Talent & Tech Asia Summit 2024
Lawsgroup's HR director Miko Cheung on the third wave and future of work

Lawsgroup's HR director Miko Cheung on the third wave and future of work

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Miko Cheung, HR Director of Lawsgroup, shares how the retail and property company is navigating the pandemic and her tips on the future of work.

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Any advice for HR now that the third wave of coronavirus has hit Hong Kong?

The HR team has an important role during this critical period, as we have to pay attention to employee engagement and provide a quick response to staff needs during COVID-19.

At Lawsgroup, we’re driven by our HIT culture (H-Happiness, I-Integrity and T-Teamwork) by delivering a sense of passion and optimism in engaging our staff. For instance, we improved the internal communication with staff using WeChat during the peak period of the epidemic and kept delivering inspiring notes in the workplace to keep up team morale.

We believe that effective communication and maintain our HIT spirit are important in this VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) world to show support and encouragement to our staff.

How is the pandemic changing the business for the better?

With such unprecedented challenges, the global business environment becomes more flexible and forward-looking. We have to respond quickly and effectively to the internal and external stakeholder during COVID-19. We believe agility overcomes ambiguity.

We have to strategically review the ever-changing environment with innovative thinking to seize every business opportunity. In fact, coronavirus can be an opportunity to re-define our business and create a new era of hyper-collaboration. For example, different businesses are collaborating at D2 Place (an entertainment and fashion complex) and we also implemented a different kind of policy to support for D2 Place tenants who are encountering a tough market situation.

The future of work is now. Does that apply to Lawsgroup? How do you reimagine your future of work?

Sure, we believe COVID-19 is becoming the accelerator for one of the greatest workplace transformations of our lifetime. How we work, learn, communicate and the workplace will change. Lawsgroup has implemented different kinds of policies in response to COVID-19 with our design thinking approach.

The key factor is empathetic leadership. Empathy is an important element in design thinking. We first have to understand the needs of our staff by listening to them before implementing policies such as a flexible working arrangement and wellness programme. We also plan to change all classroom training to a webinar and e-course format to raise the flexibility at work.

What is the one HR trend you would like to see at Lawsgroup in the short term?

Today more than ever, the future of work is the future of worker wellbeing. Staff engagement is critical in the new normal. Building staff resilience and wellbeing will be our focus in both the short and long term as workers experience uncertainty in dealing with the coronavirus. Therefore, we promote both physical and mental health to fight against the COVID-19 crisis by organising different wellness events, such as a hand sanitizer workshop, fitness classes and mental health workshop.

We are committed to helping build our staff’s wellbeing by delivering a positive message and promoting our HIT culture as HR is trending towards creating a wellbeing culture. This means making a commitment to wellbeing at the individual, team and organisational levels and equipping employees with technology that promotes wellbeing.

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