In disruptive times, talent remains top-of-mind for Hong Kong’s HR leaders
In disruptive times, HR leaders in Hong Kong are most concerned with attracting and engaging the right talent for their organisations.
At a recent exclusive roundtable event in Hong Kong organised by HRD Asia and Alight Solutions, Vikrant Khanna, Director, Asia Lead – HR Transformation and Change Management headed a discussion around the need for “low effort, high impact” HR in disruptive times.
“As organisations are changing and the profile of talent is changing – just the speed of change [has led to] everyone looking to HR for solutions,” Khanna said. “That’s putting pressure on HR transformation; that’s putting pressure [on HR] to adopt technology.”
The HR leaders present at the session shared their transformational journeys and how they’re coping with all things around talent management – attracting, engaging and retaining.
Future workforce – how will they look like?
One HR leader at a top bank lamented how HR currently spends so much time with compliance and control, that they don’t have ample time to attend to strategic HR concerns.
The upside is they have a new team focusing on issues around the future workforce. The team is concerned with finding answers for questions like: how does the future of work look like for finance professionals? What is HR’s future function at the organisation? How does HR design future job functions?
Millennials and the diverse workforce
A leader at an airline company shared that about 70% of their workforce are millennials. Their current challenge is figuring how HR can connect with them and successfully engage them at work.
With the tsunami of technologies available to engage and track employees, HR is also trying to determine which are the “right platforms” to use to make sure employees continuously enjoy their work.
Talent scarce market – how to retain staff?
An HRD at a top science and technology firm shared that their top challenge involves retaining highly sought-after technical staff. The organisation has one of the biggest pools of science and technology talent from around the world. This makes them a constant target for head-hunters.
“On one hand we want to expand our company, but employees are always looking at the back door,” she said. “I always find it challenging to have a retention plan, because these talents are not just looking for more money. How can we do better with retention and engagement?”
“There are some interesting thoughts around how policies impact changes in the organisation,” Khanna said.
“What adds to the complexity of the changes is for the first time you have talent who, irrespective of generations, are looking for more than pay. For one, with so much information available online now, people are not joining you for what you do but why you do it is becoming more important – purpose, aspirations of employees are all changing.
“With all these changes happening, these are very exciting times for HR.”
