HR Magazine’s most recent 30-Minute HR event was held in July, with 150 senior HR delegates in attendance from some of the region’s biggest players. The event, held at Cliftons in Quarry Bay, provided practical advice on best practice, demonstrating talent management strategies and the benefits of payroll outsourcing.

HR Strategies of Hang Seng Bank
After a brief introduction on the impacts of the financial crisis Joseph Poon, Managing Director and Deputy Chief Executive, Hang Seng Bank, introduced the importance of HR as a strategy. Starting with the problem of having business plans that don’t include people, he emphasised that CEOs should focus on talent retention as a key issue and that, “HR is not just primarily responsible for HR, but rather the business strategies that the CEO leads.”

Poon spoke of an exercise begun in 2006 by Hang Seng Bank to rejuvenate their brand but found it difficult to try and articulate its culture. They decided that middle managers would form a core group on deciding the service excellence framework, which became seven beliefs, all with one aim, to deliver service excellence. Poon stated that engaged and inspired employees “form the bedrock of an organisation” and this needed to be integrated into the brand, which would be rolled out and led by the CEO, “Live the brand, start with me.” He highlighted that this concept needs constant reinforcement.

Poon went on to discuss the bank’s Talent Management System, which when he first questioned its existence he received the reply “Yes… but we haven’t launched it.” They then worked to deliver the model, along the way making reward and leadership plans for mid-level and the young as well as provisions for succession planning and the development of a career website. He revealed, “...young recruits could disappear within 21 days...”, and so required constant follow up. He added that it was inviting trouble to have talent remain in the same job for more than three years, stressing the importance of having the talent pool being proactive in managing their own career development.

He listed the important factors for success, such as having the system as simple as possible and noted that it was “great to have strategic plans but that 80% of the success came from the leadership in implementation.” Poon discussed the importance of being passionate about what you do as well as understanding how to balance learning with development in business. “In Hong Kong, especially, we lack exposure to strategic thinking… and project management.” He stressed that, “The talents involved in career and succession planning grow, develop and are inspired with the strategic planning.” He added that the broader the exposure that talent can get, the better it is for both the person and the business.

"...young recruits could disappear within 21 days..."

After working on this for four to five years, and being only halfway through, Poon reflected: is it worth it? His response was that “Within the talent pool the turnover rate is zero”, even with staff disengagement due to the financial crisis. He closed by stating that senior staff cannot delegate their responsibility to talent management, as it is just too important.

Developing HR & Payroll Strategies
The second speaker, Christopher von Mitschke-Collande, Regional Director, Patersons Asia Pte Ltd, introduced the concept of why payroll process outsourcing is of benefit to businesses. He started by stating that it is estimated that payroll-processing covers “20% of HR time, but it is not core business.” He added that the payroll market gives impressions that local payroll processing is too complex for a single solution that could fit with all countries. He cited reasons such as local tax and social insurance idiosyncrasies, software providers being unable to cover each country and outsourcers that choose who they want to work with.

Von Mitschke-Collande then suggested that international payroll is a feasible option. He offered, as an example, that Patersons have a network with over 200 partners and provide payroll services in over 160 diverse countries. Their customer is typically a US Fortune 500 company with a multicountry base, in multi-locations with a disparate employee population. As they build their own technology, they don’t pay any license costs so they are in control of their pricing, which is on a pay as you use basis.
He went on to discuss the many challenges facing an organisation through payroll, including:

• Being time consuming
• Complex legal rules
• A need to focus more on core business in the current economic crisis
• Sarbanes-Oxley and equivalent regulations

Von Mitschke-Collande went on to say that Patersons have determined that organisations would like a single global payroll system that improves the efficiency of payroll processes, is consistent across regions and integrates with other technologies whilst being transparent in costs. He added that the reality is much different, generally on a country-by-country basis, which lacks cohesion and is not integrated across borders. This results in differing levels of satisfaction from country to country, and also because of a lack of standardisation, ”They have no idea how much they are spending on payroll.” He then went on to detail the multinational payroll solution that Paterson offer and provided examples of how it can be integrated into the core business values and KPIs, such as:

• Reducing costs
• Reducing risks
• Standardising processes to increase efficiency
• Integrating processes for global payment uniformity
• Collaborating with suppliers

Building an Engaged Workforce
The next speaker to take the stage was Irene Yau, Senior Human Resources Manager, Nokia, who shared her experiences in actively engaging a young, vibrant workforce. She started by showing a photo of smiling faces, which she then shared had actually been taken at 1.00am after a recent product launch. She added that departments other than Sales and Marketing, including HR, were voluntarily involved in the event’ She shared that in the fast-changing high-tech industry, “Our edge doesn’t guarantee our success, so we need people with commitment to seal the difference.”

