October 2010 saw over 200 HR directors and HR Managers in attendance at the latest of HR Magazine’s renowned HR conferences. The event, held at Cliftons in Quarry Bay, looked in detail at staff training and development, and we bring you distilled highlights from each of the keynotes on the day.
Rita Agnes Wong
Operational Effectiveness Director, Pfizer Corporation Hong Kong Limited
Topic: Training and development strategies in the Pifzer corporation
Wong from Pfizer was the first of the keynote speakers, and began by highlighting key success factors of her orgnisation’s Training and Development Programme. Sharing insights from her organisation she explained, “Our vision is to become the centre of talent, to do this we engage colleagues and managers. This is one of our key success factors.” In order to engage colleagues and managers, Pfizer has integrated a creative learning platform with more than 90 e-learning programmes. These courses are tied into the training and development processes of all employees. Working with employees, managers highlight strengths and weaknesses, and give suggestions for suitable programmes they can enrol on. Wong said, “We call in a subject manager expert, or SME, to provide training in areas of their expertise.” She added that when new colleagues enter the company, they start with a training programme called the Asia Talent Incubator. Wong commented, “When colleagues first come onboard we try get them to share with us what’s happening in other countries in regards to healthcare and what the healthcare system is like as well as some of the practices they have learnt and can share with us. We also encourage them to share their other strengths that might benefit the organisation.”
Regarding creativity, Wong extolled, “Innovation is very important and we try to tie it in to our core values. We have a weekly announcement that we call ‘innosharing’. Colleagues will take turns in making announcements about some unique things they can share or some of the concepts they are using in the workplace.”
Lawrence Lee
Director of Corporate Learning and Development, Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts
Topic: Innovations in learning and development at the Shangri-la Academy
Lee shared his insights on innovations in learning and development at Shangri-La Academy in Zhuhai, China. Lee quipped, “Nearly 60% of all learners attending the Academy are Gen-Y, while 93% of learners are under the age of 40. The world is getting younger, though we may not feel it.” Lee also pointed out, “97% of our colleagues in corporate training are Gen-Y, our managers are getting younger and younger, and this is affecting the way we train.”
During his presentation, Lee suggested a number of things Gen-Y want from companies and their work. Lee said, “They want a meaningful and challenging career, with 72% expecting a promotion within two years. They also want to contribute to their learning, with 90% of Gen-Y colleagues willing to participate in cross training. Of those colleagues involved in cross training, 60% are willing to do it on their own time.” This shows that Gen-Y, while wanting a lot, are also willing to put in the hours to earn better positions, and higher pay.
Lee then presented nine practical tips to help keep Gen-Y staff involved and engaged when conducting training and development programmes. He advised HR to:
- Share the vision with your employees
- Customise presentations for your audience
- Make your introduction interesting and engaging, while keeping it short and simple
- Provide and use technology so staff can be more involved with their progress
- Don’t get offended by your staff, as Lee put it, “Many of your staff will be looking at their phones while you are talking—they are still listening—they are just multitasking.”
- Let them work in teams or small groups
- Be open to their feedback and questions
- Take frequent breaks (every 45 minutes where possible)
- Give your staff recognition
Chris Yap
Regional Director, Client Solutions, Centre for Creative Leadership, APAC
Topic: Fostering collaborative creativity to develop future leaders
Yap spoke on collaborative creativity and creating an environment that spans leadership boundaries to go beyond traditional individual boundaries.
Yap pointed out that learning opportunities are presented whenever talent with defined boundaries are asked to start in another department and therefore move outside of their normal comfort zones. When this happens, they need to start depending on others within the organisation to reach their targets. Yap warned that businesses can sometimes neglect to recognise these boundaries and it is the duty of HR to remind them of this, avoiding potential losses at both individual and organisational level if the talent returns to their comfort zone.
In a survey of 100 executives, cited by Yap, 86% said that working across boundaries was crucial but only 7% said they were effective at it. To help close this gap, Yap’s organisation has developed practices that provide direction on bridging these boundaries to align with an organisation’s goals. He encouraged greater self-awareness to work out the organisation’s strengths and where the gaps exist, starting with two key questions:
- How important is it for the leaders of the organisation to work across boundaries?
- How effective is the organisation at working across boundaries?
