People Management Asia: Issue 1

TH E C I P D M AG A Z I N E FO R AS I A

cipd.asia ISSUE ONE

Most of your staff want to leave Why HR has the answer to the retention conundrum

Making the shift to digital learning How the CIPD is leading the way

I

n an increasingly digitally-oriented landscape, businesses and learning professionals alike are looking to online solutions to make learning more accessible. But how can digital learning substitute the social and peer-to-peer learning benefits of a traditional face-to-face setting?

Following the introduction of the new CIPD L&D syllabus and qualifications earlier in the year, CIPD Training and online learning specialists, Home Learning College, have launched the first online only L&D qualification programme. Learners from all over the world can now gain their CIPD intermediate L&D Diploma or Certificate purely online, with no face-to-face workshops or exams.

“This qualification brings together the latest L&D research and content, and is fully online and digital.

This is a huge step forward for L&D professionals wanting to develop their career and experience new digital learning techniques which they can transfer to their own context.”

Andy Lancaster, Head of L&D Content at the CIPD

Whilst CIPD’s recent research highlights a widespread shift towards digital learning it also notes a significant gap in L&D practitioner digital skills and knowledge. This brand new way of learning demonstrates how digital learning can be creative, captivating and cost effective and includes key topics such as digital learning design, learner engagement and neuroscience, using data and metrics and social collaborative learning.

Through an online virtual learning campus, learners participate in a carefully designed series of interactive lessons and tasks for each unit. The learning is enriched by expert speaker videos and podcasts, plus regular online live classes where the

group interact directly with the tutor and their fellow learners. Group work and practical assignments ensure that the learning is applied, not purely theoretical or academic.

But perhaps the most ground breaking aspect of the programme is the integration of social collaborative learning into the heart of the course design. Topic related forum discussions, wiki activities, blogs and polls form an integral part of each unit, with the results of these shaping the live classes and subsequent activities. Rather than losing the social benefits of face-to-face learning, the group interact with a greater frequency throughout the programme and share their experiences.

The first cohort began their online programme in July with students enrolled from all over the world including the UK, Hong Kong and Bahrain - a testament to the accessibility of online learning. The key benefit for many of these students is not only the content they learn, but how they are learning it – experiencing first-hand the tools and techniques they will be applying in their own workplace.

To find out more about the new L&D online qualifications programme, visit: http://cipd.homelearningcollege.com/online or call +4420 7173 5909.

Welcome

Welcome

HR’s time has come

Peter Cheese Chief executive, CIPD

You’re holding in your hands the first issue of People Management Asia, the official magazine of the CIPD, which we hope will become not only an indispensable tool for HR professionals, but will also pique the interest of anyone who cares about the value of people to business.

The CIPD has set the benchmark for excellence in people and organisation development for more than 100 years. Our purpose is to champion better work and working lives – by improving practices in people and organisation development for the benefit of individuals, businesses, economies and societies. And that couldn’t be more relevant in Asia, where unprecedented rates of growth mean businesses need to be more agile, innovative and creative by the day.

We’re heartened that governments and employers are recognising HR’s crucial role in finding and developing the talent that helps them thrive. For many years, we have been qualifying and supporting HR professionals in the region and increasingly working with organisations to build the capability of their HR teams. The latest is Singapore’s Public Service Division, which we’ve partnered with to help professionalise the HR function.

We want to build awareness among employers of HR as an active agent of change.

But we also want to attract more talent into the profession. Our team in Asia has already built a number of productive relationships with organisations including TalentCorp in Malaysia, the Human Capital Leadership Institute in Singapore and the Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management.

We’re working with them and others to produce locally relevant research, and CIPD training and qualifications.

Our newly opened office in Singapore means the CIPD Asia team can better serve the needs of local members and employers, and provide networking opportunities.

I hope you enjoy the magazine and find plenty of talking points. We’re keen to get a debate started about the future of HR, and what that means in Asia in particular. So why not drop us a line, or follow us on social media, and let us know what you think?

Visit the website and sign up for the newsletter cipd.asia Tweet us @peoplemgt_asia Join our LinkedIn group Search ‘People Management Asia’

Contents TH E C I P D M AG A Z I N E FO R AS I A

cipd.asia ISSUE ONE

Most of your staff want to leave Why HR has the answer to the retention condundrum

About the CIPD p5 News and analysis p6 Are you ready for the Glassdoor revolution?

Case studies p10 EY Asia-Pacific and Malaysia’s DiGi Debate: big data p14 Are analytics over-hyped?

Retention: don’t let them leave p16 The tools HR teams are deploying to fight attrition

Q&A: Rajeev Peshawaria p22 The business thinker gets busy with leadership Is Asia ready to take on the unions? p24 Why industrial relations are getting harder for HR Emotional intelligence p28 Being in touch with your feelings is good for business The Knowledge p30 Key workplace skills, with expert commentary The VIew From Here: Ann Rennie p34 People Management Asia

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The international

HR

e en t of the year...

Professor Sir Cary Cooper, CBE, Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, President, British Academy of Management, and President, RELATE

Professor Herminia Ibarra, Cora Chaired Professor of Leadership and Learning, Professor of Organizational Behaviour, INSEAD

Low Peck Kem, Chief HR Officer and Senior Director (Business Partnerships), Public Service Division, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore

CIPD’s flagship event attracts a range of delegates from around the world • Learn from world-class, expert conference speakers.

• Return to work inspired and focused on the future.

• Network with like-minded professionals at the international drinks reception.

Find out more at cipd.co.uk/IA1

4–5 November 2015

Manchester Central, UK

People Management is published on behalf of the CIPD by Haymarket Network and Haymarket Business Media, both divisions of Haymarket Media Group Ltd.

Editor Robert Jeffery Deputy editor Cathryn Newbery Art editor Chris Barker Production editor Joanna Kelly Designer Richard Walker Digital content coordinator Emily Burt Picture editor Dominique Campbell Editiorial email: pmeditorial_asia@haymarket.com Commercial director Cathy McDonagh Commercial email: pmsales@haymarket.com Senior production controller Alex Wilton Production manager Trevor Simpson Managing director, Haymarket Network Andrew Taplin Editorial director Simon Kanter Creative director Martin Tullett Account director Issie Peate Senior account manager Julia Saunders CIPD Publishing Margaret Marriott Repro by Haymarket Prepress Printed by Stephens & George Print Group

Powering HR’s growth HR today is an international discipline. Whether you work in a purely domestic business or a multinational based in multiple locations, HR leaders and practitioners all face similar challenges and similar opportunities.

With globalisation making the world smaller, increasing global political and economic uncertainty, the speed of advancements in technology and social and demographic change, the challenges and opportunities facing HR are immense. But this also makes it an incredibly exciting time to work in HR.

CONTACT THE CIPD 43 Niven Road, Singapore 228390 (65) 6338 4528 cipd@cipd.asia COPYRIGHT © All rights reserved. This publication (or any part thereof) may not be reproduced, transmitted or stored in print or electronic format (including, but not limited, to any online service, any database or any part of the internet), or in any other format in any media whatsoever, without the prior written permission of Haymarket Media Group Ltd, which accepts no liability for the accuracy of the contents or any opinions expressed herein.

That’s where the CIPD comes in. As the only professional body for HR and L&D in the world that awards Chartered status, the CIPD contributes to the development of HR internationally, sets and maintains HR standards, and works with governments, organisations and partners to help fulfil its broader mission of championing better work and working lives.

The Asian edition of People Management reflects the CIPD’s

expansion across the region, from a central hub office in Singapore.

It already counts thousands of local HR professionals as members, and is working with organisations of all sizes and sectors – including building strong relationships with government – to assess and quantify the many benefits of professional HR practice, and of internationally recognised qualifications.

There are two routes to attaining the prestigious CIPD designations of Associate Member, Chartered Member and Chartered Fellow.

The first is by gaining a CIPD qualification and the second is through Experience Assessment – an opportunity for experienced HR leaders and practitioners, who have not attained an HR qualification, to gain the designation.

But there’s more to membership, and the CIPD itself, than the qualification.

From networking and sharing best practice to advocacy and advice, visit the website at cipd.asia to find out more, or drop into our Singapore hub office.

People Management Asia

5

I hate my job

All our managers are awful

The canteen is too expensive

What are your staff saying about you?

of an employer before going for an interview.

Many Asian companies already feature on the site.

Multinationals such as HSBC and Deloitte have garnered dozens of local reviews, while Petronas, DBS Bank and the National University of Singapore have As employees turn to review site Glassdoor to rate their companies, all been positively reviewed by existing Asian HR professionals are urged to arm themselves with the facts employees.

“We have used It would be almost unthinkable, in today’s Glassdoor claims to have 30 million Glassdoor on several occasions, and we digitally savvy age, to book a holiday without users globally, who have posted more than strongly recommend it to our consultants,” finding out what other travellers thought eight million reviews. In the UK and US in says Joyce Jing, general manager for on TripAdvisor, or to buy a book without particular, the savage nature of some reviews Singapore-based executive search firm investigating the views of readers on Amazon. has shocked businesses, and the site has ZW HR Consulting. “It’s packed with And now the idea of crowdsourced reviews is begun producing lists of the best employers information about companies, which can coming to the Asian workplace, as Glassdoor as rated by its users. It has steadily become a really assist in placing candidates.”

– the ‘employee review’ website that is firmly staple of the recruitment process: in the UK, Jing says there is value in using Glassdoor entrenched in Europe and the US – spreads 68 per cent of candidates say Glassdoor is a to benchmark and improve employee its wings across the region. believable source of information, making it experience. Jamie Ong, HR business partner On Glassdoor, staff offer their opinions more trusted than companies’ own collateral, at Fairchild Semiconductor in Singapore, on the pros and cons of their workplaces, according to a survey. agrees: “Glassdoor reviews can be an avenue and post details including average salaries It is common for Glassdoor comments to for HR professionals to understand how and even the type of questions that are asked be raised during interviews, and in the US, 90 current and former employees feel about at interviews. per cent of jobseekers say they read a review the company. It can also help them to see

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GETTY IMAGES

WORDS EMILY BURT

Glassdoor

News and analysis News in numbers

53%

GETTY IMAGES

Proportion of Indonesian businesses that plan to hire returning mothers in the next 12 months, the highest level in Asia

how competitors match up in terms of hiring and salary. It’s an open channel, and any opinion matters.”

