How Hong Kong employers are rethinking work practices and adapting to talent’s changing needs

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This article is brought to you by JobsDB Hong Kong.

Reskilling, upskilling, leveraging technology, and adapting to the future are high on the list of priorities.

Think back to your first job in your career – what were you doing differently to now? How have you been able to learn on-the-job, through training courses, or from your peers? Most importantly, what are some of the new skills that you’ve earned along the way that keep you relevant and future-proof in a highly volatile job market?

If you’ve enjoyed going down memory lane with those questions, we know you take reskilling and upskilling seriously, and for your workforce, that’s music to their ears.

Talent in Hong Kong is yearning for opportunities to develop their skills portfolio – whether it is out of personal ambition & drive, to combat the ongoing phenomenon of ‘brain drain’, or simply, the fear of job loss in an environment undergoing automation – and the best employers are ready for the task.

The most progressive employers are ramping up their talent marketplace to boost internal mobility. They are ensuring that a majority of a company’s future roles are filled by current employees, i.e. growing their own timber.

And most interestingly, they are ensuring that the adoption of technology goes hand-in-hand with upskilling, be it in the application of artificial intelligence to deepen value-added work, machine learning to spot skilling gaps, or a hybrid working environment where collaboration can thrive despite the distances of working remotely. Technology is also being utilised to leverage data and analytics that generate people-based insights for decision making purposes that go beyond HR’s remit to support decisions in the boardroom.

These transformation strategies rely on solid HR leadership to define what the function stands for today. The vast majority of chief human resources officers (CHROs) sees the role of HR as moving away from being collaborator and connector to a true change agent, talent developer, and employee experience architect.

With this ambitious mission in mind, JobsDB Hong Kong set out to identify some of the most progressive employers in the HKSAR through JobsDB - The Hong Kong HR Awards 2021/22 to commend outstanding HR heroes in the landscape. While being aware of organisations facing the challenges brought on by the epidemic, the team strived to identify those employers who continued to provide quality services for talent through adaptability, flexibility, and creativity.

jobs db hong kong awards provided

The process of selecting the winners involved a jury panel comprising industry leaders as well as votes by more than 4,000 members of the public. Under the theme ‘Shaping the future of work’, awards were handed out in five categories: mission, technology, people, recruitment, and place.

At the session, Isaac Shao, Asia Head of Unification & Transformation, SEEK Asia, commented that the pandemic has changed and challenged companies’ in the work mode, talent recruitment, and management of enterprises. Thus, comprehensive crisis management has been essential.

Bill Lee, Managing Director, JobsDB Hong Kong, added: “The use of talented human resources and technology has improved greatly during this period. Therefore, after the epidemic, companies must earnestly consider the work models of the new generation, and create the most ideal and suitable work environment and space considering the proportion of those working from home and in the office.’’

Meet some of the winners below.

awardees jobsdb hongk kong provided

Grand Award: