Moderator: Paul Arkwright, Editor-in-Chief, HR Magazine; The Panel from left to right: Judy Fung, Head of Organisational Development Department, Hong Kong Jockey Club; Karen YS Wong, Associate Director, Learning and Development—Greater China, Asia-Pacific, EY; Francis Lau, Director of Human Capital, Hotel ICON; Terence Chau, CEO & Programme Director, Asian Academy for Sports & Fitness Professionals; Anthony Ward Rushton, Regional Head of Learning and Development—Asia-Pacific, Human Resources, HSBC
With the term ‘change’ being thrown around a lot in L&D conversations, the panel discussion kicked off with defining the term ‘change’. For Karen YS Wong, Associate Director, Learning and Development—Greater China, Asia-Pacific, EY, ‘change’ could be captured in another word, ‘simulation’, which is an initiative that has just started at EY. With L&D previously being all about learning about theory, Wong explained that employees nowadays want ‘just-in-time’ learning with lots of online resources at their disposal in addition to the classroom activities. In their own right, the classroom has been transformed at EY by using technological simulations that give employees story lines that they need to respond to.
Judy Feng, Head of Organisational Development, The Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) viewed ‘change’ from another perspective. She said they started a new leadership development journey for hundreds of mid-managers, with the ultimate goal of supporting driving the success of the organisation. To achieve this, HKJC rolled out a systematic360 leadership survey as part of the eadership development. At first, there was some hesitation from the participants. The team delivered tailored workshops along with professional coaching to make the participants see the value of the survey and become more open to this new change initiative. After one year, positive comments about the 360 leadership survey are often heard and a feedback culture has fostered at HKJC.
Importantly in L&D is the need to find ‘skill gaps’, as Francis Lau, Head of Human Capital, Hotel ICON explained, “In order to know that, we should understand the primary purpose of the organisation and whether we have a mission we need to carry out. Based on that, we should find out what kind of characters we have in our organisations to fill the gaps.”
Filling those gaps is precisely one of the reasons for L&D—but how can firms facilitate impactful and life-changing training programmes? Anthony Ward Rushton, Regional Head of Learning and Development—Asia Pacific, Human Resources, HSBC pointed to the ‘disruptive experience’ that HSBC has tried to implement in its training. Giving the example of employees working with blind and deaf children in Sri Lanka, not only does such training put employees out of their depth but, as Rushton explained, “It is memorable because they have not been through it and it will stick with them. It changes values.” For Feng, at HKJC, senior leaders form cross-functional teams and they take up strategic projects in developing innovative solutions. They also visit other organisations for benchmarking and bringing back best practices to HKJC.
But with the world of technology expanding, L&D is looking to utilise its power—but is it a help or a hindrance? Although he did not believe it was a hindrance, Terence Chau, CEO & Programme Director, Asian Academy for Sports & Fitness Professionals said that in the sporting industry, “We value the human interaction between people.” He added, “You can do a lot of fat-burning training as a result of YouTube but quite often, people still looking for trainers because they want a human touch.”
Though for Wong, the answer very much lies in combining technology with people. She added, “Technology can facilitate a relaxed classroom that brings out ideas.”
So then, what about the difference between mentors and coaches? Chau shared that this depends on the business goal, “For me, mentoring is a development thing and coaching is more task-orientated and focused on performance. If you want to fix something, coaching is better—but if you want leaders, this needs more structure and mentoring is more suitable.”
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
