Star Service HR

Hang Lung’s talent development successes as headcount doubles

Janet Poon, General Manager – Human Resources, Hang Lung Properties has been with the Company since 2012 and helped transform their talent pool during a period of unprecedented expansion. She shares her innovative approach to talent attraction and retention to help fuel the Company’s phenomenal growth.

Janet Poon, General Manager – Human Resources, Hang Lung Properties

Adaptive HR

Hang Lung Properties has always taken a very people-centric approach to its growth, and more recently this has involved Poon revamping many aspects of HR processes in order to keep pace with the Company’s growth and attract new and even more diverse talent pools. She explained, “Over the past seven or eight years, we have achieved unprecedented growth—the gross floor area of Hang Lung Group has more than doubled during this period from 16 million to 34 million square feet. To keep pace with this, we have significantly increased headcount from 2,500 in 2010 to close to 5,000 now.”

In response to rapid business growth and the dynamic nature of today’s talent pool, Poon at the helm of HR in the Company has championed a number of unique measures including innovative recruitment methods, a fully customised training and development programme and caring initiatives to boost work-life balance, employee wellness and CSR efforts.

Innovative recruitment & selection

Poon explained the importance of recruiting people who have the same values as the corporation. She commented, “At Hang Lung ‘We Do It Right’ and so we are looking for talent with a high degree of integrity. We welcome people from all business areas—not just the property development sector. We believe that bringing on board a diverse range of talent and ideas they bring from different sectors can help positively shape our culture moving forwards.”  She added, “We have some of the best building designs in the world, the best locations for our properties and so we need the best team to ensure we run our business sustainably.”

To get the best talent on board and better reach the younger generation, the Company has developed designated corporate pages on various social media platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn and WeChat to help carry the employer brand and reinforce corporate values. The Company also has built up strategic partnerships with a selected group of recruitment agencies to help locate the best talent. Poon noted, “HR and Hang Lung places significant effort into strategic planning around manpower to best suit the Company's ongoing development. Poon noted, "In addition to our strategic manpower planning to ensure a continuous supply of high quality new talent, we also provide many opportunities for existing talent to move laterally throughout the Company.”

Hang Lung’s Staff Manoeuvre System facilitates excellent career development for its talent—in which they are proactively encouraged to move across the different functions and locations. Poon cited one example, “Some of our Management Trainees from Hong Kong choose to develop their careers in mainland China after their graduation. This breadth of movement throughout the Company helps give them a unique macro perspective of the property market through collaboration with contractors, consultants, investors, government departments in addition to project management interactions with their colleagues throughout the region and at different levels of the organisation.”

Poon added, “We do all we can to create a great candidate experience for new recruits and utilise AI, AR and Facebook throughout the recruitment process to enhance the process from the candidate perspective.”

Aside from this, the Company also organises TEAMS Days to recruit new management trainees which provide a light hearted environment in which to assess job applicants. Here around 200 candidates are selected from all the universities in Hong Kong and overseas, and are assigned strategic tasks to complete within the day. This involves candidates working in teams around several of the Company’s properties across Hong Kong and gives a very ‘real’ indication of how they perform different challenges and interact with others in the group. During the day, candidates are expected to come up with marketing strategies and plan projects based around limited budgets and resources. Poon explained, “Aside from our usual interviews—where candidates tend to be sometimes over prepared—the TEAMS Days allow us to assess their performance under much more realistic scenarios and in a more holistic manner. The days also provide an excellent opportunity for two-way communication between the General Managers (GMs) concerned and the candidates. The GMs get to know if the candidates are in tune with the culture of Hang Lung and at the same time the candidates get to learn a huge amount about the business—so both sides can assess if they think it’s a good fit.” The initiative received over 1,500 applicants in 2016 alone—15 of whom were selected to join the Hang Lung family.

Customised Star Service T&D

Star Service delivery is a key focus for the Company, and so significant resources have been channelled into staff development in this area. Poon explained, “We spent around three years thoroughly assessing and evaluating the service standards of our staff to identify key areas for further enhancement. From this the Company established four key stages of training programmes including its ‘four manners’ and ‘eight points’ as fundamental building blocks of the Hang Lung Star Service training programme. She added, “We take a developmental rather than a training approach to help staff self-develop and progress their careers through the Company.”

Stage 1

Four manners key to great service

The Hang Lung Star Service training programme was developed as a tool for frontline staff to help them better interact with customers including staff from the customer service, security, environmental protection and engineering teams. The Hang Lung Star Service training program is the tool for our frontline staff. Every colleague at every level may be interacting with our customers, so selected service delivery team supervisors in all of Hang Lung's mainland malls have already been trained as certified trainers to introduce the programme to all local staff.

Creating a great image is the first thing taught in the programme and advice to staff goes beyond basic grooming to include the wider concept of customer service—based on four manners:

greeting politely—welcoming customers with a warm and sincere smile

answering enquiries—showing kindness and effectiveness

value-added services—going the extra mile to proactively offer help to customers

ending with a warm farewell—leaving an impression of star service and a great image

Stage 2

Handling complaints

The advanced level of the training programme introduces talent to eight key points to help them better deal with complaints. The Company has always stressed the importance of listening and analysing complaints and feedback, with staff approaching and solving problems with a positive attitude. With the eight points, the Company has taken things a step further and created a 180-degree mind shift concerning complaints—so that instead of viewing complaints negatively, staff members actually see them as a gift. Customer feedback is a gift to the Company and our staff —allowing us to pinpoint our weaknesses and gives us valuable chances to further improve our service standards.

Engagement of talent and driving business are critical HR functions. You can’t just roll out items you have planned; first you have to also understand exactly how these actions will drive business results.

Stage 3

Reassuring and motivating

The Company launched its CS3 programme in 2015 which, initially pitched at supervisory grade staff, aimed to deepen understanding of the service standards in the areas of grooming, languages, knowledge and behaviours through a wide range of formats including: trainer sharing sessions, discussions, role-plays, mini-movie shoots and games. Lily Zhang, Senior Officer of HR & Administration, Parc 66 noted, “The interactive activities in the programme heighten the participation by staff members. The mini-movie shoots have been particularly effective in allowing colleagues to review what they have learned in class as well as better understand their own strengths and weaknesses by watching the play backs.”

The first pilot programme was held in Jinan in November 2015 and was later rolled out across all mainland projects in January 2016. Frontline supervisors from Concierge, Security, Hygiene, Cashier and Technical teams were selected to attend the first stage of the programme. The Company plans to implement the programme for all frontline staff in the near future as well as to make it as a compulsory course for new joiners.

Academy 66, the learning and development division of Hang Lung, formulates the ‘eight points’ for the training programme, specially designed them to equip frontline staff with eight key skills to handle complaints:

1. positive attitude

2. self-introduction

3. restate the problem

4. sincere apology

5. appreciate and comfort

6. clarify the situation

7. resolve the problem and follow up

8. service recovery

Stage 4

Belonging & engagement

The final phase of the training programme helps inculcate a sense of belonging, engagement and most importantly fostering two-way communication between talents across the organisation. This has been achieved through multiple efforts including coaching, demonstrating senior management commitment, the Hang Lung Challenge and recognising great performers within the organisation. On-going coaching helps ensure that core concepts learnt during the entire L&D programme are effectively transitioned into the workplace through on-going coaching of talent. Rolled out in every department of the Company, regular coaching sessions also ensure consistency across different business functions and help maximise the effectiveness of the entire T&D programme.

To help provide a positive influence on a more macro scale, the senior management team regularly travels to mainland China to conduct town hall meetings with talent across the country. This facilitates cross-departmental communication and further motivates staff who can see the tangible involvement and commitment of their executive leaders. Following the announcement of the 2017 interim results on 27 July, the Company held staff briefing sessions in Hong Kong, Shenyang, Tianjin, Wuxi and Shanghai. Chairman Ronnie C. Chan, CEO Philip Chen, CFO HC Ho, Executive Director Adriel Chan and other Management members explained the results and answered questions from the team. Colleagues from other mainland projects were also able to join via video conference to learn more about the Company's operations, management, financial performance and the business outlook in general.

Recognition—little actions matter

In terms of recognising employee efforts and great service, Hang Lung holds an annual ceremony where it presents its Emerald Award to frontline staff members who each demonstrated extraordinary excellence in customer service. Now in its third year, the Award helps recognise the efforts of frontline staff members who pursue service excellence with heartfelt conviction, one of the essential elements of Hang Lung’s corporate culture and in line with its ‘Go the Extra Mile’ spirit.

The Company views customer service as the very heart of its operations throughout the portfolio, from leasing to operational strategies, which enhances our corporate culture and provides momentum for our business to grow. The Emerald Award was launched to inspire frontline staff and reinforce Hang Lung’s longstanding focus on service excellence as well as to establish the award as an outstanding icon of the value the Company places on recognition of our team’s contributions on service provision.

In addition to receiving a certificate and a platinum emerald pin, each winner also takes part in a four-day exchange tour of service excellence, during which they will have the opportunity to find out more about how customer service works in other service industry sectors.

Caring initiatives

To help employees achieve a better work-life balance Hang Lung launched its employee wellness programme which includes a wide variety of activities ranging from stretching and sports classes, to a wellness day and health talks—all aimed at relieving stress and pressure on talent throughout the organisation.

The Hang Lung Social Club also organises activities including sports, cooking and family outings to help staff unwind in a relaxing environment outside the usual work context.

In terms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Poon noted, “Team spirit and teamwork are very important, so we organise numerous CSR work for our teams. We actively encourage staff to bring along their family to participant in CSR projects to further boost engagement and maximise the effectiveness of the work we do as a team.”

Poon concluded, “At the end of the day engagement of talent and driving business are critical HR functions. You can’t just roll out items you have planned; first you have to also understand exactly how these actions will drive business results. The role of HR is developing rapidly and their role is no longer simply about pushing policies, HR is now the key stakeholder in leading and engaging staff at all levels in the organisation. Moving forwards it’s crucial that HR involves all business units in this process and constantly garners and acts upon feedback from talent at all levels.”

The Hang Lung Challenge

The Hang Lung Challenge was launched in Hong Kong in February 2017 and was rapidly extended to cover colleagues working across mainland China. The full-day course begins with the Legend 66 Game Board, which plays a key role along with other interactive games to introduce the Company background. One of the most interesting modules is the Hang Lung Adventure in the afternoon where colleagues are divided into groups to complete missions at various key properties. Poon commented, “The challenges have proven extremely popular and they not only help familiarise colleagues with the Company's portfolio, but also significantly train up and boost team spirit.”

It’s crucial that HR involves all business units in [driving engagement] and constantly garners and acts upon feedback from talent at all levels.