On Glassdoor, The question is staff can rate their how to respond businesses – and to reviews, share their salary particularly negative ones. Unilever is among a growing number of companies that opts for total transparency, actively encouraging staff and candidates to rate it – the FMCG giant’s recruitment page even links to its Glassdoor page. Others choose to offer responses to critical comments, though this runs the risk of appearing to ‘manage’ the conversation.

In the July issue of People Management, Rob Walker, head of resourcing at disability charity Mencap, suggested occasional employer intervention could help: “Those rare cases where an employee or applicant has outright falsified their version of events can be catastrophic. I believe there is an argument for a short, dispassionate response putting the record straight.”

But no matter how you respond, being aware of the public dialogue about your company on Glassdoor and its rivals is fast becoming non-negotiable. The online conversation will continue regardless. As Ong warns: “Organisations should not underestimate this site.”

92% of Malaysian employees stop working before 60, leading to fears of a brain drain among older staff

$900bn Estimated increase in GDP over the next decade if all Asian countries raised their levels of economic gender parity to match the best performing nation in the region

63.2% Proportion of new graduates in Malaysia who rate work-life balance as their most important career goal

SOURCES: REGUS, GLOBAL AGING INITIATIVE, MCKINSEY, IDEAL EMPLOYERS SURVEY

LEGAL UPDATE

Laure de Panafieu, head of employment and incentives for Linklaters Asia, gives an overview of legislation and case law HR professionals should be aware of

Tightening of expat rules in Singapore The recently introduced Fair Consideration Framework has been further amended, in a bid by the Singapore government to increase job opportunities for the local population.

Against the backdrop of political elections in September, the minimum salary bar for foreigners to bring their relatives to the country was raised to S$5,000 (for spouses and children) and S$10,000 (for parents). Employers will now also be required to publish the salary range of vacancies being advertised to Singapore citizens or permanent residents on the government’s jobs bank for a 14-day window before an employment pass application can be made for the role.

The Ministry of Manpower has also announced that it will review and identify organisations deemed to have discriminatory HR practices, and that additional reporting requirements or appropriate sanctions may be imposed.

Rule changes affecting foreigners have also been

introduced in Indonesia, where employers are now generally required to have at least 10 Indonesian employees for each foreign employee.

Claiming damages beyond notice pay In the Singapore Court of Appeal decision in Wee Kim San Lawrence Bernard v Robinson & Co (Singapore) Pte Ltd, the court clarified that employers have an implied duty of mutual trust and confidence to their employees, and that if this duty is breached they may be susceptible to claims for constructive dismissal.

The court also confirmed that employees may be able to recover heads of damages beyond their contractual notice where the breach of implied term of trust and confidence gives rise to consequences beyond the employment contract’s premature termination – for continued overleaf People Management Asia

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News and analysis

LEGAL UPDATE continued

Paternity leave gets a boost New fathers in Singapore can now receive two weeks’ leave, as part of the government’s attempts to address the falling birth rate in the city-state.

The increase is voluntary at present, but applies retroactively from 1 January 2015 and is subject to government funding (capped at S$2,500 per week).

The civil service is among the early adopters.

Hong Kong has recently introduced a statutory right to three days’ paternity leave for fathers employed on continuous contracts. During paternity leave, fathers will be entitled to receive 80 per cent of their salary, provided they have been continuously employed for 40 8

People Management Asia

weeks or more, failing which leave will be unpaid.

Dismissing staff in Vietnam The Vietnamese government has recently issued new legislation in an attempt to create a clearer avenue for companies to legally dismiss employees for underperformance – previously a difficult task.

While Vietnam’s 2012 Labour Code had always provided a right for employers to dismiss an employee who “repeatedly fails to perform work in accordance with the terms of the labour contract”, this was expressed in broad and vague terms and was in practice very hard to enforce.

Companies are now permitted to specify performance criteria in their internal labour rules, once they have obtained the trade union’s opinion. Criteria should be sufficiently measurable to enable performance to be properly assessed, and may then constitute a sufficient basis to dismiss underperformers.

The recent Governmental Decree indicates that those rules can be issued separately from the employer’s official internal labour rules, which require registration with the labour authority. ✶ Additional material by Linklaters Singapore (Chaiyee Oh and Joel Cheang) and Hong Kong (Winnie Ng and Ben Harris), in collaboration with its alliance firms: Allens in Vietnam (Linh Bui and Mai Loan Nguyen) and Widyawan & Partners in Indonesia (Yolanda Hutapea and Ani Simanjuntak).

Big data is taking off, finds a CIPD survey, but standardisation and skills are key concerns Asian organisations are at the vanguard of the ‘big data’ revolution sweeping HR, and are already reaping the benefits of a concerted focus on people metrics, according to a wideranging new CIPD report.

Evolution of HR Analytics: Perspectives from Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia takes the temperature of Asia’s appetite for human capital metrics, surveying more than 100 businesses.

It finds genuine enthusiasm for HR analytics, with 86 per cent of respondents reporting that they are having a “significant impact” on the way they develop their HR strategy, and 83 per cent saying they help build long-term business strategy.

While multinationals are the frontrunners, there is significant take-up of HR analytics among medium-sized business, and the overall level of investment and maturity means Asia leads the world by some measures, says the CIPD.

News in brief Hong Kong ‘facing engagement crisis’ Engagement among workers in Hong Kong is so low that more than 60 per cent are planning to change jobs in the next year, according to a new survey.

Salary (49 per cent), working environment and culture (46 per cent) and relationships with colleagues or managers (45 per cent) were all cited as reasons for unhappiness by more than 2,300 employees polled for JobsDB.com.

“For the past 10 years, Hong Kong workers have been known

68.2% of respondents say their organisation does not have a dedicated HR analytics team

78.5%

of those surveyed say HR analytics is having a significant impact on business performance

Organisations report using analytics in key areas such as retention and workforce planning, but are also beginning to deploy them more broadly. “There’s a real focus in our business not just on revenue generation but also on profitability,” says Aarti Thapar, to be unhappy and jumpy because of long hours and work pressure,” says Professor Randy Chiu, director of the Centre for Human Resources at Hong Kong Baptist University.

But Chiu points out that a strong work ethic means poor engagement rarely translates into lower productivity.

Singapore is top for expats Singapore is the best destination in the world for expats, and south east Asia in general is the most favoured region for globally mobile staff.

HSBC’s Expat Explorer survey, the first to poll expats

CHAD KIRKLAND

example, where employees have suffered financial loss from psychiatric illnesses or impairment of future employment prospects.

In the Robinson case, the company had actually paid the employee four months’ pay in settlement, when his notice period was only two months.

Surprisingly, the employee’s claim was limited to financial losses arising from the premature termination of his employment.

As such, the court applied the normal measure of damages for wrongful dismissal cases – notice pay subject to mitigation – and his appeal was dismissed. But the judgment is still significant for employers in Singapore, as it opens the door for employees to claim damages beyond notice pay where trust and confidence has been breached.

Why Asia leads the way on HR metrics

Big thinkers head of talent and engagement for Experian Asia-Pacific, who was among the respondents. “We are constantly looking at the return on investment of any people initiatives – using data to understand the impact of people investments on our growth aspirations, as well as on our EBIT.” “I think HR has changed in the last five years in particular,” adds Lizzie Runham, vice president of HR for consumer and vision care businesses at Johnson & Johnson Singapore. “I’ve seen a move towards a much more data and analytics-based proposition.”

As the use of analytics becomes more prevalent, standardisation will be important – involving both HR terminology and the technology powering big data.

At present, 45.8 per cent of HR professionals say they do not have sufficiently sophisticated analytics technology, and less than a quarter are using a fully integrated analytics programme.

Companies should also consider how they will acquire the HR skills they need to take best advantage of data – including whether they ‘build or buy’ talent – and should understand the advantages of analysing ‘multidimensional’ HR data that draws on multiple inputs, the report concludes. ✶ Read the report at bit.ly/hranalyticsasia

on a significant scale, found that Singapore was rated top for quality of life, financial wellbeing and career prospects.

Four of the top five countries for ‘work satisfaction’ were Asian, with a majority of expats living in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and mainland China saying their work had been more fulfilling since they relocated.

Matthew Colebrook, head of retail banking and wealth management at HSBC, says: “It is pleasing to see that Singapore’s economic and political stability and general pro-business approach is being recognised by entrepreneurs globally.”

The latest round-up of inspiring ideas for HR professionals

Dave Ulrich wants us to rethink what it means to be a good leader – and how we evaluate those in the top jobs. The HR guru’s latest book, The Leadership Capital Index, is an appeal for analysts, investors and other financial stakeholders to recognise exceptional leadership above the ephemeral or charismatic. Challenging numerous conventional beliefs, Ulrich argues that truly exceptional leadership depends on context and cannot be dictated by a rulebook. He does, however, suggest that awareness of wellbeing, a subdued ego, strategic thinking and accountability are all hallmarks of great leadership. Ulrich also urges HR professionals to approach leadership as the product of a great collaborative effort, rather than the work of one outstanding individual.

CEOs will happily accept a pay cut to be associated with an excellent brand, Nader Tavassoli, professor of marketing at London Business School, has found. In a study of more than 2,500 senior US executives, Tavassoli and his team discovered that chief executives are, on average, willing to have their pay reduced by 12 per cent to work for a brand that is 25 per cent stronger than average. “A well-regarded brand can do more than just help recruit the best leadership talent, it can also benefit the bottom line by lowered payroll,” says Tavassoli. “HR teams should therefore leverage brand equity as much as they would more traditional benefits.”

More and more firms are looking beyond profits and focusing on performing a social good, but in Getting Beyond Better, strategy guru Roger Martin and Skoll Foundation

president and CEO Sally Osberg explain that it’s not a straightforward task. Through a series of case studies, the pair uncover how social entrepreneurs change unfair systems by getting inside them, understanding the points of view of those involved and taking direct action to create a better system.

