented and high-performance work culture.

In this business partnering role, you will assume a strong advisory stance towards the application of group policies for all people and performance issues at work.

Global Role Business Focused

Reporting to the Group Head of HR, you will be responsible for the Talent Management & Organisational Development functions globally. You will develop a comprehensive learning & development strategy, and conceptualise and design innovative and effective learning & development programs in support of the company’s strategic people agenda. You will coach, develop and engage learning & talent development team to deliver aligned professional services that meet business expectations and upholds the company’s values.

Our client is a leading US MNC with diversified operations in more than 60 countries worldwide. Due to exciting growth plans, there is an opportunity for a high energy recruiter to join them.

As part of the Regional Recruitment team, you will be involved in all levels of strategic recruitment for all businesses in the region. You will partner businesses and hiring managers in sourcing for recruitment solutions which may be via referrals, portals, agencies and direct sourcing. You will ensure a positive experience for stakeholders in the process and this includes supporting and coaching the hiring managers throughout the hiring cycle. Additionally, you will be expected to monitor compliance with group recruitment policies as well as local country employment practices. Ad-hoc projects can also be expected in the role.

Ideally, you have a minimum of 10 years in HR, gained in a progressive MNC. Manufacturing background and experience working in unionized setups is a must for this role. You are a good leader, a strong communicator and one with a go-getting mindset. Operationally hands-on, you work well with all levels within the organization.

You will have at least 10-15 years of learning and development experience gained in a MNC with a proven track record in conceptualization and design of learning and talent management programs that drive business performance. You will be driven and possess strong influencing skills.

Ideally you are degree qualified with a demonstrated track record of direct to market recruitment. You are self motivated, resilient, have strong communication skills and can influence at all levels. A good team player as well as one, who is able to work with minimum supervision, will succeed in this role.

To apply, please submit your resume to Cecelia Koh at ck@kerryconsulting.com, quoting the job title and reference number CK2999\HRM, or call (65) 6333 8530 for more details.

To apply, please submit your resume to Adnan Atan at aa@kerryconsulting.com, quoting the job title and reference number AA3011\HRM, or call (65) 6333 8530 for more details.

To apply, please submit your resume to Cecelia Koh at ck@kerryconsulting.com, quoting the job title and reference number CK3048\HRM, or call (65) 6333 8530 for more details.

Licence No: C690801Z

(Based in PJ)

www.kerryconsulting.com

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executive appointments

Human resources professionals speak to tHe experts regional Hr Director implement strategy for the business.

strong Hr Business partner Be embedded within the business.

This multinational FMCG organisation has an exciting opportunity for a Regional HR Director. You will lead a team of HR staff and build strong relationships with the in-country management teams to develop, communicate and implement the strategic direction of human resources in the area. To be successful, you will be a highly experienced and qualified HR professional from a matrixed and progressive MNC environment, ideally have had excellent local experience within a similar role and have a proven track record in people strategy along with being extremely client focused.

This renowned insurance organisation is going through major restructuring across APAC. They are looking for an HR Business Partner to be responsible for delivering a seamless HR service to the business.

Talent management is a key focus and delivering on recommendations of retention plans in this area will also play an integral part of this role.

You will actively be involved in strategic planning, operational decisions, leadership and talent development and retention as well as employee relations and performance management. Degree qualified, you have a minimum of eight years HR generalist experience

seasoned learning & oD manager identify and implement oD needs.

ambitious talent manager set up and drive programs.

This large MNC is seeking an individual to drive talent management and succession planning, as well as enhance existing processes and design new programs across the group. You will develop and implement a career development framework and provide OD, talent management, succession planning and change management expertise in partnership with senior executives and business leaders. With a strong, proven track record in leadership development, organisational development, and talent management, you are also extremely familiar with consultation, climate improvement, training design and delivery, management assessment and career development systems.