After identifying the gaps, Yap advised HR to look at developmental experience, skills and practices and described six boundary-spanning practices.
Six Boundary-spanning practices
- Monitoring and protecting the flow of information across groups to define boundaries;
- Reflecting and representing different perspectives to encourage knowledge sharing;
- Connecting people and building bridges to foster trust;
- Mobilising common purposes to build a sense of identity and boost levels of ownership, belonging and accountability;
- ‘Weaving’ to help combine group differences;
- Transforming groups to create alternative futures and possibilities.
Yap concluded, that leadership often stops where boundaries are identified therefore, organisations need to identify a boundary-less leadership strategy to build a strong team.
Eddie Wong
Human Resources Director, Royal and Sun Alliance Insurance plc, HK
Topic: Innovations in training and development with the RSA Group
Wong highlighted the innovations made in training and development after re-branding the 300-year-old Group. He introduced his Group’s two philosophies for strategic learning and development: ‘knowledge, skills and attitude (KSA)’ and ‘technical training’.
On the first of the philosophies—KSA, Wong stated, “The challenge facing the organisation culture was that bosses would never talk about career options, meaning staff were unsure of promotion and growth opportunities.” The culture now is that career development is in the hands of the staff. The leaders act as facilitators in the process, staff members need to state where they want to go. He summed up, “It’s like being in your car, you [staff] drive your car and we [HR] provide you with energy.”
The decision was made to start with programmes for graduates through executive directors. As Hong Kong is in an emerging market, the request of the Group’s CEO was to do more to relate to people’s requests. Wong stated that a range of information was used to quantify employee engagement, including benchmarking against the world’s top 100 companies and performance management surveys covering developmental planning.
The second philosophy of the Group includes having the technical staff share their knowledge and experience to promote development and technical mastery. To achieve this the Group established a technical academy in 2006 and identified 100 ‘masters’ dedicated to sustainable leadership. Training is 50% web–based, 20% face-to-face and 30% workshops and forums. All training being aimed at building a robust and diverse communication network.
The results of these two philosophies have been manifest in terms of increased engagement, productivity and profitability over the last three years—employee retention has also improved and currently stands at 85%. Wong added that the group has also seen that people are happier and now share their ideas.
Yvonne Yam
Learning and Organisational Development Manager, RS Components
Topic: Career management—getting staff to take ownership of their own career development
Yam, a change facilitator, shared her insight with a view to getting HR to go beyond the traditional L&D, coaching and facilitation focus. With around 1,000 employees across the Asia Pacific, Yam’s organisation provides physical and on-line catalogues for engineers globally. For this reason, there were two focuses of the change journey: innovation and customers. She stated, “To us, customers and employees are considered on the same level—employees are vital as they deliver the service.”
The change journey began with the four sub-regions becoming regionalised with an Asia-Pacific approach. Yam stated that there was a firm belief in organisational development and integration, but that the question was how to integrate them as each had its own beauty. Speaking candidly, she said “We looked at the process, and the bottom line was: how are we going to engage people and have it show? And how do we make the vision on the wall align with our own aspirations so that we are motivated?” Yam explained, there were certainly challenges along the way. Having the four sub-regions, each with its own GM, meant that there were some inconsistent practices in performance management, training and service standards. The initiation for change had to come from the employees, ensuring that the culture would be more collaborative, include greater participation, synergy and diversification. She said that ultimately they hoped for efficient, consistent standards and practices that were also sustainable.
Yam explained that focus was put on teaching skills and behaviour as well as developing and equipping leaders with the confidence and competence to coach. This included career development accompanied with performance management and cultural awareness training for leaders in new environments. As for the results, L&D programmes are consistently rated 4 out of 5; the company has seen increases in engagement and are now above industry benchmarks for performance management.
Christy Wang
Assistant Learning and Development Manager, City Telecom
Topic: Innovation in driving a learning culture
Wang presented on innovation in driving a learning culture. She noted that within her organisation investing in people was the greatest driver. This is reflected in some of the company’s expenditures, around HK$500 million, being spent on talent—in comparison to HK$150 million on marketing. With such significant investment in talent, City Telecom wants to ensure that they retain top talent. She added that almost all of their initiatives are project-based and designed in-house.