A study by Harvard Business School has – perhaps controversially – revealed that women are less attracted to positions of power than men. In a survey of more than 4,000 people, researchers Francesca Gino, Alison Wood Brooks and Caroline Wilmuth discovered that women are warier of the potential pitfalls of accepting a high-powered role and are less likely to pursue professional advancement opportunities. This is despite men and women believing equally in their ability to achieve in the workplace and climb the corporate ladder.

New hires might think they are starting with a clean slate, but, according to a study from Stanford Graduate School of Business, who you know still matters. By surveying 251 MBA and law students, researcher Adina D Sterling concluded that a newcomer who had an unremarkable academic history but already knew someone at the company would be able to network quicker with coworkers than someone with a better educational record who didn’t know anyone at the business. This benefit disappears, however, if the pre-existing contact has already told others about the new recruit’s poor track record, leading them to potentially struggle to ys the best Dave Ulrich sa oduct bond with their pr leadership is a tion ra bo lla co t colleagues. of grea

EY, Hong Kong

“If you only stay for two years, they’ll be the best two years of your life” Why EY is concentrating on added value, not just bigger salaries, as it aims to triumph in the war for talent WORDS KATE WHITEHEAD PHOTOGRAPHY DAMIEN GUERCHOIS

A

fter 24 years at Ernst and Young, Bin Wolfe calls herself a “total dinosaur” compared to many of today’s young graduates, who flit from firm to firm. She had already been with the organisation for 18 years when she arrived in Shanghai from the US as people leader for Greater China, and she expected the transition to be easy. Born in the city and a Chinese speaker, she was on home turf. But she was in for a shock.

“Oh my gosh, it was anything but straightforward,” says Wolfe. Today, as

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managing partner, talent for EY AsiaPacific, she has an expanded remit and is a frequent traveller across the region.

Comfortably ensconced in EY’s Hong Kong headquarters, she feels she has finally got to grips with being back home. And her ambitious plans for the management consultancy and accounting giant, and her place at the epicentre of Asia’s battle for high-end talent, makes her a soughtafter commentator on people matters, as well as a model for those who want to create better workplaces.

Wolfe’s accent is American. She looks Chinese. After years of saying she was

neither, she has finally settled on saying she is both – and is happy about it. She believes she has benefited from spending time in both cultures, and is in a unique position to compare their working practices.

In the US, Wolfe had developed a wide network over many years. But in China, she found people were quick to make assumptions about her values. Even more challenging was adapting to the new business environment – what worked in the US couldn’t be immediately translated to Asia. It was the summer of 2008 and the global economy was in meltdown. The techniques she knew and practised around

Case studies

how to manage a contracting business just didn’t work in Asia.

“In the US you can do a layoff, and no one takes it personally. Here, it’s a different way of approaching things – how people view the responsibility of an employer is very different. In a collective culture, it’s all about ‘we are in this together,’” says Wolfe.

Her solution was to implement a programme where employees took voluntary time off at the height of macro-economic turmoil. With an attitude that ‘the economy will bounce back and when it does we’ll all be here’, staff worked reduced hours and had their pay proportionally reduced.

“If things get tough, a good employer looks after its people. You don’t throw them out. In the US, there is less of a sense that one of an employer’s key responsibilities is to take care of their people,” says Wolfe.

Seven years on and it’s a very different environment in Asia. The market is on fire, with plenty of multinational companies – and now, multinational Chinese companies such as Alibaba – all vying for the same, relatively small pool of talent.

“The turnover in Asia has been tough,” says Wolfe. “If you talk to business leaders and my colleagues, we all struggle with the fact people take a pretty short-term view of what the next opportunity is.”

In professional services, it’s not unusual for people to switch firms for a pay increase of less than 10 per cent. And young people are less concerned about establishing a longterm record at a firm than the generation before them. This talent tightening called for a new strategy: instead of focusing purely on staff retention, Wolfe says she is concentrating on EY’s employee value proposition, or EVP. “We now say that no matter how long you stay, you will have an exceptional experience.

Some people will stay for two years and some for 20, but even if its just two we want them to be the best two years of your life.”

It’s a bold statement, and EY is in the fortunate position of having the requisite big bucks to throw at creating such exceptional experiences. Globally, the firm provided more than eight million hours of staff education and spent more than US$500 million on training last year. It’s a scale most could only dream of. And by giving people an “exceptional experience”, the belief is that they will stay, and, even if they don’t, they will go on and do great things. As Wolfe puts it: “Do we say we build the next generation of leaders for EY or do we just say we build better leaders?”

In July 2013 the people function was renamed ‘talent’ and EY adopted the new tagline, ‘Building a better working world’.

The sentiment behind it is the conviction that what goes on at EY, and what it contributes to the business community, really matters. All this adds up to a more engaged and more productive staff – but, of course, it means a lot more work.

“Talent as a function is very critical to the business, whereas when I first came in 2008 HR was more about just keeping files and processing. It has focused on being a lot more visible from a leadership perspective.

It requires a whole different skillset to be

“If things get tough, a good employer looks after its people.

You don’t throw them out”

able to engage and interact with our business,” says Wolfe.

That HR is a critical part of shaping the business is underlined by the fact that the global talent leader now reports directly to the global chairman, Mark Weinberger.

And Wolfe reports directly to the managing partner for Asia-Pacific. “That sends a very strong message that this is not just some backroom job where you only tick boxes. It’s been an exciting journey,” she says.

Of course, the nuts and bolts of HR are still a key part of the role. But above and beyond that, it’s now about engaging in the business to attract the right people.

And EY needs a lot of good people. In the last financial year, it recruited 77,000 people globally, including 16,000 in Asia-Pacific.

29,000

Number of EY employees in the Asia-Pacific region, across 22 countries

71%

Percentage of professional services firms in China that expect to offer average pay rises of at least 6 per cent over the next 12 months

EY Victoria Harbour

Hong Kong Central and Western District Promenade

Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre

EY Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts

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DiGi, Malaysia

“If we’re going to be a digital company, our culture has to change” Bin Wolfe is interested in what employees deliver, not tying them to a desk

That’s one new staffer every 30 minutes in Asia – and each one of them was promised an exceptional experience.

Asia presents its own set of HR challenges. In Singapore, which has a 2 per cent unemployment rate, retention was so problematic that, last year, EY introduced a programme called FlexPro that gave staff more flexibility in terms of working hours and locations.

Wolfe is also working on creating a trust-based work culture where the focus is shifted to what results employees deliver and not whether they are tied to their desk. This is radical in a culture where traditionally no one leaves the office until the boss does. And it’s done by setting an example: Wolfe frequently works from home when she is in Shanghai, where her family is based.

“When we talk about flexibility in the US, it goes without saying. It’s different in Asia, but the need for flexibility, and for some level of autonomy, is the same. Just saying ‘we’re Asia, we’re different’, doesn’t cut it.

It’s how you translate it into something and implement it in a way that makes sense and is digestible to the business,” says Wolfe.

And as the world becomes smaller and ever more connected, Wolfe believes people no longer view Asia, the US and Europe as alien and incomprehensible. All of which means her dual identity is more of an asset than ever before: “I think I have the ability, experience and background to say I’ve been there and genuinely want to build a common ground.”

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Malaysia’s fast-growing telecoms firm is making better connectivity a priority

W

WORDS SUSAN TAM PHOTOGRAPHY KAMAL SELLEHUDDIN

hen most companies discuss exemplary behaviour, they are thinking about stirring speeches or lucrative business wins. But for Haroon Bhatti, chief human resources officer of Malaysia’s DiGi Telecommunications, it’s a more altruistically focused action that springs to mind.

Last year’s devastating floods on the country’s east coast motivated one DiGi employee to collect contributions for thousands of families who lost their homes in the disaster. What started as an individual charitable act quickly snowballed into a company-wide initiative, galvanising resources to help those displaced by the terrible events For Bhatti, the effect has been revelatory.

“Through interviews we discovered that our employer value proposition has to be about giving our employees the freedom to inspire others,” he says. “That freedom can come in different forms: it can be in challenging the norm, connecting with others without barriers, secretaries and doors; or it can be about expressing yourself without fear of repercussions. I’ll be telling employees: ‘If you want to solve world hunger or do crazy things, we will give you the freedom to do that.’”

DiGi is Malaysia’s third largest mobile operator, with 11 million subscribers, and more than 2,000 staff, known as ‘DiGizens’. Bhatti says he expects them to be customer-centric and make an impact in a rapidly changing business climate.

They should be leaders, creating value for

customers, partners, stakeholders and fellow Malaysians: “For these kinds of leaders, having an agile mindset is vital.

They are explorers, they want to do new things. Not just exploring, but executing – because it’s through execution that they bring value to customers.”

Malaysia’s high smartphone penetration rate makes it logical for HR to drive strong mobile use at the workplace. By the end of 2014, nearly 20 million Malaysians – out of a population of around 30 million – had internet access, with more than 80 per cent using smartphones to get online. DiGi is making mobile connectivity the central

DiGi DiGi Kuala Lumpur

Kayangan Puteri

Case studies Bhatti understands the importance of retaining talent

plank of its learning efforts as it rolls out ‘DAcademy’, making more than 1,500 online courses available to staff. Instead of a top-down approach, Bhatti says content will be tailored to meet individual needs by integrating feedback mechanisms and encouraging dialogue with users.

“We created the learning hour,” he says. “For front-liners like call centre staff and field and sales teams, we allow an hour where we work with them to access the system and craft their individual learning paths.”

Being 49 per cent owned by Norway’s 160-year-old Telenor Group also offers DiGi a different way of doing things. Its diverse workforce consists of 14 nationalities and Bhatti argues that, while there are advantages in standardising some processes across the group, and of DiGi leveraging the

“Our employer proposition is about giving employees the freedom to inspire others”

350,000 Estimated number of Malaysians working in Singapore

7.6%

Annual revenue growth of Telenor Group in Q1 2015

strengths of its sister companies, “Telenor has no ambition to drive a level of centrality where you lose all the richness that you can absorb from the local market. To not be Malaysian would not be DiGi.” When Albern Murty became Digi’s new CEO earlier this year, it was a highly symbolic move – he was not just the first Malaysian, but the first Asian to hold the top job. Bhatti says it has boosted front line morale, and demonstrates the depth of Malaysia’s talent pool. Close to a quarter of the country’s 13 million-strong workforce has at least a tertiary education, though many of the country’s brightest minds have long decamped abroad.

