The half yearly APAC HR Leaders Networking Series has kicked off in Singapore this morning with over 30 HR Leaders getting together at the Linde Group’s regional headquarters in Singapore. The Chapman Consulting Group’s (ChapmanCG) HR Leader Network Series, in June 2013, will see more than 24 HR groups getting together in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Hong Kong and China. The series occurs twice a year. Ben Davies, a Managing Director with ChapmanCG, kicked off the Linde Group session and introduced more than 30 HR Leaders who were in attendance. Representing ChapmanCG were Matthew Chapman, Trevor Clarkson, Henri Parmentier and Sana Bakhtyar.
Dee Bhatnagar, Head of Talent Acquisition for Asia Pacific, presented on Linde Group’s HR strategy. She talked about the widespread HR integration activities that have taken place within Asia over the past two years. Dee spoke of the fact that eight regions now come under Asia and shared that there was initial skepticism of whether the regional structure would add value to the eight key locations, which were functioning very independently. The result has been extremely positive with a dramatic increase in collaboration and consistency in both HR and business practices.
Rachel Fitzpatrick, Director HR APJ, Akamai Technologies, spoke on the unique nature of Akamai’s culture, which is highly innovative and promotes constant change. This creates unique challenges for HR. Fitzpatrick discussed many creative initiatives that have been implemented to foster work/life sustainability including “251”: a 2:51pm afternoon tea break, each day, to bring staff together.
Sander Hubbers, Senior Vice President HR for Global Foundries, gave the final presentation. He surprised the group with the statistic that the company has more than 6,000 employees in Singapore. He discussed creative compensation strategies that the company has been using to retain staff in hot markets and, like Fitzpatrick, about the importance of creating a culture of work/life sustainability, especially in a fast changing environment.
Further meetings in the June APAC HR series will happen this week in Singapore at Dow Chemical and Gazprom, and we will report back on these soon.
