90% of Hong Kong businesses face workplace tech challenge

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While human resources practitioners in Hong Kong grapple with the disruption of HR tech, it has also been revealed that businesses in the city face a greater challenge training employees in new technology than global peers do.

A total of 90% of Hong Kong business leaders believe it will be challenging training employees to adapt to new technology – higher than the APAC (88%) and global (78%) averages.

More than three-quarters of Hong Kong business leaders are finding it difficult to recruit talent with appropriate IT skills – higher than the global average of 71%.

While just 61% of Hong Kong businesses have increased their staff training budgets – lower than the 66% recorded across APAC and 63% globally.

New technologies are rapidly changing workplace dynamics, however, research by specialised recruiter Robert Half shows that Hong Kong business leaders find it significantly more challenging to train and hire staff to implement new technology than their global peers.

In other findings by specialist recruiter, Robert Half, business leaders globally recognise the importance of training to assist with adapting and implementing new technologies within their organisations, however many think their efforts could be hampered by unavoidable challenges.

“Hong Kong has ambitions to become a global innovation and technology hub, however adopting new technologies on an organisational and workforce level is imperative to driving digital transformation across the city state,” said Elaine Lam, associate director of Robert Half Hong Kong.

“While technology is the driver behind business transformation, it is human capital that will determine its success, highlighting the need for Hong Kong business leaders to prioritise change management, upskilling and reskilling their existing workforce, and recruiting the right talent to adapt to new technology,” she added.

On a positive note, although Hong Kong business are not increasing their training budget at the same rate of their global peers, Hong Kong companies have implemented a variety of training options to help staff adapt to new technology, the research found. These include:

• 48% in-person training through seminars and courses
• 38% working with a mentor
• 36% online courses
• 29% knowledge transfer from interim/contractors/experts to employees