The “Greater China Talent Management Summit 2010” in the theme of “Leading the Agile Enterprise in a Rebuilding Year” was successfully held at Kowloon Shangri-la on 6th July 2010. Having entered its fifth year, the summit attracted over 250 human resources professionals and senior executives to join and we are honoured to have 8 prominent speakers from the government and leading organisations to share their experience and insights with us.

Mr. Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, Secretary for Labour and Welfare delivered his speech as the opening keynote of the summit. He said, “The annual talent management summit has provided a useful platform for HR managers to enhance their competitive position in Hong Kong. Although Hong Kong has been a successful international financial centre attracting financial capital and talent from all over the world, it can no longer compete with regional economies on labour and land cost. Indeed, we must continue to transformation into a high value-added, knowledge-based economy in order to compete on quality and productivity.”

“Talent is one of the world’s most sought-after commodities. After all, the building of knowledge-based economy in a globalised environment follows with the need to address the key questions of how we can facilitate the agile enterprises in Hong Kong to win the talent war. Not only in attracting outside talent to come to Hong Kong, but also to nurture local talents,” he continued.

After the opening keynote, the second keynote speaker, Ms. Elsie Hui, Human Resources Director of Jones Lang LaSalle, went up on the stage. She began with an introduction of Jones Lang LaSalle, followed with an illustration of the company’s HR strategies. “Globally, our strategy is to shift from attention to connection, linking up the global platform we have developed both within and with our external clients and prospects.”

Ms. Hui pointed out that no matter how hard you coach, how well you did, you can’t be successful without the right people, so recruiting for a better fit is important. “We do it by awakening our employer brand, partnership with universities and internship opportunities for overseas talents, which is good for diversity in the workplace.”

The third keynote of the day was given by Mr. Kenneth Holt, Director, Hong Kong and Greater China of EmployeeConnect Greater China Limited. He shared the concept of cloud computing with the audience, and said, “For long, HR people have been swamped with traditional HR processes and paperwork that hinders them from driving real business values for their organisations. But now with the help of cloud-based and SaaS solutions, they can manage their tasks more effectively and avoid costly investment in resources to maintain in-house systems.”

He talked about the trend of cloud computing in Hong Kong, “The wave is growing and is fast, and is hitting or is about to hit every one of us. Enterprises are learning about the benefits of cloud computing.”

After a brief break, the fourth keynote of the day was presented by Ms. Regina Chu, Director of Learning and Development of InterContinental Hong Kong. Ms. Chu shared her strategies on creating shared values and cultures among staff; the best practices for increasing staff retention and engagement.

“As a HR person, our journey is to become a great company. We have to understand what it means to be the best company, i.e. a company known for its people, brands, corporate responsibility, and for delivering better results than its competitors. To do so, we need to focus on the right activity in a joined up and efficient way that will lead us to the right results, said Ms. Chu.

She also mentioned the philosophy of the hotel for talent management: right environment, right behaviour, right activity and right results.

Next to the stage was Mr. Tony Dickel, Chairman of the Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership in Hong Kong. Mr. Dickel gave an informative talk on the effectiveness of executive coaching. He said, “Executive coaching is not teaching things. It’s about helping staff to come out from within. The coach is not employed to teach but more to create circumstances where the executive can do more of the right things at the right time with what they know.”

He stressed the importance of executive coaching and said, “Executive coaching has become an extremely important tool as part of the executive toolkit in recent years. Coaching, if properly used, is a process which is effective to help an organisation meet competitive pressures, plan for succession and bring about necessary organisational or cultural change.”

After the lunch break, Prof. Steven DeKrey, Founding Director of the Kellogg-HKUST Executive Education Program, Senior Associate Dean, Director of Masters Programs and Adjunct Professor of Management at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology School of Business and Management shared his views and insights on how corporations can overcome challenges on leadership development especially in the most dynamic region of the world – Asia. He began the talk with the various definitions of leadership, and then shared the global results of the top four leadership characteristics – honest, forward-looking, inspiring, and compete.

He later shared the different order of the top four characteristics voted by alumni of Kellogg-HKUST EMBA Program. “Leaders are future-oriented. Leaders are leading forward, so you need a credible person who is taking you to the future. Globally agreed, we want global forward-looking leaders.”

Following Prof. DeKrey’s presentation was a HR forum featured Prof. Randy Chiu, Director of Centre for Human Resources Strategy and Development and Professor of Department of Management at Hong Kong Baptist University, Ms. Iris Mo, Talent Manager of Hewlett-Packard Hong Kong Limited, and Mr. Tony Dickel, Chairman of the Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership, Hong Kong.

With “Developing a world-class innovative culture and nurturing innovative talent in an era of accelerating change” as the discussion topic, the forum discussed the role of HR and the main challenges for developing innovative culture and talent.

Prof. Chiu said, “HR people should always be the mastermind, the architect, the expert, knowing how to facilitate human intelligence and energy. I do think HR does have the obligation and expertise and opportunity to work with every senior executive in the line management.”

On the way to find and develop innovative talents, Ms. Mo pointed out that HP developed and retained talents by career development, engage them with employee engagement program and career path that they can obtain at HP.

Mr. Dickel believed that it is about the employer brand, which takes time to develop. Organisations need to have their plan in order to succeed in a talent crisis. They need to know what their employer brand looks like.

Prof. Chiu, “you can do all the things to attract and recruit the best talent that fits your company and have various HR initiatives to keep them there. But innovative people tend to be hungry for satisfaction. So it’s important to create an innovative culture.”

After the forum, Prof. Chiu delivered a speech on his insights of developing talents for the 21st century. Prof. Chiu said, “Once we talk about developing talents we are talking about the quality of leaders. This is the question that we ask all the time, but it doesn’t mean the answer we have today will be the same as that we heard yesterday.”

Talking about the quality of leaders, Prof. Chiu highlighted the importance of passion. “We can’t shortlist, assess and even make decision on a talent unless we can ‘operationalise’ passion.”

The final speaker of the day was Ms. Mo, who presented a speech titled “Strategies to strive for the best talents in fierce labour market. She first delivered an overview of HP, followed by the talent management approach of the company.

She later explained the implementation of HP’s HR strategy by introducing Rainbow Program, which is a local initiative. “Rainbow is a highly initiative program which creates an environment for the employees. How much talents can learn from the program depends on how proactive they participate in the program,” she explained.

A Note of Thanks
A-Performers.com as the organiser would like to take this opportunity to thank all the honourable guest speakers, partners, sponsors, exhibitors, advertisers, facilitators and delegates from Hong Kong and overseas, who have made this summit a success and memorable one. Hope to see you all next year!