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Listening to the voices of its current and potential employees, HK Express has invested in meaningful and timely interventions to cultivate a responsive and agile culture.
This article is brought to you by HK Express
A “Gotta Go” spirit to enhance travel accessibility, as well as an employee-centric culture anchored on five core values: collaborative, efficient, entrepreneurial, reliable, and vibrant – HK Express (UO) is truly on a journey to help its travellers and employees alike to discover limitless experiences.
A member of the Cathay Group, HK Express has enabled tens of millions of passengers to travel, be it for leisure, business, visiting loved ones, or chasing new adventures. And it is this philosophy of growth and freedom that the leadership advocates in creating a remarkable employee experience as well – after all, happy staff leads to happy customers.
So what is the recipe for this employer to become the most respected low-cost carrier (LCC) in Asia? “Simplicity, agility, and efficiency – these principles underpin our business and people strategies and will help us become Asia's best low-cost carrier.” says Kelvin Lo, General Manager, People Experience, HK Express.
Let’s pack our bags and take a journey into how these practices come to life through the people strategies in place at HK Express.
Taking off, the departure point is employer branding, whereby the objective is to go beyond surface-level solutions to attract and retain top talent and address the fundamental needs that drive individuals to seek meaningful employment. The UO employer brand is proudly promoted on LinkedIn, career fairs, and through awards and recognitions. Brand presence is increased by sharing corporate updates, event highlights, leadership spotlights, and employee stories. This attracts a diverse audience and achieves high organic reach and engagement on online and offline channels.
A campaign called 'Gotta Go With U' focuses on connecting the audience with UO people stories, specifically celebrating remarkable people as part of HK Express's 10th Anniversary. By sharing these stories, HK Express humanises the brand and creates an emotional connection with the audience. This helps to build trust, showcase positive employee experiences, and attract talent.
We take a stopover in this journey to find out about HK Express’ innovation in recruitment. Recruiting frontline crew members after the pandemic has not been easy. Yet, with aviation demand picking up, HK Express responded and has hired more than 600 crew members since Q1 2023.
This was made possible by recognising the key hurdles in recruitment, namely, becoming a cabin crew member or a pilot involves extensive training and certification processes, which by nature of being time-consuming and costly, may deter potential candidates.
HK Express has tackled this challenge head on by instituting innovative recruitment strategies, such as expanding hiring overseas, introducing a unique assessment centre approach, and launching new recruitment marketing campaigns to target segments such as young travellers to not only ‘fly’ with UO but ‘work’ in UO.
Our final destination in this journey is HK Express’ talent mobility strategy.
Having worked hard to come up with out-of-the-box recruitment ideas, the airline provides employees opportunities to enhance their experience once they are on board. Having understood the challenges talent face, for example, many find that living and working in Hong Kong is expensive, thus overseas cabin crew and pilots from Mainland China are given an opportunity to live in nearby Greater Bay Area (GBA) cities such as Zhuhai, Shenzhen to allow them a short commuting time for work. Not only can they enjoy more reasonable living expenses, but a lot of them get the opportunities to go home and visit their family as well.
As we touchdown from this exciting journey, Lo shares some key milestones: “Being the first airline in Hong Kong to recruit HK-based cabin crew from the GBA region since the flight resumption, we offer the opportunity for GBA cabin crew to live in the area while working in Hong Kong. This initiative has yielded significant positive results, with a diverse cabin crew comprising seven nationalities, of which over 13% are from Mainland China.”
“While we prioritise hiring in Hong Kong, we also extend our talent search worldwide to build a robust talent pipeline and welcome individuals who share UO values to join our expanding network.”
Another big milestone has been the company winning key awards at Human Resources Online’s Employee Experience Awards 2024, which serve as a testament to the company’s culture. Lo affirms: “We are proud of these achievements and are grateful for our employees' and stakeholders' support and dedication. Together, we will continue enhancing the best talent attraction and employee experience for all of us in reaching new heights.”
And to all aspiring cabin crew and pilots out there, Lo has a special message: “When you take on the HK Express people Journey, you will be inspired by the sheer energy and will power to move the dial and get things done. There is never a dull moment and certainly plenty of excitement when you experience first-hand the growth of a young and dynamic airline.”
Photos / HK Express
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