Aon has unveiled its Best Employers across APAC, revealing trends relevant to HR.
In line with the strategy of 'Invented in China', Chinese companies have moved beyond the trial period of overseas investment and shifted to become pace setters in the world. Wanhua Chemical Group aspired to become one of the top 10 chemical companies in the world. The organisation is noted for effectively attracting, engaging and retaining top talent in R&D by providing them with the platform to grow, receive performance-based incentives and enjoy a people-oriented culture that respects and cares for scientists.
Leading companies also endeavoured to blaze the trail by creating an attractive workplace for young employees. Communicating with Millennials through open and multiple channels, shaping an innovative and caring culture, and listening to their feedback throughout the year were particularly successful strategies.
Aon cited Starbucks China as a firm which excelled at this, offering a warm and welcoming working place for its workers and extending care programmes to their parents. As a result, Millennial employees were more highly engaged.
Localisation
Businesses were also lauded for focussing on localisation and improving efficiency and effectiveness throughout their organisations. Becton Dickinson Medical Devices was praised for offering local talent executive coaching, ensuring that Chinese talent was well-represented in global leadership and enhancing the diversity of global leadership.
The awards also reveal the sort of work experience that leads to higher engagement levels. 80% of Aon Best Employers enable a high performance culture and 81% provide their employees with better infrastructure and 85% offer more opportunities for collaboration.
There is a clear difference in perceptions of challenge between Best Employers and other organisations. Best Employer CEOs typically named operational efficiency and market factors as the top two challenges impacting the organisation's ability to succeed. CEOs of other organisations chosen were instead more likely to highlight people issues as a headwind. Proving a strong workplace culture therefore allows the C-Suite to direct greater attention toward other business priorities.
Peter Zhang, Aon Hewitt Global Partner, Greater China CEO said, "There are four key themes this year--China's economy is recovering; the economy reaches a turning point; millennials become a majority in the workforce; and Chinese companies are entering a brand-new era of globalisation."
Vikas Verma, Principal, Talent and Performance, Aon Hewitt, added, "The digital era is opening up a great opportunity to seamlessly listen to employees across the talent life cycle in order to provide the promised people experience. However, this transition to continuous listening is not about another technology implementation. It's a paradigm shift in listening and responding to employee experiences in near-real-time. For this to positively influence employee engagement, organisations must drive more empowerment and development of their people managers—as we see in this year's Aon Best Employers."
American Express Company, DHL Express Asia Pacific, FedEx Express Asia Pacific and McDonald’s APAC were recognised as Regional Best Employers 2017 for Asia Pacific.
Full list of 2017 can be viewed here
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