“I’m not concerned about whether Malaysians are talented or not,” says Bhatti.

“My concern is that corporate Malaysia, the government, the civil society organisations, everyone needs to be doing more to create the right opportunities at home.”

DiGi is doing its bit to retain talent, he argues: “Understanding them and pushing them in the direction of freedom and responsible, meaningful work will create a glue that keeps them here. We want to take the best Malaysian talent, all the way from their youth, and groom them to be the best at a national level, and be able to export them to the Telenor family.”

But more established DiGizens aren’t being left out – Bhatti says the company is helping them utilise new technology to their advantage, and understanding why some constituencies don’t yet engage with a new generation of HR apps and e-learning: “Every DiGizen has to understand that to be a digital company, our culture has to change.

Not in a scary way, but in a way that helps me be a leader in my field.” HR, he says, is the tool that will drive that change – and if it can help save the world too, all the better.

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The debate

Are analytics over-hyped?

Big data has been heralded as HR’s magic bullet. But, as these experts argue, the reality is more complicated than it seems INTERVIEWS BRIAN SPENCER

Keith Carter Visiting senior fellow, Department of Decision Sciences, National University of Singapore Business School, and author of Actionable Intelligence

HR must take a proactive role in attracting, growing and retaining the best people – and that means having the right intelligence at your fingertips An organisation needs a full, 360-degree view of data on its staff, which means HR has to become data-savvy and provide its business partners with “actionable intelligence” – getting the right information into the hands of the

right people, in time to make decisions that change outcomes.

For example, Google’s HR analytics team found a spike in the attrition rate occurring after maternity leave.

They worked out that they could reduce staff turnover by 50 per cent by providing more leave. The calculation was right, and the cost of an extra four weeks of leave was vastly lower than the cost of losing talent.

Google had the right structure of vision, data acquisition and processes to ensure the output was actionable. An HR leader needs a vision for their department and a strategic business question to answer with big data. Start by understanding the relationships between the data. Next, build a playbook to take action. The final stage is optimisation, where you use additional statistical data to refine the outcomes further.

Does HR need to move forward from where it is? Yes. But to deliver measurable value to their business partners, HR leaders need access to the right intelligence.

Tim Spriggs Senior director, The Chapman Consulting Group

You need a human touch, and the intuition that makes a great HR professional. Data won’t replace that – but it can become another string to HR’s bow The current interest in HR analytics reminds me of when social media first arrived: companies knew they needed to embrace it, but figuring out how to do that was a challenge.

It’s expensive to roll out analytics systems globally, and when you’re talking about large organisations it’s difficult to achieve consistency 14

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on a global level. That, I think, is the source of some of the reluctance around big data. It’s a big investment and it involves a lot of change. Many companies just don’t know how to deal with it.

The world’s smartest businesses are harnessing these new capabilities in the HR function so that they can move from reporting on the past

to actually predicting the future. But to get to that stage, there’s a lot of work to be done. We’ve participated in a lot of roundtables, and the general consensus is that, other than the Googles and the Facebooks, predictive analytics is aspirational for most companies at this point.

Analytics will help HR partner with the business and make better decisions. The ability to convert data into meaningful insights, and sell them to the business successfully, will be important but will be just one part of HR.

Gey Wee Ang Head of HR, global shoe production and sourcing, ECCO Shoes

‘Big data’ itself is a ‘big’ term that many people don’t understand. I think the concept has been overglamourised in recent years ‘HR analytics’ simply means getting hold of relevant data for sense-making and supporting human capital decisions.

Organisations need to know what kind of HR-related data is necessary to analyse a specific area.

But there is no single solution for all companies, and raw data does not provide comprehensive answers – decision-makers need to understand the people issues.

Headcount or FTE metrics, for instance, are commonly compiled to monitor movement. This is

relatively easy to do in reporting, but more work needs to be done to gain insight on the actual triggers of the movement. Short-term attrition data is meaningless by itself, but over a period of time, with breakdowns on the reasons leading to attrition – by department, demographics, manager, location and length of service – it can provide key insights to support plans for improving attrition rates.

Many companies measure recruitment lead time, and focus much effort on assessing recruitment performance, which again is relatively measurable.

However, we should ask ourselves if we have placed an equal amount of effort on our internal staff development for pipeline building.

Many people do not have a clear measurement of these efforts because it is much more difficult to quantify.

It’s important that we go back to basics, to consider what we want to measure or how we want to make use of HR data, remembering that there will be no foolproof system or solution that can fully predict human behaviours. HR professionals who can master the ability to gather relevant data, and present smart interpretations of this data to support decision-making, will evolve the most strongly.

Dr Damien Joseph Associate professor of information technology, Nanyang Technological University

Within the next seven years, HR analytics will become like a utility – no company, of any size, will be able to do without them Many of us working in the field don’t understand the hype around this topic when the use of analytics in HR already has a strong history.

The only difference today is the greater volume of data available.

When they are properly applied, analytics help improve managerial decision-making. You can do that with small data or big data, but the more data you have the more it helps

improve explanations and increases the accuracy and general reliability of the results. An over-emphasis on HR analytics, however, could be dangerous. For example, analysing people based on when they log into their systems, how long they work for and the time they take to finish a particular task – these are all objective measures that can be tracked. But that would add stress to employees because they would feel constantly monitored, and I suspect it would reduce productivity.

HR currently measures attitudes through climate surveys, but do it too often and it leads to survey fatigue and non-response. Quickand-dirty surveys don’t really give us a good understanding. We shouldn’t be afraid to fall back on human intelligence: just going down to the floor and talking to employees.

In the whole HR analytics process, there is space for both quantitative and qualitative data – an overemphasis on one or the other is counter-productive.

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Cover story

Please g in t ic ffl a m le b o r Attrition is a porganisation – almost every ls are the most and millennia -hoppers. Big dedicated job anagement and data, smart mession are the key clearer progr k c a b t h g fi R H e h t f o s t n e n o p m co WO R D

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S J U ST

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IN HAR

P ER

don’t e v lea I

t’s the knock on the door every manager dreads – and yet it’s becoming increasingly familiar.

A high performer has been lured away by a better salary, enhanced status or stronger development opportunities elsewhere, and it appears there’s little you can do to make them stay.

Cue an expensive and timeconsuming hiring process, which may not even prove successful, and the bedding in of a new team member, with the disruption and reorganisation that inevitably results.

Retaining staff – whether it’s the talented individuals you had earmarked as your future leaders, those with specialist skills that are hard to source, or front-line staff who take their knowledge, contacts and talents with them – has become arguably

the pre-eminent concern of business leaders in many south east Asian economies. One recent survey found that 84 per cent of local companies considered it business-critical.

And it is, without doubt, a problem that falls squarely in the HR department’s lap.

Shai Ganu, Mercer’s market business leader, talent consulting, Asia region, says: “It is very hard to find the right calibre of people who have both a global and regional skillset. So once you have hired them, it’s important to hold onto them – in this part of the world more than any other.”

Poaching has been rife in sectors such

“Retention isn’t a fix – it should be a continuous part of HR’s framework ”

as technology and financial services, where new entrants to the market find it far easier to buy an experienced team already working successfully in a local market than build one from scratch. And while China’s currency woes may precipitate a slowdown in growth right across Asia, the broader structural issues caused by falling birth rates and expansion of acquisitive businesses, both Western multinationals and local stars, are not going away.

Historically, Asia has not suffered high attrition rates, which is down to a set of interlocking cultural and organisational factors. Recruitment systems were based on strong internal labour markets, ‘seniority’ and lifetime employment. Employees had relatively few options when leaving a company. Today, however, average annual turnover in south east Asia stands at 11.5 per People Management Asia

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Cover story cent, up 2 per cent in a year, according to Hays, which says the region is experiencing the fastest growth in attrition globally – a phenomenon it attributes to the continuing increase in foreign direct investment.

HR teams are, understandably, on high alert. “The HR function is built on three pillars – recruiting the right people, engaging with them and retaining them. If you get the first two right, it makes the third a lot easier. Retention shouldn’t be seen as a short-term fix but a continuous process within the HR framework,’’ says Ganu.

In this respect, big data may be the most powerful tool in HR’s armoury. While the introduction of human capital metrics into business practice has been a laborious process, and is prone to hyperbole, the ability to predict turnover and identify the people most likely to leave is one area where metrics genuinely are making a difference.

Sophisticated algorithms can now churn through several factors – including an employee’s pay position relative to their peers, their own performance levels and the abilities of their manager – to assign them a risk of departing the business. Chris Rowley, professor of human resource management at Cass Business School, City University in London, says: “Future-looking predictive analytics uses the relationships between many factors, including tenure, geography, performance reviews, employee surveys and even personality tests, to reveal a complex picture of what motivates people to either stay or look elsewhere.”

The likes of Walmart, Credit Suisse, AOL and Micron Technology are among the companies pioneering such tools, according to Rowley, who sees their use as “part of HR’s transformation from its traditional retrospective and reactive administrative model towards a more strategically integrated contribution to organisational performance”.

Getting up to speed with technology and employing sophisticated algorithms to solve workforce turnover is fast becoming essential, he adds: “Traditionally, HR has looked at the job rather than the person.

It has looked to the historical patterns of the past when it comes to stats on turnover, examining labour turnover rates, stability indexes and fringe turnover indexes for what they might imply about the business.

But these are all about ‘the job’ and are essentially backward-looking metrics.”

“Millennials tend to want to be more than just a cog in the machine”

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Why do employees leave?

MOST CITED REASONS FOR STAFF RESIGNATIONS, 2014

76%

MINIMAL WAGE GROWTH

74%

LACK OF OPPORTUNITY TO ADVANCE

EXCESSIVE OVERTIME 71% 71%

TEAMWORK NOT ENCOURAGED INABILITY TO WORK FLEXIBLY

69% 67%

PEOPLE WHO WORK FLEXIBLY ARE PENALISED

65%

TELECOMMUTING NOT OFFERED

62%

TOO MUCH OVERNIGHT TRAVEL LIMITED ACCESS TO MENTORS AND SPONSORS

57%

FEW SENIOR STAFF ARE WORKING PARENTS 52% SOURCE: EY

Annual turnover by territory (%) HOW ASIA STACKS UP IN THE WAR FOR TALENT

12.9 CHINA

11.9

11.5

INDIA

SOUTH EAST ASIA

SOURCE: HAYS

8.5

6.5

AUSTRALIA/ NEW ZEALAND

SOUTH KOREA

What makes them stay?

REASONS OFFERED BY EMPLOYEES IN SINGAPORE FOR STICKING WITH CURRENT FIRM

48%

GOOD WORK-LIFE BALANCE COMPETITIVE SALARY

32%

COMPANY FINANCIAL HEALTH 27% SOURCE: RANDSTAD

4.8

JAPAN

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Singapore Airlines offers a diverse range of training opportunites to retain talented staff

Of course, once at-risk employees have been identified through analytics, the next step for any proactive employer is to find a way to make them stay. Once money has been dealt with as a ‘hygiene factor’ – so staff earn enough to enjoy a reasonable standard of living and do not have to worry about paying the bills – most experts would agree simply raising salaries is rarely the answer. In emerging economies in particular, according to Ganu, career progression and learning opportunities are rated far more highly than hard cash.

A survey by Michael Page found that HR departments globally that faced retention issues tended to favour interventions seen as ‘softer’ – including coaching, mentoring and flexible working – when tackling the problem. The simple expedient of offering someone a new job title, or expanding their responsibilities, is often enough.

The inability of pay rises to impact on retention becomes even more obvious when dealing with millennials. The generation born between 1983 and 2001 has a high labour turnover. And by 2020, it is predicted that Asia will house 60 per cent of the world’s millennials.

While it is dangerous to generalise too far, millennials are viewed as educated, technology-savvy, entrepreneurial and creative. They seek challenges and want to be socially responsible, at the same time as valuing work-life balance. Engaging with and retaining this important chunk of the labour market is an ongoing challenge for organisations.

Hays’ latest research suggests employees are increasingly citing work-life balance and better career opportunities as key reasons for moving roles. Alongside salary and performance-related bonuses,

a clear career path based on performance, training and development, an energetic work environment and international opportunities are all powerful retention tools. When EY carried out a global survey to ask millennials why they left companies, issues around flexible working were far more likely to be cited.

“Millennials want flexible work arrangements and tend to not just want to be a ‘cog in the machine’. They want to know what direction the firm is going and how they can help get it there. Honest, timely, open and meaningful two-way communications and participation would help address this,” says Rowley.

Anthony Thompson, regional managing director for south east Asia at executive recruitment firm Michael Page, agrees companies need to be more proactive in how they deal with this new generation of People Management Asia

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Cover story workers: “Employees have become more discerning and, while remuneration remains a key factor, we are seeing more and more of them influenced by employer branding, training and career development, investment in new technology, corporate social responsibility and perceived long-term stability. Progressive employers have become more proactive in ensuring that the total employee value proposition is a focus and they are investing in this.’’

For Singapore Airlines, the answer to retaining key employees has been learning opportunities. The business was awarded the title of Singapore’s most attractive employer

by Randstad for the third consecutive year and has seen its attrition kept admirably low through an array of training. Cabin crew can enrol in self-directed learning programmes covering everything from languages and culinary arts to leadership and management skills.

Meanwhile, a focus on middle managers reaped dividends for global real estate giant JLL. “Out of our 30,000 employees, we have everyone from janitors to investment bankers,” says Soma Mohanty Garg, its head of human resources for Asia-Pacific. “But we don’t have attrition at the top, while on the shop floor people tend to leave us for very specific reasons.” The real problem, she explains, was “blockages” in managers’ routes to the top given the low turnover in the executive suite. JLL’s answer has been to target development programmes at managers, and initiate talent exchanges where they can work in different parts of the business. When new sectors and business opportunities open up, Garg adds, those managers deemed at risk of leaving should be the first to be offered a change of scenery, a tactic JLL credits with gradually easing its turnover issues.

Sometimes, the issues aren’t so multilayered. In Singapore, for example, even the most optimistic estimates suggest only 9 per cent of the workforce is fully engaged, a statistic that leaves the city-state lagging other global economic centres, and that inevitably puts staff at greater risk of flight.

And then there is the problem of managers. It is often said that people join a company but leave a manager. The cliché is, most agree, true. For Hays, better line managers are the key to retention.

Chris Mead, the firm’s regional director in Singapore and Malaysia, says: “If an employee has good relationships at

“Companies that do not pay sufficient attention to attrition will suffer”

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LinkedIn’s retention strategy

Will a ‘tour of duty’ keep your staff happy?

Most staff retention programmes are fundamentally flawed, argues LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, because they have a “fuzzy goal (retain ‘good’ employees) and a fuzzy timeframe (‘indefinitely’)”, which ultimately destroys the trust between an employee and an organisation.

His solution – and a practice that has become the norm at LinkedIn – is for managers to agree a ‘tour of duty’ with their staff. This fixed-term assignment usually lasts between two and four years. When the assignment ends, the employee’s performance and career aspirations are assessed and the next suitable ‘tour’ is mutually agreed on, whether that’s within the organisation or the employee is leaving for other opportunities. “[This] approach relieves pressure on managers and employees alike because it builds trust incrementally,” says Hoffman. “Rather than an expectation of complete loyalty or job security on day one, everyone commits in smaller steps and… the relationship deepens as each side proves themselves to each other.”

Reid Hoffman says his en firm builds trust betwe employees and managers

Moving to the tour-of-duty approach could, understandably, lead to anxiety among line managers at the prospect of losing their best talent at the end of the next assignment. But, says Hoffman: “Employ­ees don’t need your permission to switch companies, and if you try to assert that right they’ll simply make their move behind your back.”

The old military maxim that the best defence is a great offence holds true in Silicon Valley. Will other businesses begin to take a similarly broad view of employees’ careers?

PRESS ASSOCIATION, GETTY IMAGES

Oversubscribed job fair s show how Asian talent is being fought over

work, they are more likely to stay with an organisation and feel engaged with their work. Managers should be good at motivating and inspiring their team, managing performance – good and bad – and setting useful goals.” Businesses that do not empower managers to communicate and build strong relationships with their staff are asking for trouble, in his view.

Of course, no company will ever achieve zero turnover. And most wouldn’t want to – it would make it harder to generate new ideas, bring in young talent or open meaningful career paths. Attrition varies greatly by sector; in hospitality and retail, high staff turnover is almost a given, while financial services firms would hope to keep most employees for a number of years, save for extraordinary situations. The problem comes when you are a significant outlier to the rest of your industry.

Thompson says: “Turnover differs from sector to sector depending on the nature of the roles, but 10 to 15 per cent is often considered healthy. In high-volume sales environments, where inexperienced employees are often hired, many companies would consider 20 to 25 per cent to be reasonable.’’ The key, he adds, is to look at the types of staff who are leaving, not just the number – their seniority and specialism could be a cause for concern or might make the high overall attrition less worrisome.

“To determine a healthy level of turnover, first identify your high-value employees,” advises Erman Tan, president of the Singapore Human Resources Institute (SHRI). “For example, if 15 per cent of your staff are categorised as high performers, yet high performers account for one-quarter of all turnover, that poses a concern. Action would be necessary to

understand why people are leaving, and what would motivate them to stay – all targeted at retaining your best people.’’

Forward-thinking organisations are tasking HR leaders with targeting attrition, and setting up specific units to undertake exactly the sort of analysis and actions Tan recommends. But it takes time for such interventions to truly make their mark. And in the meantime, leaders will need to get used to receiving bad news about the very people they hoped to build their future around. A macroeconomic slowdown, warns Thompson, does not mean the war for talent can be declared over: “Despite the increased focus on retention, I don’t think there is evidence to support a view that there has been a material reduction in attrition. Companies that do not pay serious attention to this topic will suffer.’’

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Interview

“It’s time we realised that respect has to be earned” Business guru Rajeev Peshawaria on being mindful at work, and the “power distance” problems Asian businesses need to overcome INTERVIEW SUSAN TAM PHOTOGRAPHY KAMAL SELLEHUDDIN

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astern concepts such as meditation, mindfulness and reflection are playing an increasingly important part in stimulating leadership, innovation and creativity in Western workplaces.

But these practices are largely overlooked by organisations in Asia, the region they originated from thousands of years ago.

It is an irony not lost on Rajeev Peshawaria, the celebrated author of Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders, who argues that Asian managers should use these techniques as part of a process of “inner engineering”. Only through changing themselves can they hope to energise the people who look to them for guidance.

Following senior roles with the likes of Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, Peshawaria is now helping further the cause of more holistic business as CEO of the Iclif Leadership and Governance Centre in Kuala Lumpur.

People Management asked him for his insights on leadership in the 21st century, for Asia and the rest of the world.

You are calling for a different type of leadership in Asian companies. What will that look like?

Over the last 100 years, what made organisations and people successful was a specialised kind of knowledge – so you studied medicine and you became a doctor. Is that same thing going to make us successful in the next 50 years? No, because the guru is dead, long live Google… everything is now available for free.

A new kind of leadership, a new kind of energy, a new kind of orientation is required to succeed. I believe the next 10 to 15 years will have nothing to do with science and technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). They’ve got to do with aesthetics,

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Leaders can learn from Boeing ’s integrated thinking

design, emotional appeal and right brain marketing. Asia is not yet at the point where it is even acknowledging this whole new world, because the last 100 years have all been about the left brain.

What are the principal challenges Asia faces?

People are still stuck in the STEM world. There are hardly any educational institutions that offer world-class liberalised education. The same thing is true of companies, non-profit organisations and governments. We value technical skills – and, make no mistake, we need technical expertise – but we have to appreciate the other things a lot more.

The other big challenge is power distance. We seem to have a warped sense of respect. Because you’re younger than I am, you should respect me. Because I’m the head of the company and I have a big title, you should respect me and listen to everything I say. As long as we continue to think like that, we are not going to come up the chain in terms of innovation, or create new knowledge or products the world will like.

