HR Leaders Meet at Dow Chemical and IHiS in Singapore to Discuss Culture Change, Talent Management Innovation and How Flexible Benefits Can Help MNCs to be More Competitive in SEA

The Chapman Consulting Group (ChapmanCG) hosted its latest HR Leaders Meeting in Singapore with over 50 HR Leaders getting together at the Integrated Health Information Systems (IHiS) and Dow Chemical offices. The sessions take place quarterly and run in conjunction with the APAC HR Leaders Networking Series. Ee Lan, Chief HR Officer IHiS, explained how IHiS reorganised talent and culture and introduced an engagement model and 'career journey'. She tackled a huge challenge to 'build a culture' through a very specific industry (IT/healthcare) while also achieving rapid growth and scale. Butch Cassidy, the SEA HR Director, Dow Chemical, discussed three top agenda items on his mind. These were Talent Management and Leadership Effectiveness, Using Flexible Rewards to Differentiate in SEA and M&A Experiences in Asia. Key take-aways included:

• Adopting the 70/20/10 (on the job training/coaching/training) seemed to be the most common approach.
• Understanding personal, as well as professional, motivations has to be linked to Talent Management.
• Coaching, for those in less developed markets, by their peers in mature markets was very effective.
• Adopting a flexible benefits plan in Singapore had been very well received, although quickly highlighted certain quirks in SEA. Rolling this out in Thailand had been an effective way to compete with local organisations that offer attractive schemes that wouldn't be possible for a global MNC to offer across the board.

Presentations from attendees representing Microsoft, HP and Singapore Petroleum focused on Talent Management and creative ideas they had found successful, these included:

• 'Commute assignments', having someone spend four days outside their home country and then return Thursday night.
• Engaging talent both inside and outside work, including personal drivers in career discussions, not just performance reviews.
• Asking what lessons can we learn from other organisations when it comes to talent? One should always be thinking about innovation and best practice wherever it is working.

The next HR Leaders gathering of this group will be in Singapore during October.