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"In line with our core values of care & respect, collaboration and innovation, we are committed to hearing our employees’ views, to build an inclusive, engaging, agile and innovative workforce," Benjamin Sim, Manager – People & Organisation said.
With its established policies for hybrid working, and targeted initiatives to create a conducive work environment, British multinational mining company Anglo American understands the importance of staying relevant with various employment trends, which can result in increased productivity levels and job satisfaction amongst other benefits.
While the organisation's policies provide guidance on preferred work arrangements, the team also recognises the importance of encouraging employees back into the office to facilitate collaboration and innovation across the teams and business. In doing so, the organisation further invested in and upgraded its office amenities to cater to employees’ needs.
Now, not only do the majority of employees continue to work on a hybrid model but concurrently, it has also observed better utilisation of its office spaces. With this, Anglo American managed to clinch a silver award for 'Excellence in Hybrid Working' at the HR Excellence Awards 2023, Singapore.
In an interview with HRO, Benjamin Sim, Manager – People & Organisation, Anglo American Marketing Singapore speaks more on this success.
Q Congratulations on your top performance at the HR Excellence Awards! How has your HR and people strategy contributed to your success this year?
At Anglo American, we recognise the importance of staying relevant with various employment trends and sustaining a hybrid working arrangement to increase productivity levels, job satisfaction and foster a sense of belonging and a culture of inclusion.
In line with our core values of care & respect, collaboration and innovation, we are committed to hearing our employees’ views, to build an inclusive, engaging, agile and innovative workforce.
Our success is largely attributed to established policies for hybrid working, and targeted initiatives to create a conducive work environment for our employees, whether they work from home or the office.
Q Looking back at your achievements, what aspect of your HR initiatives are you most proud of and why?
We take pride in sustaining a hybrid working arrangement and ensuring a fine balance between flexible working and working from the office.
While we have established hybrid working policies to provide clarity and guidance to employees on preferred work arrangements, we also recognise the importance of encouraging our employees back into the office to facilitate collaboration and innovation across the teams and our business.
To do so, the organisation further invested in and upgraded our office amenities to cater for our employees’ needs. This was a deliberate effort by the company after conducting surveys and polls to gather employee feedback and understand their preferences for returning to the office.
Our office events and trainings have been, and continue to be, mostly organised in a hybrid and inclusive fashion, giving our employees the flexibility to attend in person or participate online.
Q During your HR journey, what were some significant obstacles you faced, and how did you overcome them to achieve excellence?
With the transition to the new norm of hybrid working at Anglo American in 2021, it was imperative for us to act quickly and put in place a robust global IT infrastructure to support employees’ access to our business systems and applications seamlessly.
One of Anglo American’s core values is safety. As employees would be spending more time working from home, their physical safety and wellbeing while working remotely was one of the key concerns for the organisation. To address this, we went the extra mile to help our employees set up a conducive workstation by giving them incentives to purchase the needed furniture and work equipment to work from home.
To ensure that hybrid working continued to meet our objectives of high productivity, a strong communication strategy was required and deployed in the form of clear guidelines to help our employees and their line managers manage work arrangements.
Q How does your organisation measure the success and impact of your HR initiatives?
When an initiative is implemented, we derive metrics to measure the effectiveness and employee satisfaction. We then deploy and leverage on different communication channels to obtain employee feedback. Through formal mechanisms such as pulse surveys and polls, to informal platforms such as organised focus groups, we take our employee feedback seriously. We regularly measure our engagement scores and review the employee feedback on areas such as organisational culture, and team dynamics to decide on next action steps, if any.
Post implementation of our hybrid working policy in 2021, the majority of our employees have continued to work on a hybrid model but concurrently, we have also observed better utilisation of our office spaces which suggests that employees also value working from the office and interacting with other teams.
Q In what direction do you see the HR/people function evolving in the future, considering the emerging trends?
The future of work is no longer about the traditional nine to five office jobs, and while technology will be a key driver to reshape our working lives on a day-to-day basis, it is also important that companies and their HR function can adapt and put in place a robust change management strategy to ensure their employees are on the right journey.
Our people are very much at the heart of our business – building a workplace culture that is inclusive and forward looking will help to differentiate us as an Employer of Choice.
Lead image / Provided
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