Talented young people are working for themselves, or in small start-ups, rather than joining large corporations.

Is that a threat or an opportunity?

I don’t think large organisations should feel threatened; all they need to do is get more nimble and flexible. You have to combine the advantages of a start-up, which are flexibility and speed, with the advantages of scale and size. It’s not an ‘either/or’ question, it’s an ‘and’ question.

Those companies that are stuck in the old hierarchical model are the ones that will lose their best talent. That’s why this power distance idea has to go away.

But isn’t power distance linked to the culture of south east Asia?

Yes, it starts at home and then we take it to the office. It is bound to change because the East is learning from the West, and vice-versa. If we can be proud of the fact that the West is embracing age-old Eastern philosophies like mindfulness and meditation, why can’t we adopt some things from the West, such as the idea that respect must be earned?

Who’s most connected?

Leading regional scores on the 2014 DHL Global Connectedness Index, which measures how open countries are to inbound and outbound trade and travel

66 70 Malaysia

Hong Kong

83 Singapore

Clarity of values, clarity of purpose and the ability to use the human mind.

What are the implications for HR practitioners?

What the HR profession needs to do is codify what leadership really is, not by learning competency models, role plays and copycat case studies. The energy can only come if you take a really deep look at yourself internally. When I get into trouble, I close my eyes. I know how to meditate and rekindle my inner energy. Asian cultures knew this for thousands of years but have forgotten it, and now the West is embracing it, and we’re getting Western experts coming here and teaching us about mindfulness, something that we invented.

HR has a great opportunity to become an agent of growth, but it has to change its tools. Strategy formulation is a huge job for management. Why can’t HR be a facilitator of that? Instead of those dense documents on strategy, HR can help simplify by creating one-pagers that everyone can understand.

We say we need to have flexibility in large organisations – who better to facilitate this than the bureaucracy?

What skills are business leaders going to need to deal with the current economic conditions?

They are going to have to develop the mindset of integrated thinking. When Boeing makes an aircraft, the parts are made in 16 countries and then brought together. Processing work is outsourced to Asia; front end work happens in the West.

In this interconnected world, you need to In your book, you talk about have the ability to connect the dots. leadership energy. What does Influencing without authority is going to that mean? be huge going forward, and crowdsourcing Leadership is about having a dream to build innovation is another skill that leaders need a better future, for yourself, your team or to learn. Gone are the days when the R&D the wider world. It is about not giving department came up with all your products. up on that dream no matter what.

You have got to unleash innovation That is what we call leadership energy. throughout your company, and the whole Where does this energy come from? world, using social media.

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Industrial relations

Is Asia ready to take on the unions?

SOUTH KOREA: Korean National Railroad staff stage a four-day walkout, disrupting rail and subway services

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Hardening attitudes and growing inequality are taking workers onto the picket line across the region. But strong HR practices may be the best way to prevent serious unrest WORDS DUNCAN FORGAN

labour laws to favour employers. Unions were decimated; those that survived were mostly subsumed under the National Trades Union Congress, a confederation that is often led by a cabinet minister.

Workers performing ‘essential services’ – including healthcare, firefighting and public transport – must give 14 days’ notice before going on strike. Employees of public utilities including water and electricity services have no right to strike at all. The result is what the PAP government calls “constructive and dynamic” industrial relations managed under a “tripartism” model linking workers, employers and the state, according

to Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower (MoM), which regulates labour issues and workplace conditions.

While some might feel uneasy about this relatively intransigent approach, others view Singapore – and, by extension, Lee – as a shining example to the rest of Asia of how continual dialogue with unions can help overcome workplace challenges.

“Singapore’s record in industrial relations closely reflects everything else in its society,” says Chris Leggett, a professor at Australia’s James Cook University who has written extensively on industrial relations in the

PHILIPPINES: Steel factory workers go on strike in response to their company’s decision to downsize its workforce

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W

ith its gleaming skyscrapers, manicured green spaces and famously obedient citizens, Singapore has long been considered among the world’s most orderly places. Back in the tumultuous post-war years, however, life in the Lion City was significantly more volatile.

Much of the island’s infrastructure had been destroyed during the conflict and the decade following the reestablishment of British colonial rule in 1945 was characterised by high food prices, unemployment and discontent among workers, culminating in a series of strikes.

Into this maelstrom stepped a lawyer by the name of Lee Kuan Yew. The founding father of Singapore and the man widely credited with dragging the island state from third world to first during his long rule, the young Lee was sympathetic to the cause of organised labour, helping to negotiate settlements in various disputes.

Indeed, given his firebrand background, it is ironic that many view Lee, who passed away in March 2015, as a scourge of the unions. Today, some of the industrial relations flashpoints taking place across the region are every bit as volatile as the post-colonial era. Tensions between unions and employers in Asian countries, coupled with increasing pay pressures, mean the ability to negotiate with unions and employee representatives has never been more important. Yet many HR departments across the region have lost (or never had) the requisite skills.

On the face of it, Singapore seems to have the industrial relations landscape under firm control. Since it came to power in 1959, the People’s Action Party has enforced strict curbs on public assembly, scaled back union powers and rewritten

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city-state. “It is orderly, well managed and generally non-confrontational. The MoM, employers and trade unions conduct their affairs on an equal footing and the tripartite system has generally worked very effectively.”

Tan Ern Ser, associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore, adds: “Singapore has a strong government capable of carrying out what it thinks necessary quite swiftly and effectively. But the government also enjoys legitimacy as it has been able to deliver jobs and a higher standard of living.

“There is awareness that IR is about more than just a struggle over wages and benefits, it is about working towards a win-win situation that protects the reputation of Singapore as a stable place for investment and, through it, employment and income security.”

In terms of overall prosperity and employment rates, this approach can be seen as a success. But the city-state is far from immune to workplace challenges.

Income inequality is a hot political issue.

Singapore has one of the world’s highest Gini coeffecients – a measure of the income distribution of a nation’s residents.

Other dark clouds include increasing reliance on migrant labour from countries such as China, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines to fuel economic growth.

Discontent has been widely reported among migrant workers in sectors such as hospitality, transport, construction and cleaning, which boiled over in 2012 when Chinese bus drivers employed by state-run public transport operator SMRT went on strike over wages and working conditions. A year later, there was a large-scale riot by south Asian workers following the death of an Indian construction employee in a traffic accident.

Other, more recent, protests have focused on the perception that senior expats are blocking career progression for younger Singaporeans.

Elsewhere in south east Asia, employee voice has been an even more significant issue.

In Hong Kong, representation is historically weak. During the 1960s, when full-time employment was expanding at a record rate, unions managed to keep pace but failed to strengthen their position significantly.

Over the ensuing decades, unions in Hong Kong have remained quiet. There are numerous factors in this, according to industrial relations experts, among them

“The only really good employer is one that recognises the unions” 26

People Management Asia

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Industrial relations

BANGLADESH: A procession of workers demonstrates against Bangladesh Nationalist Party-sponsored blockades

strong political tendencies within rival unions, mobility of the labour force and a culture of clamping down on activism.

Union membership in the city remains low – recent Labour Department figures show that unions and staff associations claimed a total membership of just over 800,000, representing 23 per cent of the workforce.

Although a minimum wage law was passed in 2010 and the Mandatory Provident Fund, under which employers and employees contribute to support workers in later years, was created in 1995, labour rights have been slow to improve. Plans to introduce a collective bargaining law were scrapped, while Hong Kong employees work an average of 49 hours weekly – among the longest hours in the world. The Gini coefficient is also among the highest in Asia. Widespread union-led general strikes in 2014, in support of the wider political action around Hong Kong’s elections, show the potential for more organised dissent among the workforce.

Bill Taylor, associate professor in the Department of Public and Social Administration at City University of Hong Kong, takes a

pessimistic view of the situation: “I believe the only good employer is one that recognises and jointly manages with the unions. This does not exist much now: not even the government or Cathay Pacific have genuinely positive relations with unions.”

Union representation, at least in the private sector, is also low in Malaysia and Thailand. In Malaysia, repressive laws have inhibited the influence of unions. Rules and provisions – such as only allowing regional unions, and only allowing workers from similar occupations to form a union – have helped fragment the workforce and weaken collective bargaining power. In Thailand, union representation in state-owned industries stands at around 50 per cent, but the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that only around 1 per cent of the workforce in the private sector is unionised.

That doesn’t mean that Asian employees are being ridden roughshod over.

While strong human resource management (HRM) and union representation are not mutually MALAYSIA: 2,000 factory employees march in Kuala Lumpur for further workers’ rights

HONG KONG: Cathay Pacific flight attendants protest against pay discrepancies and cuts to cabin crew allowances

exclusive, organisations with an empowered HR function, and a coherent strategy for engaging employees, tend to suffer fewer grievances and fewer formal disputes – which may, to an extent, reduce the requirement for a formal relationship with trade unions.

Multinational companies with reputations for progressive HRM such as Google, Marriott and Adobe have a strong presence in Asia. Regional entities such as Malaysian oil firm Petronas, Thai Airways, AirAsia, Marina Bay Sands and HSBC, meanwhile, are all known for their high rates of remuneration, vibrant corporate culture and provision for the wellbeing of employees and their families.

“We work hard to create an environment where people can learn, grow and do what turns them on,” says Tony Fernandes, CEO of Malaysia-based AirAsia. “Being encouraged to pursue their passions is one of the reasons our people are happy in their workplace.”

Applying progressive HRM policies is beneficial on several levels – not least in its wider economic benefits. The ILO says: “The only good workforce is a happy workforce.

If wages are stagnant, conditions are bad and motivation and strong leadership is lacking, productivity is bound to suffer. With the economies in countries around Asia looking precarious, it is in the interest of both the companies and the nation as a whole to ensure that productivity is encouraged.”

HR is increasingly being called in to resolve the sort of situations that once

would have been handled through an industrial relations route. The scandal involving outsourced Nike factories in Vietnam is one pertinent example: after local NGOs reported in the late 1990s that companies producing Nike goods had violated the minimum wage rate, failed to prevent sexual abuse at factories and overlooked unsafe working conditions, a PR nightmare and litigation ensued.

