Having entered its second year, ¡§Employee Engagement Summit 2010¡¨ in the theme of ¡§Involve the Leaders of Tomorrow Today: Advance with Employee Engagement¡¨ organised by A-Performers.com was successfully held at Kowloon Shangri-la on 30th November, 2010.

The summit, with 10 guest speakers who are all esteemed leaders, academics and human resources professionals from best-practice organisations sharing their unique insights and suggestions on the hottest topics of employee engagement, attracted more than 250 human resources professionals and senior executives to participate.

Creativity and Innovation
The morning session kicked off with Ms Winnie Ng, Director of Bauhinia Foundation Research Centre, who shared her views on how corporate leaders can apply the concept of creativity and innovation in the business environment, particularly as a strategy to motivate, retain and engage talent of Generation Y.

"Today we are in the world of globalisation; competition among cities is not just about economic growth or efficiency, but also about innovation, creativity and the engagement of talents,¡¨ Ms. Ng said.

Ms. Ng suggested the formula to engage Gen Y, that is:
Understanding Gen Yers and their expectation + allowing more individuality + encouraging creativity and innovation = Gen Y engagement.

The Role of Leaders
The second speaker of the summit was Prof. Judy Tsui, Vice President (International and Executive Education) & Director of Graduate School of Business of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Prof. Tsui discussed the leadership skills that we need to advance employee engagement in today¡¦s ever-changing environment and pointed out the four main roles as leaders in employee engagement: motivating teams and individuals, communication and care, culture and climate, and leadership style.

"It is most important that the leaders have to feel that they have the responsibility to motivate the young people. Leaders also have to be able to change the mindset of their people by communication and care, and everyone in every level has to be a role model. The leaders themselves have to work hard. Culture and climate ultimately changes the opportunism into efficiency for the organisation. How to do it? A fair and open incentive and reward system. Remember, perception is something that you need to reflect on,¡¨ she explained.

Care for People
 
The next onto the stage was Mr. Chan Hin-sang, HR Manager ¡V Compliance, Employee Relations & HRIS of CLP Power Hong Kong Ltd who shared his views of building the organisational culture of sustainability in the local context and the best practices of successful engagement.

He said, ¡§¡¥Care for people¡¦ is our top value. We have a caring culture, i.e. we care for the community, the environment and our performance; we respect laws and standards, and we value innovation and knowledge.¡¨

As told by Mr. Chan, at CLP, there are a series of practices for showing the company¡¦s care for its people, which are good for employee engagement that lead to a low turnover rate of the organisation.

Make the Right Choice
After the tea break, Ms. Bonnie Tse, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of AIA Pension and Trustee Co. Ltd. and Chief Executive Officer of American International Assurance Company (Trustee) Limited began her speech by addressing the deferment of the MPF Employee Choice Arrangement (ECA).

She shared her insights into selecting the best provider for employees and said, ¡§Despite the delay of the ECA, it is in fact time for employers and MPF members to look at their existing plans, including fund choices, information for employees, employees¡¦ flexibility on fund switching, transaction and statement, etc., see if they can make things better.¡¨

To choose a suitable service provider, Ms. Tse suggested members could take a look at:
¡DThe available fund choices
¡DService quality
¡DManagement fee
¡DPerformance and reputation

Strategic Engagement
The last speaker of the morning session was Mr. Alex Chung, Director of Samsung Electronics HK Co. Ltd. Mr. Chung spoke on strategic employee engagement which helps achieve a highly engaged workforce and improved bottom line result.

He shared a contingency view of organisationsal alignment, which includes strategy, structure, people/HRM, information & decision making, rewards and stressed the importance of a detailed and well-developed HR system.

"Employees must commit when the company sets up goals and strategy. Secondly, the managers must behave to support and maintain trust in-between the people, whilst owners must share the economic return with their employees to promote long-term security,¡¨ he added.

An Equal Workplace
The afternoon session began with an inspiring speech by Mr. Lam Woon-kwong, GBS, JP, Chairperson of Equal Opportunities Commission, who shared his views of how corporate leaders apply the concept of equal opportunity in the business environment.

As told by Mr. Lam, building an equal opportunity workplace can help create an environment of mutual respect, which helps employees to feel valued and be able to balance their work and life.

Mr. Lam mentioned four key elements in employee engagement ¡V be inclusive, gender-friendly, family-friendly and talent-oriented. ¡§As research finds, many Gen Yers care less about money and more about opportunity to learn, care, collaborate and share knowledge across cultures and generations with a team they respect. Therefore, the ability of an employer to provide an inclusive workplace can make their ability to attract and retain fresh young talents.¡¨

Engage with Respect and Fun
Ms. Ivy Leung, Intellectual Capital and Quality, Director, Langham Place Mongkok was the next to the stage. Ms. Leung shared the innovative practices at the hotel to engage talent as well as its award-winning corporate culture with the audience.

She said, ¡§It is very important for leaders to take personal action to develop and deploy the Vision-Mission-Value (VMV) of the company. Members of a workforce feel engaged when they find personal meaning and motivation in their work when they receive positive interpersonal and workplace support.¡¨

With respect to this, the hotel continues with a wide range of special incentives and comprehensive training programmes to ensure every staff member actively involved as a part of the Hotel and organises a myriad of activities to promote equality and recognition among staff members so as to cultivate a better and closer relationship between staff members.

Managing Travel Risks
Mr. Sek-tung Lee, Head of Sales and Marketing of International SOS Hong Kong then delivered his speech on travel risk management ¡V managing risk associated with expatriates and business travelers.

He highlighted the importance of organisations to be able to manage travel risks and threats that are not only harmful to business travelers, but also the whole organisation. ¡§Besides the threats to your staff, there are also risks to the organisation, including legal risk, reputational risks and financial risks. It¡¦s not only about the loss of skills set of your human assets, it will also lead to a business continuity issue.¡¨

Mr. Lee suggested, ¡§Nowadays many organisations put too much emphasis on the post-incident arrangement. But when you really talk about risk management, we should put more focus on pre-incident arrangement that is when something really happens, we have to mitigate the harm and risks as much as possible.¡¨

Corporate Culture Is Key
After the tea break, Mr. Dai Guo-qing, Director of Administration and Personnel Management Centre of Nimble Group gave an interesting talk on corporate culture and talent management.

Mr. Dai believed that corporate culture serves as the foundation of everything in an organisation. ¡§For organisational success, every company should have its unique culture and it is the key for their talents to understand the culture and engage in it,¡¨ he said.

Retaining Young Talents
The last speaker of the summit was Dr. Chung Ting-yiu Robert, Director of Public Opinion Programme (POP) of The University of Hong Kong. Dr. Chung reported the findings of HeadlineJobs Quality Workplace Index (2010 2nd Half) and talked about the retention of young talents.

As Dr. Chung revealed, the survey analyses work situations across five categories: career development, job nature, human relationships, work environment and remuneration schemes.

"Further analysis of this year's survey has paid attention to the employment situation of the ¡¥Post-80s¡¦ young people. It is found that their overall job satisfaction is lower than other age groups, with the satisfactions of salary level and promotion opportunities ranked the lowest. Employers should give more attention to and take appropriate measures to maintain the morale of young employees.¡¨

A Note of Thanks
A-Perfomers.com, as the organiser, would like to take this opportunity to thank all the honorable 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!