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Photos and roundup: Employee Benefits Asia 2017, Singapore

The region’s biggest conference dedicated to compensation & benefits strategy, Employee Benefits Asia 2017, Singapore, was held at Shangri-La Hotel on 18 May and 19 May 2017. This year’s conference was produced by Priya Veeriah and saw over 100 attendees sharing industry ideas through a series of case-studies, panel discussions, and keynote presentations.

Day One

Organised by Human Resources, and produced by Priya Veeriah. the conference kickstarted with a keynote presentation by Shah Rouf, chief business development officer at AIA group. Sharing his expertise on making a real difference to employee benefits, he said: “When it comes to the top three factors of job satisfaction in Asia, work-life balance comes at the top, followed by salary and benefits; and work location.”

Check out photos from the conference here.

After a quick morning break, delegates were welcomed back with a panel discussion moderated by Rupert Slezak, total rewards lead, AMEA region at Mondelēz International. Speaking on designing a sustainable total rewards package, the panellists included Alvin Fu, chief corporate solutions officer at AIA; Stephanie Tan, HR business partner APAC at Fitbit; and Stephane Michaud, senior director at Mitsubishi Corporation.

During this discussion, Tan said: “Yes, it is hard to convince management since it’s not something tangible in terms of ROI. Regardless, HR must continue to work on it as we can still gather feedback from employee engagement surveys.”

EBA SG 2017 delegates

Presenting the next quick-fire case study, Geoffrey Kuhn, SVP and global health analytics leader at Aon shared his views on the future of employee benefits. As he moved to the topic of adopting a data-driven approach, he said: “Moving away from the traditional approach to a data-driven one allows you to produce compelling data insights, rather than just masses of it.”

As we invited the next speaker, Webster Zhou, total rewards director at Jabil, steered the conference towards the topic of cost and governance. Apart from sharing Jabil’s total rewards model, Zhou also spoke on setting the business context, while grappling with total rewards challenges in APAC.

Check out photos from the conference here.

The delegates then took a break to further share success stories and experiences over lunch. After that, it was another round of case-study by Sim Choo Lee, head of HR of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA). At the institution, employees get to enjoy a comprehensive range of benefits such as its family care leave of up to 9 days.

On that note, Sim said: “Work-life balance is not about working lesser (hours); but more of work-life integration.”

Before the delegates take a quick coffee break, they were presented with a case study by Aspa Lekka, MD of foodpanda Singapore. Sharing on what truly matters to employees, she revealed the 6 important factors - salary, career growth, leadership, job title, company vision, and family culture.  

“It’s important to have a clear plan for staff on how they can grow, even if they have a low starting pay. You need to tell what they’re gaining from joining you,” Lekka highlighted.

Check out photos from the conference here.

After the last coffee break, delegates dived into another case study by Dawn Wong, GM of HR and administration of Rakuten. Here, she gave insights on the importance of transforming the business front with HR strategies in the early stages. Not only that, she shared how intangible rewards are critical to a total rewards strategy.

Speaking more on intangible rewards, the next speaker - Sun Ho, founder of LittleLives - addressed how to seamlessly blend the company culture with organisational development. In fact, she shared how at LittleLives, they start Mondays with chit-chats, story sharing and a little cheer just to get rid of the blues.

Concluding the conference on a high note, she said: “Someone who goes beyond a normal (employee’s) behaviour is what you want to bring to the team.”

Special thanks to all sponsors and exhibitors:

Platinum Sponsor- AIA The Real Life Company

Gold Sponsors- CXA Group- Mercer Marsh Benefits™- Virgin Pulse

Silver Sponsors- Aetna International- Aon

Exhibitors- Banyan Tree & Angsana Bintan- Management Development and Consultancy (MDC)- Prudential- TMF Group

Event Partner- Health Can Be Fun

Association partners- British Chamber of Commerce, Singapore- European Chamber of Commerce, Singapore- Japan HR Society- International Professional Managers Association- Vietnam Human Resources Association

Media Partners- Centre of Executive Education- Clocate- Senior HR Forum

Follow us on Telegram and on Instagram @humanresourcesonline for all the latest HR and manpower news from around the region!

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