One of the initiatives: ‘Next Station University’ is a four-year bachelor’s programme, at a cost of just under HK$100,000 per-person. Wang stated that while the company understands that it may lose some of the 50 talents that are currently in the programme, they hope that the programme inspires the rest of the talent for decades to come. Wang said, “We want to leave a legacy, not only changing the lives of our talent, but also their families.”
Management reading days are another initiative, which comprise 2 two-hour sessions for general staff and managers. Books are distributed a month prior to the meetings which are creative sessions involving group discussion and sharing. She added that each group provides a recent example of leadership, and a key for development in greater China. Managing expectations are important, Wang highlighted, “Staff are told: do not expect to learn a lot in the two hours; it is what you do before and after that counts.”
Finally, ‘ME Friday’ provides an opportunity for all staff, including managers to practice Mandarin and English. Throughout the day, ambassadors initiate conversations; there are videos and informal lunch table conversations with prizes for achievements. She added language skills are important for the company and managers need to attain IELTS 6.5 as an official step for promotion.
Mike Ramsay
Chief Executive,Alliance Group
Topic: Strategic staff learning and development techniques to achieve employee benefit objectives
Ramsay presented strategic staff learning and development techniques to achieve employee benefit objectives. He stated that by strategically implementing employee benefits, amazing results could be achieved, primarily through increasing employee satisfaction and integrating their work and personal life. With this in mind, he cautioned HR about resting on their laurels when it came to looking at employee benefit packages. There are few, if any, in HR who fail to realise the importance of competitive packages. Ramsay noted that, despite this, 96% of life insurance premiums, for example, were simply renewed without negotiating a better package or reduced premium.
Ramsay stated that it is worth focusing on the core employee benefits—physical and financial protection. He highlighted, “We all spend an incredible amount of money on employee benefits and a portion of this is on benefits that employees don’t even know are there.” He then suggested a strategic approach to benefits, taking into account research, development, implementation, support and review.
An important element for employees is their financial security. Current options include MPF, group pensions and vesting. Ramsay stated that if staff members feel their financial well-being is looked after and invested in for the future, they are much less likely to leave an organisation. He pointed out that in companies where there is training, support and financial choices, the reduction in staff turnover could be significant.
Ramsay suggested a few questions that HR should ask themselves with regard to employee benefits.
Questions for HR on benefits
- Do you know what benefits your competitors provide to their employees?
- Do you know how satisfied your employees are with their benefits when compared to your competitors?
- Do you know which employee benefits packages are available and which are the best?
- Do your employees know what benefits are available in their package?
He concluded, “If you have invested an incredible amount of money in development of a programme, there is no use if the employees don’t know about it.”
With the right package, and training to help ensure all staff know about it companies can expect a reduction in both costs and turnover, together with increases in productivity and employee satisfaction.
Sylvain Friedman
Partner, Former Far East Area Learning and Development Leader, Ernst & Young
Topic: Managing career development through coaching at Ernst & Young
Friedman shared ideas on managing career development through coaching. He noted that Ernst & Young’s career development framework, first implemented in China, later throughout Asia, and now globally—included coaching to ensure that the organisation retained talent. He added, “At Ernst & Young, we want to grow and develop people, even if we lose some of them.”
After reviewing the development framework, he said a decision was made to integrate the way the organisation did business. This included integrating learning, coaching and on-the-job experience, similar to traditional training models, but with a greater emphasis on coaching. He explained that the organisation looks at competencies to see skills that are required, then provides coaching and learning opportunities to enable talent to do their jobs.
Coaching is extremely rewarding in Asia when included in an integrated framework. Friedman believes, “We are changing behaviour, the staff are happier, stay longer, build longer-term relationships and ask the right questions, which in turn attracts more clients. This also assists with branding to attract talent from university.“
Friedman shared four key drivers to help implement coaching.
Four key drivers in coaching
- Building skills via training events & coaching workshops from the top down;
- Changing processes such as those for reviewing performance as well as identifying potential;
- Encouraging communication through newsletters, counsellors and surveys;
- Developing internal resources e.g. a pool of champions & certified coaches.
He summed up, “Coaching should be available for everyone and be used on a day-to-day basis. Everyday seek out opportunities to coach people and give specific positive feedback. Every week create a safe environment and feedback zone and then each month have catch ups between the counsellors and counsellees. As issues arise, immediately address any toxic behaviour and problems.”
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