Nike responded by supporting the implementation of lean manufacturing in eight factories in Vietnam, as part of an HR-led programme aimed at improving conditions. Workers were surveyed, onsite training took place and follow-up activities measured progress. Factories participating in the training gave favourable testimonies and reported positive results, though it is notable that 90,000 workers at a footwear factory producing products for Nike and adidas still took part in a strike over pay in March 2015.

“Theoretically, effective HRM will eliminate employer-employee conflict, which drives down the need for IR,” says Rick Yvanovich, founder and CEO of TRG International, a professional services firm headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. “In reality, this scarcely happens and the fact that direct communication with individuals is more difficult in large enterprises makes the possibility of HRM-IR coexistence more likely. Best practice would be for management to actively initiate the collective bargaining process and, as witnessed with Nike and other companies outsourcing work to cheaper labour markets, take a more

HONG KONG: Crowds demand the release of a Chinese bus driver jailed in Singapore for taking part in a labour strike

hands-on role in implementing training programmes and improving conditions in affiliated factories.

“The most apparent positive impact of this approach to labour relations is reduced risks of deadlocks and wildcat strikes later on. The second impact is that it increases the strategic output of labour relations operations in the sense that it aids in the flexibility and competitiveness of the labour market.”

With the union movement globally having experienced a decline, in many ways it has been the responsibility of HR teams to step into the vacuum, hiring the right personnel, training workers, appraising performance, resolving conflict and improving compensation packages.

The most optimistic view of the situation is that empowered HR professionals are best-placed to ensure employees have a voice inside organisations and that wellbeing and engagement are understood and prioritised at a senior level, while avoiding the potential for labour unrest. In this sense, the increasing importance of HR inside Asian businesses could prevent rising dissent among staff turning into an industrial relations issue.

“Negotiating a union contract often focuses on the quantitative: the size of pay and benefits,” says Rick Wartzman, executive director of the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University. “And these issues are, of course, hugely important.

There is ample evidence that the decline in unions over the past 30 years has helped lead to stagnating wages for most workers.

“But it’s also crucial not to lose sight of the qualitative conditions in which workers do their jobs. Are they being given opportunities to learn and to grow? Are they being put in a position to regularly use and develop their strengths? Does their job provide a sense of purpose and dignity? Do they have sufficient autonomy and accountability? Getting these things right can create an environment of trust that makes it a lot easier to work through the tough issue of wages.”

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Emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence: more than just a fad Being able to empathise is increasingly seen as a key business trait – but many Asian employees remain sceptical about the benefits of EQ

E

veryone who’s worked in a large organisation will have their own story of a senior individual whose academic prowess was outdone only by their inability to communicate with their peers. We might write off such an employee as simply not being a ‘people person’. But, according to its adherents, what they’re really suffering from is a deficit of emotional intelligence (EQ).

Psychologists Howard Gardner, Peter Salovey and John Mayer developed the

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People Management Asia

EQ theory in the 1970s and 1980s, but it wasn’t until Daniel Goleman’s 1995 book Emotional Intelligence that the idea entered the public consciousness. Today, EQ appears in the workplace lexicon among many HR directors and entrepreneurs in the US and Europe. But while the need to relate to and communicate more effectively with colleagues and customers is understood everywhere, EQ itself is not scientifically accepted in the same way as IQ, and the term has no single definition.

Broadly speaking, the EQ concept argues that IQ – conventional intelligence – is too narrow and there are wider areas of intelligence that determine how successful we are. “The interesting thing about an EQ approach is that you can’t change an IQ or a personality, but emotional intelligence can be improved throughout your entire working life,” says Robert Knight, regional practice managing partner at executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles in Hong Kong.

GETTY IMAGES

WORDS KATE WHITEHEAD

Knight says considering his own EQ made him more aware of himself and his emotions, and better able to manage his team: “HR people have been thinking hard to figure out how to get the most out of people and get the best culture and communication within an organisation. Understanding how people tick and how to communicate with them is a very important part of that.”

But Knight suspects the concept of EQ hasn’t permeated many companies, beyond the HR teams. Even among experienced recruiters, he says, awareness is low. “You want as much diversity as you can get in the workplace. It makes it more dynamic, and EQ is a key element when it comes to managing diverse cultures.”

Bianca Wong, group human resources and corporate communications director at logistics business Jebsen, agrees. Work environments tend to be dynamic with plenty of cultural diversity, and she sees those with strong EQ as high performers.

“English is the language of business, but in Asia for many it is their second language and their English – written or verbal – may appear abrupt or there may be misunderstandings. Someone with good EQ is able to move past that and be empathetic and appreciate the different culture,” she says.

As an HR professional, Wong was invited to join an EQ course based on Goleman’s work organised by her former employer, FedEx, four years ago. The ideas impressed her: “I believe it should be more widely accepted as an important part of leadership development and training. I see a difference from a leadership perspective.”

But Asian companies are less likely to be aware of EQ, or to incorporate it into learning or wellbeing processes.

The first people to receive training on

“EQ is key when it comes to managing diverse cultures”

Daniel Goleman made the concept of emotional intelligence a talking point in boardrooms

the topic, says Knight, should be those who do the hiring, so that they have a good understanding of the people they are bringing on board. Managers can also benefit by better understanding their own emotions, and those of their team. He believes EQ training has much to offer family-run businesses.

“You see quite a lot of people, non-family and not of the same culture, joining these [family-run] companies and they don’t last long because the business isn’t properly prepared to accept someone from a different culture, with a different mindset,” says Knight.

Although Wong has noticed the number of workshops in Hong Kong increasing in recent years, she says there is still some misunderstanding about what EQ actually is: “People sometimes misinterpret it as someone who is calm and doesn’t express emotion, but that’s not necessarily the case.

My understanding is it’s someone who can express emotion in a healthy manner.”

There is a widespread perception that women are more emotionally intelligent, though this is open to debate. “Women tend to have better judgement when it comes to evaluating people, but because there are not enough women at the top of the workplace, that hasn’t been as well recognised,” says Knight.

There are also concerns that EQ offers an excessively ‘Westernised’ interpretation of

empathy. Michelle Yuk, professor of social science at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, has done a lot of work on emotions in Chinese culture. She says she is sceptical of EQ tests because her research has shown that people from different cultures interpret facial expressions differently.

“If it’s a smiley face then everyone – the Chinese, Americans, British – agrees on the emotion behind it, but for the other faces – showing worry or anger, for instance – it varies quite a bit,” says Yuk. Equally, people from different cultures interpret feedback differently. She gives the example of a boss who praises an employee.

A Chinese staffer would respond by saying that they must work even harder, while a Westerner might say: ‘Thanks, I’ve been working very hard.’”

But whether you accept the finer points of EQ or not, most leaders understand that being academically qualified for a position is only part of the package, and attitudes and behaviours are every bit as important as skills and knowledge in determining business success. In such a world, we need a way to quantify, and improve, the emotional aspects of working life.

“People are more aware of the need to look beyond skills and knowledge and look for competencies. When you dig deeper into what makes a person successful, empathy is big for a leader. And once you try to quantify that, EQ is what comes out,” says Wong.

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THE KNOWLEDGE

Your quarterly run-through of essential skills, with expert commentary

1

Measure the ROI of L&D

It’s been established beyond doubt that investing in training and development is hugely important to an organisation’s ability to recruit and retain the best staff. But a crucial second part of the L&D conversation often goes unspoken: to get senior buy-in for training initiatives, the ability to demonstrate return on investment (ROI) is the magic ingredient.

Elie Georgiou-Botaris, leader of the talent management and organisational alignment practice at Towers Watson Middle East, says: “Measuring L&D is the only way to determine how effective

The learning challenge

70%

WORDS VICKI ARNSTEIN

of all Asian L&D departments now formally evaluate their learning programmes

51%

of organisations in developed Asia-Pacific markets spend more than US$900 annually per learner

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People Management Asia

62%

of organisations in Asian emerging markets have seen L&D budgets increase this year

Source: Skillsoft

and successful these programmes are in meeting their desired objectives.

“When we invest money, time and effort in learning and development, it is critical to measure how effective and impactful this investment is, and if it is paying back the desired dividends.”

What you measure largely depends on the goals you set. This may vary in different parts of the organisation.

Quantifying L&D, step by step Elie Georgiou-Botaris from Towers Watson Middle East offers his tips for achieving ROI

1 2

Use your business strategy to identify where L&D is needed.

Identify employees who would benefit from learning opportunities or new capabilities, such as top performers, or those on a fast track scheme.

3

Work out the KPIs and metrics that will allow you to measure whether L&D has been effective.

4

What figures and data can you gather?

This can include self-assessment and asking managers for feedback.

5

Analyse the data to decide whether the amount of time, money and resource given to L&D has been beneficial.

6

Ask whether changes to the L&D programme are needed to gain further benefits in the future.

A measurement of whether sales training has delivered results, for example, might be as simple as an increase in sales, whereas understanding whether marketing staff are able to communicate more effectively is a lot more opaque.

Ruth Stuart (left), research adviser at the CIPD, says: “You could take a snapshot of where an individual is – either through self-assessment or 360-degree assessment – and then do the same a month and then six months later, to see how that learning has transferred into the workplace.” Stuart says clear alignment is needed between L&D and business strategy. “That is the only real way to work out what you should be measuring.”

That means quizzing business leaders on what ‘good’ will look like once an initiative is complete, or asking them to help you understand the key challenges the organisation faces over the next few years, and how L&D could help.

Georgiou-Botaris says: “For L&D to be effective and have a sustainable impact on the organisation, a clear L&D strategy that is aligned to the business strategy must be developed and communicated.”

But Georgiou-Botaris says the metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) can be simple and supported by data that is readily available, including L&D spend per employee, L&D administration cost per event and the percentage of managers who have observed improvements in employees’ on-the-job performance.

Done correctly, L&D can have a big impact on an organisation’s culture and reputation. “Recent studies have shown that L&D is one of the top drivers for employee attraction and retention,” Georgiou-Botaris adds.

The Knowledge

ALAMY

2

Build a personal brand

The concept of a personal brand may sound frivolous, but it can be a key differentiator – both in your day-today working interactions and in the job market. Your brand is the way you hope others will perceive and recommend you. It encompasses everything from the way you present yourself (how you dress and talk) to the things you are known for – having a particular area of HR expertise, for example. If you are working as a consultant or an interim, a brand can be a way to grow your client base, but anyone looking to advance themselves can benefit from some brand-building.

