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Article from Human Resources, Hong Kong, Dec 2005
HK HR Magazine – Dec 2005
Riding on Diversity to Enhance your Company’s Bottom-Line
Ever since the evolution of HR from being a mere service provider to that of a strategic business partner, HR professionals have never seen so many challenges laid before them before. Not only do they have to tackle these, they have to do so successfully with limited resources to support their brave efforts. I know of at least one HR director who has to take care of the entire spectrum of HR functions for about 12 countries, covering Asia Pacific, the Middle East, India, Pakistan and including Australia and New Zealand! Oh, and I nearly forget to mention that he has only himself in the HR “team”. He had to do this for about six months before he managed to wrangle another headcount from the US corporate office. It was a miracle that he was able to last that long.
One of the fundamental challenges of HR is to manage its talent pool effectively for optimal use and efficiency of the company’s human resources. Unlike the management of machines, or computer systems for that matter, this is definitely much more complicated and challenging.
In many developed and developing countries, quality human resources are scarce. HR is constantly challenged on how to find, identify, attract, motivate and retain top talent in the global market place.
Not only does HR need to put the right people in the right geographical location and doing the right job, he or she has also got to manage the challenges associated with cultural diversity. Some of these include issues relating to “fairness”, “inclusion”, and “sense of belonging and acceptance”. Others that are even more sensitive and equally important, and that calls for a higher degree of skills include issues centering on minority race, nationality, sexual inclination, gender, the physically disadvantaged, age and religion.
And, might I add, HR must (not an option) manage these challenges successfully as effective management of a diverse workforce translates to bottom line results. Mr Charles O. Holliday, Jr., DuPont Chairman and CEO fully subscribes to this, he was quoted as saying: “Experiences in our company confirm that a diverse workforce increases innovations in product development and production processes. A diverse and global workforce helps us create higher value solutions for our customers in more productive and less capital-intensive ways.”
One hallmark of a successful company is one that has a diverse leadership, both at the board and top management levels. All eyes in the business world, especially on Wall Street, are taking notice of an apparent link between successful diversity programs and the bottom line. In an article published in the Financial Times on 27 October 2005, out of eight key success factors of “The Measures of a Great Employer”, one was related to the issue of cultural diversity. It read: “Respond to emerging trends, such as demands for flexible working, or networks for minorities”.
As a strategic business partner, the HR fraternity has four key areas to focus on when it comes to managing diversity:–
Organization chart/reporting structures
These must be business-focused, and decisions taken on the composition of both must be independent, and seen to be independent of issues that hinges on nationality, race, gender etc. Fortunately, this is the case, I suspect, in most companies. However, it is conceivable that situations may arise where the composition of board members and/or the senior management team happens to have members who belong only to one gender, for example, or one nationality. In such circumstances, as the HR lead in your company, it is imperative upon you to bring this up to your boss, and to share with him the possible (negative) perception that employees, shareholders and members of the public may have, coming from the perspective of (the need to have) diversity.
Job assignments
Has the company been deliberately consistent in identifying the most qualified candidate for assignments, especially key/high profile ones? As the head of the HR team, you must initiate and implement policies and processes that provide an equitable platform for eligible employees to express their interest in job postings. There must be due diligence in ensuring that internal openings are made available to existing staff members before they are advertised externally. If it is necessary to open up the company’s options to also attract external applications simultaneously, then the shortlisting, interview and selection processes must be robust enough to withstand any possible occurrences of discrimination and favoritism.
Career development paths
In some companies, employees identified as high-potentials are put on leadership development programs and their (fast track) careers map out for them. The criteria for deciding on who gets to be on this fast train varies from company to company. It is the role of HR to ensure that the selection process is equally robust, and that the details of the leadership scheme are totally transparent and free from possible bias.
Employee benefits
One size does not fit all – this is now the golden rule of thumb for policies and processes related to employee benefits. Your forever-single employees are not going to stay happy for long if you offer only maternity and paternity leave. Those who are younger are not going to love you for the enhanced medical and dental benefits – they would rather have company paid or subsidized yoga or Pilates classes. HR must put on their creative thinking caps and stay up-to-date with their current affairs to be able to keep pace with changing employee needs and preferences.
Recruitment policies and practices
Anti-discriminatory laws in the US, for example, forbid the mention of gender, race, and age etc preferences when hiring talent. In other places, Hong Kong for example, where such laws have not been enacted, it is incumbent upon the HR department to put in place anti-discriminatory recruitment policies and practices.
President of DuPont Greater China, Mr Joseph Wong shared: “Here in our Hong Kong office, we have a diverse organization comprising of 14 nationalities, ranging from Australia to the USA, and many of them hold leadership roles in the company.”
One of the more sensitive areas is “age” – many hiring managers, including those in HR, have not shifted their mindset about consciously screening out job applicants because of the “age” factor. If this persists, some governments may be inclined to introduce legislation to counter this practice. This is especially pertinent as many countries are sitting on a potential “landmine” of challenges associated with the ageing population syndrome where a significant percentage of the population is above 65 years of age. On the other hand, families are getting smaller, resulting in a reduction of fresh job entrants to the workforce, thus making it necessary for companies to continue depending on the “older” and more experienced employees.
Success in HR leadership looks so much different now, compared to, say eight to ten years ago. This is especially so in a place like Hong Kong, where the business environment is so fast-moving and dynamic that changes potentially happen by the hour. In this century, one of the key emerging economies in the world to watch out for is China. With its strategic location, Hong Kong is poised to continue to be the gateway between China and the US.
Most HR professionals agree that effective diversity management is one of the keys to their success as a strategic business partner.
According to Hong-Kong based Mr Alan Wong Asia-Pacific HR Manager of Altera Corporation, a world pioneer of system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solutions, has this to share. “A successful HR professional must have good diversity talent management skills – especially so because talent attraction and retention are so important these days.”
US-based Mr Mayank Parekh, Head of HR for Global Business Operations of Merial Limited, a world leading animal health company, sums it up thus: “One ‘must-have’ for a HR professional to excel is the C-factor - the ability to effectively engage with CEOs, COO, CFOs, CIOs, etc. To think strategically on organisational issues, such as diversity, be an honest broker to expand (or at least clarify) the scope of choice available to decision makers and be an issue advocate on people diversity issues.”
Hong Kong-based Ms Monisa Wan, HR director of S.W.I.F.T, sums up like this: “Having integrity and the moral encourage to make the right decisions when confronting diversity issues are the keys to success.”
Paul Heng, CMF
NeXT Career Consulting Group, Asia
Founding President, Asian Association of Career Management Professionals
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