Yau added that Nokia aims to provide the environment so people feel that they are engaged and that the ways in which they do this are by offering something that employee’s value, policies and procedures and by having managers with great leadership qualities. She stressed that, “great people management includes knowing your team, where they are going, being able to inspire and, most importantly, be human.” Yau shared that a desirable culture doesn’t come naturally.

This culture had to be promoted, and developed, whilst it was “equally important [in] developing the managers.” She continued that for people to be engaged they need to know the company’s vision. “We are serious about the high quality of our people. They want the job to be challenging, so the managers need to set targets and inspire the employee so that they have a lot to contribute.”

On the topic of hiring, she added a lot of insight. “We need to find the right people for the right job. HR is playing a very important role in matching people to the right assignment. Brilliant people like to work with brilliant people. It is a sense of pride.” She added that is was particularly important that “Managers need to have a sense of fun.” She also shared her personal strategy to hire people with a sense of humour, have sparkle, are fun and provide chemistry for the team.

She added that Nokia have different programmes for performance based rewards and engaged leaders in the design and then communication of these programmes to employees so that they take ownership. Yau said that by doing this, managers ensure the programmes are understood by employees. She then offered a holistic approach to the importance of employee well-being saying that, “we have a challenging goal ahead, not a sprint, but a marathon” and that because Gen Y talents value work-life balance, we have a lot of programs and policies in place.

She added that it was important for leaders to directly support such programmes, as role models and coaches. She said that, “90% of the progress is owned by HR, but HR is still doing a lot behind the scenes.” Which she highlighted by saying that, “The more you engage managers, the more the managers are willing to be engaged by you.”
She concluded by saying that HR influences the selection of managers and that it takes courage, especially when it comes to senior management. She stressed that people do have blind spots in that some have good leadership qualities, but tend to ignore people issues and that HR is here to help in the demonstration of good leadership.

The HR Agenda Regardless of the Economy

The final keynote speaker of the day was Cliff Davis, Senior Vice President of HR, Manulife Financial, who shared stories from his early days, coming from a Sales and Marketing background, where he did not have a high regard for HR as “...the HR people just didn’t get it.” He said that when trying to run a business the functions needed were to support and add value. He quipped that, “HR has come along way since then.” He discussed talent shortage as a problem, and that it is only going to get worse by adding that, “We need to find ways to keep the talent pool running.” He offered that good talent always has choice and then shared his ‘top five’ strategies for talent retention.

1. Attract through an employer brand. He said that Manulife have taken the approach to try and control what the brand is, by refocusing on the brand. He said it is “important to be clear about who we are and who we aren’t” and then that has to be communicated.
2. Use a valid and reliable selection process to get the right people. He suggested to keep an open mind as competencies may change, but maybe they won’t and that putting together a system for interviews and training on how to hire for success was important. “We are not looking to just to fill empty jobs… we need to make sure that employees have the opportunities and chance to grow.”
3. Develop people from day one. He suggested using the information from psychometric testing and interviews to structure progress from day one so that the talent can be successful. He added that talent management is a long, hard road and “we have to relate to business leaders what is important to them”, by lining everything up with business strategies.
4. Continuously measure and follow up employee engagement and retention. Davis highlighted that “we all want happy employees without losing connection, ability and delivery”, and that we get a lot of information, so to focus on what is critical. He suggested a systematic way to look at standards, such as quarterly talent reviews.
5. Never burn your bridges. He recognises that people do leave the company, but he wants dinner table conversations to be positive and for Manulife to be recommended as an employer. “In the talent shortage to come we may want them to come back”, he added.

Davis stressed that this is a great opportunity to shine and show management what HR can do, by being a true business partner and show that you can facilitate, support and take initiative to be relevant. He suggested going beyond keeping things running smoothly, by knowing the business strategies and what you can do to help. He then went on to offer an answer to the question “Do we let people know that they are talent?” by saying “Yes, otherwise we will lose them.”

He added that it could be a big mistake if the talents themselves didn’t know, but that to the rest of the organisation there are big risks as people change. He added that Manulife identify people who can go two levels higher over the next five years, as it is hard to replace key contributors and that the people they can visualise running the business are the ones they want to keep.

He concluded by suggesting that not all HR leaders are right to push the agenda and get on board at Executive Committee meetings as, “If you haven’t run a business it is hard to understand.” He offered that by learning to think like a businessman and be forward thinking it was a real possibility.

To be a part of our next HR Magazine conference, and get the chance to pick the brains of senior HR practitioners for tips and advice simply call 27366339 or visit our website: www.hrmagazine.com.hk