According to Ernie Cecilia, president and CEO of human resources

consulting firm EC Business Solutions and Career Center, for any HR professional serious about their career, the best time to think about building a personal brand was yesterday. Failing that, the next best time is now.

“Having a personal brand helps differentiate you from the pack,” says Cecilia. “Career-conscious HR practitioners must understand and remember that their personal brand represents their future earnings and career progression. CEOs will want to hire HR people who have distinguished themselves as strategic, high-performing and value-adding professionals. If you don’t manage your own personal brand, you’re not taking control of your future.”

Creating a strong brand does not happen overnight:

“You need to define your X-factor to set you apart from others”

How to build your brand Hays’ managing director Christine Wright offers tips on how to get started

1

2

Conduct a brand review by listing words you believe people use to describe you – good and bad. Think about new skills you want to develop.

Create and maintain a LinkedIn profile. Join relevant online groups and follow industry leaders on Twitter, or start an industryrelated Twitter feed or blog.

you need to be clear about your desired brand position, and develop a strategy to help you achieve it. Christine Wright (below), Asia managing director of recruitment company Hays, says: “Your personal brand encompasses the way you market yourself to your professional community, whether it be via your resume, your LinkedIn profile, your manner of speaking or the way you dress and present yourself to others.”

Wright advises starting to think about your personal brand early in your career. “You need to ask yourself: what are the key strengths or skills I want to be known for, and how am I currently perceived? Are you happy with these perceptions? You need to define your X-factor to set you apart from others.”

Actively promoting yourself as a specialist in a particular area, perhaps by speaking at events or writing a blog, is one way to do this. But Chris Rowley, professorial fellow at the Institute of Hallyu Convergence Research at Korea University, says being known for one thing could bring its own problems. “One person’s specialisation is another’s narrowness.

You may become know as a remuneration specialist or a trainer, rather than for HR generally,” he says.

Paying attention to your personal brand is likely to pay dividends. Cecilia believes HR careers in Asia will become more competitive with the creation of the AEC (ASEAN Economic Community), and personal branding will, over time, be a practitioner’s most valuable resource.

“HR professionals in Asia are becoming more conscious of personal branding,” he says. “Success in managing personal brands will mean success in careers – long-term growth, revenues and personal satisfaction.”

3

Stay in touch with former employers: you never know who might hire or recommend you.

4 5

Make use of recruitment consultants to help promote your personal brand.

Network online and in person. Update your LinkedIn profile and any other social media you have created.

People Management Asia

31

3

Almost every company dabbles in social media, whether it’s hosting a Facebook page, posting the occasional positive news story on Twitter or showcasing your wares on Instagram. But without a coherent strategy in place, it’s difficult to feel the full benefits of the proliferation of new channels.

Used effectively, social media can aid recruitment, help staff build client networks, improve employee engagement and boost publicity.

“Social media can directly support the attainment of key business objectives,” says Shaibal Roy, social media expert at PA Consulting Group. “You can drive value in so many directions – not just

Know your social media facts

52.2% Total proportion of all global social media users who live in the Asia-Pacific region

97.3% Proportion of Asian users who have accessed social media via a mobile device

4 Average hours a day spent on social media by people in the Philippines (the Hong Kong average is two hours)

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People Management Asia

PRESS ASSOCIATION, SUPERSTOCK

Develop the right social media strategy

Weibo’s astonishing growth in China shows social media is about more than Facebook

communicating outwardly with your customer base, but engaging with them.”

A social media strategy should ideally be a written document with buy-in from senior leaders. The strategy should consider who you want to engage with and what social networks they are on.

There is plenty of free data available giving demographics of different social media, as well as information about what times and how often to post.

Next, ensure the company has an up-to-date profile on the social networks identified, and think about ways to engage people. Research has shown that posting pictures, for example, can boost post ‘likes’ and retweets.

Just occasionally and randomly posting information to your organisation’s social network pages is unlikely to make an impact. “If you think about it generally and hope for the best, you are basically looking to find a needle in a haystack,” says Roy. “Start with the outcome you need and work back logically to understand how to use social media.”

To take your strategy to the next level, think about analytics – look at who is saying what about your company and

analyse what this means by using social media listening tools.

“I would like to encourage business leaders to realise this is not magic,” says Roy. “There are elements of [a social media strategy] that are extremely simple and accessible, and some that are tough and require thought and care. The numbers are extremely easy to access: the question is, what do you do with them?”

Where HR should be particularly involved is in assessing who controls social media channels – there have been numerous instances of Twitter feeds being left in the wrong hands and causing huge reputational damage – and ensuring the voice a business presents to the external world is consistent with all forms of internal communications.

Above all, businesses should not be afraid to harness the power of social media and analytics. “It needs to be demythed and de-hyped. Social media is just a business utility and to not use it is like not using the internet. You wouldn’t imagine a business without a website in 2015, and there will be a time when you would not imagine a business not using social media and analytics,” Roy says.

The Knowledge

4

Support a new starter from overseas

Plugging gaps in organisational knowledge and expertise can mean recruiting from overseas. But the level of support, both financial and knowledge-based, on offer to those entering south east Asia for the first time varies hugely, and can make the difference between a successful hire and a shortlived career.

The shape of the overall package offered to foreigners has changed in recent years. This is partly due to the Western financial crisis, which drove people to seek employment in regions such as Hong Kong and Singapore, and partly down

to the internet changing the perceived remoteness of overseas postings.

Falling birth rates in parts of Asia – including Japan, Korea and China – may mean recruitment of overseas talent becomes more and more important in future years. It is also increasingly a strategic move, with some companies and Asian countries aiming to improve diversity and global reach by recruiting from overseas.

While employers don’t currently need to offer premium packages – and many peg basic salary to local averages – attracting top talent means sourcing benefits that are hard for foreigners to access without corporate support, such as healthcare and schooling.

Carl Redondo, leader of the global benefits practice at Aon Hewitt, says in Hong Kong and Singapore – the most popular expat destinations – the low-tax environment makes employees

around 25 per cent better off anyway.

“If it turns out a Singaporean could do the job better than a Westerner, the Singaporean would have it and there would be no difference in pay,” he says.

“What you are left with are the benefits that are difficult to access and which are provided on special terms – that will quite often be hospitals and education.”

Redondo says that while some employers give senior staff access to a members club and help with their housing costs, what is often more valued is cultural support and assistance.

“Where employers can really help is in the first six weeks,” he says. “You don’t want anyone to spend their first weeks wading though treacle just to get things like a mobile phone and a bank account.

“We would also say let people come out for a few weeks before they join, including the weekends, so they can think about what they are going to do outside of working hours,” Redondo says.

Migration in figures 1970

Proportion of Singaporean residents born outside Singapore and Malaysia

1980

3%

5.5%

1990 2000 10.3%

2010

18.7%

25.7%

Source: World Bank

Singaporean population in millions

2.074m 1970

2.414m 1980

3.047m 1990

4.028m 2000

5.077m 2010

“Falling birthrates in parts of Asia may mean recruitment of overseas talent” People Management Asia

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Comment

THE VIEW FROM HERE

Asia is a global player. Does it have the HR practice to match?

Ann Rennie

34 People Management Asia

Local HR talent is beginning to emerge, and I believe encouraging better HR practice is essential to supporting sustainable growth. In some smaller countries, values are comparatively old-fashioned and hiring and firing too often happens on a whim. The Philippines is ahead of the pack in many respects, and is particularly strong at finding and developing talent.

Better HR and management practices aren’t, of course, about importing a Western way of doing things. My colleagues from Japan take some persuading to introduce 360-degree feedback or coaching, or to talk about emotional intelligence, but many companies are finding good hybrids that use the best of Eastern and Western thinking. Those HR leaders who can blend Asian styles of leadership and teamwork with using metrics, which are more ‘Western’ in nature, often get on well in Asia. And skills, we now

The Philippines is expected to be the next ‘Asian Tiger’

realise, don’t travel one way – if we can get the right HR professionals and the right people practices in place, we have every reason to be optimistic about our economic future.

GETTY IMAGES

The term ‘globalisation’ has been around expensive by some measures. Salaries for a while. But its pace is hotting up are rising, both there and in China, as and Asia is both its engine and the young, local professionals, who might place where the effects are most keenly have been educated and begun work in felt. Asia is the centre of a new global Europe or the US, are starting to come marketplace and, if they make the right back. These trends, and the drive choices, countries and businesses away from manufacturing that across the continent could become they encourage, are even visible the biggest beneficiaries of the in Macau and Taiwan, both of new economy. which are urbanising rapidly.

Take India, where you But the bigger challenge have a vibrant IT sector, and may relate to people. An HR where manufacturing is also department located in global * Deputy director thriving. The country no headquarters and working general, Asian Development Bank longer just provides engineers with an old, centralised model * Former director of or offshoring services, but acts has missed the bandwagon.

HR, World Bank as the site of multinationals’ That includes HR leaders * Holds multiple regional headquarters and has who see expats and locals as non-executive nurtured global leaders for the two different groups. The directorships * Author of CIPD likes of Google and Adobe. lines between them are being HR toolkits Hong Kong and Singapore blurred almost into irrelevance, are still attractive to many but not all organisations are foreign organisations, including banks keeping up with what’s happening. and high-tech and service companies, The rise of third country nationals is because of their ease of doing business and status as hubs for the rest of Asia.

However, they are becoming more expensive places in which to operate, and businesses located there are likely to start turning to lower-cost parts of Asia.

Speaking of which, the Philippines, where I’m based, is expected by many to be the next ‘Asian Tiger’. We’ve got a young and growing population who speak fluent English, with a terrific level of education. A lot of companies initially set up a shared services centre, but ended up moving here lock, stock and barrel.

It’s a trend that will continue. overtaking the traditional expat model, What can stop Asia’s growth? Some and people are becoming globally challenges are economic, and the mobile on the basis of their desire and market turmoil we are seeing in China suitability to do so, not which country is worrying some. India, too, is getting they originate from.

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