From CSR to Workplace Culture: Driving Exceptional Experiences at Zung Fu

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This article is brought to you by Zung Fu

At Zung Fu, its company mission, vision and values are not meaningless corporate jargons created by the board or public relations for display. They are inspirational brand positioning statements that infiltrate the company culture and every part of the business.

Jardine Matheson Group formed Jardine International Motors (JIM) in 2019, which comprises three automotive businesses across Asia, including Zung Fu Group in Greater China. Supporting the group-wide transformation programme, Zung Fu rolled out a regional internal engagement campaign called One JIM to align employees with the group’s vision – “Together – to create exceptional experiences that positively shape the future of mobility in Asia”.

At the same time, Zung Fu, the exclusive retailer of Mercedes-Benz Hong Kong, continues to create a workplace where the element of ‘exceptionality’ prevails in its business strategies, including its CSR campaigns.

Zung Fu was awarded two golds for Excellence in CSR Strategy and Excellence in Workplace Culture at HR Distinction Awards 2020.

Yolice Wu, chief people officer underscored the success of Zung Fu’s CSR strategy and One JIM campaign on people and senior leadership involvement.

Strengthening the JIM culture
Group corporate communications & regional HRs have joined hands and co-created the One JIM campaign with an unified storyline and local adaptations. The one-year campaign, aiming to create a consistent JIM story, has been kicked off in the last quarter of 2019. Since the programme launched, the company has witnessed higher levels of awareness and understanding of the new vision, ambitions and values; the programme has also stimulated proactive discussions around the transformation and the positive impact the new strategy would bring on employees’ day-to-day work.

“Achieving One JIM isn’t a top-down, bureaucratic process. It’s a movement – it’s us coming together as like-minded people, building on the best we already have, working in partnership and totally committed to delivering exceptional journeys for everyone. We are all One JIM – and we will only be able to achieve the bold ambition if everyone across the business contributes to making it a success,” said Jessie Keung, head of corporate communications.

To encourage a ‘speak up’ culture, Zung Fu combined a top-down macro approach and a two-way communication model for maximum benefit. Senior management is highly involved in the design and the implementation of the three-phase campaign. Through videos and personal messages, the top management takes the lead and explains the rationale behind the campaign and encourages active participation from the teams. A comprehensive managerial guide has also been developed as a guiding tool for leadership team to ensure they are well equipped to communicate the same key messages in an engaging way and that they all understood what was expected from them and their individual teams - to lead the conversation and stimulate the discussions around the One JIM Big Picture Map – allowing employees the opportunity to give feedback, get themselves familiar with the values, strategy, and opportunities that One JIM represents for them individually.

“It’s not the first time employees heard about the One JIM story. So the challenge is: How do we excite them, build momentum, and create interaction among them towards the same old story? Our key focus is to build an engagement programme that is primarily visual and experiential,” Keung said.

“We want leaders to experience the first-hand benefits and opportunities that being One JIM will bring. That’s why prior to the launch, we have conducted surveys, approached local leaders and the HR community to get their input and ensure that they are ready to take the lead in getting people to embrace this new engagement channel, and bringing the conversation to life,” she added.

In order to gather opinions from employees, the company turned to gamification and digitalisation – to keep the employees engaged throughout with a judiciously designed programme of experiential sessions, game-based learning, practical leadership mentoring and storytelling workshops.

“The games at each destination on our digital microsite are not just for fun, they are educational and experiential as well. There’s always a key message behind each game – by creating these shared, interactive experiences, we have the opportunity to bring people together, create a common understanding, a renewed sense of excitement and a growing confidence in the future of our organisation,” she added.

Taking a multifaceted approach to CSR
Giving back to the community has always been a key mission at Zung Fu.

“Wherever there is an opportunity to participate in any CSR-related activities, we grab it and commit to it,” Wu said.

“We encourage every single employee to share their care and love to people surrounding them and to people in need, whether they know them or not.”

Zung Fu’s sustainability governance board persistently collects opinions from colleagues on CSR strategy and campaigns, develops in-house campaigns or collaborates widely with NGOs to organise or take part in activities to raise funds for a particular social issue.

“The Teddy Love Project, in particular, is my favourite. For each purchase of a lovely teddy bear, the money goes to mental health patient-in-recovery (PIRs),” Wu said. “To me, our employees can place the teddy bears on their tables or take it home and share the story behind it. The teddy bear also serves as a reminder that whenever there’s a chance, please help other people. It’s so warm-hearted to see people returning with a big smiling face.”

In addition, to aid PIRs in rejoining the workforce and building their confidence and necessary experiences, Zung Fu has been conducting coaching workshops and job fairs, as well as recruiting them in numerous departments.

“We do hope by offering jobs that they are interested in and capable of, they can gain their confidence back so that they can step out of their home and return to the workplace as soon as possible,” she added.

“Whatever we do, we always try to reflect on our vision. While the word ‘mobility’ in our vision is often associated with auto-mobility as we are in the automobile industry, we strive to go beyond. Together, in partnerships with the local community, we have a very strong commitment to facilitate social mobility wherever possible. Through our CSR efforts, we genuinely hope to shape the future mobility in our society,” Keung concluded.

To sum up, Zung Fu’s emphasis on its people and culture are the key drivers to the business success.