An emerging and global name in financial services, this is an exciting opportunity for a Talent Manager to setup and drive the talent management program from beginning to end, handling the strategy globally. Working closely with business heads, you will consult, define and drive the talent agenda whilst coaching the business on how to facilitate the process across APAC. An understanding of building the dynamics of a talent culture, you will develop an innovative talent management program whilst rolling out a range of learning initiatives using your exceptional consulting and communication skills to execute across the region.

please contact ash russell, mamta shukla, thomas Girling or Vargin Yeke at hr.singapore@hays.com.sg or +65 6303 0721.

hays.com.sg

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executive appointments

Your

success

is our

ACHIEVEment!

1) Manager, asia Pacific recruiting centre • central • 5 Days • Japanese Mnc

Our client, a Japanese Mnc in electronics Manufacturer is inviting suitably qualified candidates fill the position as a Manager, asia Pacific recruiting centre.

responsibilities: • reporting to Hr general Manager, you will oversee the regional recruiting center with the Hr shared services team, providing support to the companies in the companies in the asia Pacific region (singapore, Malaysia, thailand, indonesia, india, Vietnam, Philippines, australia & new Zealand) • administer global recruitment policies and execution of regional projects on behalf of HQ • strategize and develop long term recruitments policies, programs and best practices in that will position the organization as a preferred employer • Manage and process monthly payroll • Develop and maintain relationships with governmental authorities, universities and other educational establishments to build long term talent pipelines • Management of the group’s advertising agencies, recruitment agencies and other recruitment-related suppliers • track and analyze recruiting information and results to ensure effectiveness and impact of programs, and recommend enhancements based on results • advise management on current issues and trends in human resource allocation, utilization and development • recruitment and selection of candidates for managerial grade positions within the company and region as a shared service function • travelling requirement: Periodic travel within the above mentioned region and Japan

requirements: • Degree in Human resource or Business, or its equivalent • Minimum 2 years of managerial experience in human resource • 5 years of working experience in human resources, recruitment, or human capital management • ability to work independently while also comfortable working with a team to drive results • sound knowledge of business processes, recruitment best practices and related legislation in the region and familiarity with socio-economic environment of the region with be added advantage • Proactive with excellent interpersonal and communication skills • strong organizational, influencing, negotiation and conflict resolution skills • ability to manage and drive projects within a high matrix environment • Have worked in a large multinational environment with a large, diverse workforce

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2) regiOnal cOMPensatiOn & Benefits sPecialist • town / tiong Bahru area • 5 days • good working environment

Our client, a swiss Mnc in the healthcare industry, is seeking for suitable candidates to join them as compensation & Benefits specialist.

responsibilities: • report to the Head, Hr (aPac) • a compensation & Benefits/ Performance Management Hr practitioner who is able to provide advice to regional management, regional Hr managers as well as represent aPac as a liaison to corporate Hr compensation team • implement the organisation’s reward and PM strategy in line with corporate Hr strategy so its compensation and benefits outcomes meet current and future business needs and are consistent with the organisation’s desired internal and external market position • Design and implement the organisation’s compensation, benefit and PM programmes and activities to meet the organisation’s objectives with regards to internal equity and external market competitiveness.

Programmes may include: job evaluation/classification; salary administration; short-term, long-term and sales incentive plans; share/ stock ownership plans; employee benefits (e.g., health, insurance, motor vehicles, perquisites); expatriate and executive compensation; workers compensation; salary packaging; retirement, pension and superannuation plans. liaise with managers to develop and implement local compensation strategies that are appropriate for their business needs, but consistent with the organisation’s overall reward strategy • select, and manage ongoing relationships with, external consultants and suppliers (e.g., insurance carriers, actuaries, benefit providers) to ensure the organisation receives satisfactory standards of service • Provide advice to aPac Hr Managers to ensure the organisation’s comp & PM strategy is implemented effectively and within established budgets and the organisation complies with all global directions, relevant regulations, laws and employment standards

requirements: • Minimum a Degree in Human resource or Business related • Minimum 3 years of relevant Hr experience • good communication skills and committed • Pleasant disposition and a team player • analytical and committed • Proficient in Ms Office application eg. Words, excel, Powerpoint interested candidates, please forward your detailed resume (in Ms Word) to Position1: strike4@achievecareer.com Position2: blessing8@achievecareer.com We regret only short listed candidate will be notified. all applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

www.achievecareer.com