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"From talent attraction to talent engagement, talent development to talent retention, we have carefully crafted various initiatives for employees to understand what it is like to have an immersive working experience," Benjamin Dorsch, Managing Director, explains.
Arvato Systems Malaysia has been operating since 2005 and has been one of the key development hubs for its headquarters in Germany. As a diverse and dynamic organisation, the team prides itself on its agility as a group to provide effective and quality performance whilst emphasising on work-life balance.
"As a business that truly values the welfare of our employees, we focus and promote work-life balance through various ways and measures to ensure and upkeep a high level of employee satisfaction throughout their career," says Benjamin Dorsch, Managing Director, Arvato Systems Malaysia.
At the third annual edition of Employee Experience Awards - Malaysia in 2023, Arvato Systems Malaysia was the proud winner of three awards:
- Gold for 'Best Rewards and Recognition Programme',
- Silver for 'Best Remote Learning Initiative', and
- Bronze for 'Best HR Digital Transformation Strategy'
To celebrate this milestone, we catch up with Dorsch on the key strategies and approaches in place that have led the company to achieve what he calls a sweet balance in ensuring the best 360-experience for employees, culminating in these wins.
Q How do you ensure your employee experience initiatives are aligned with your business objectives?
At Arvato Systems Malaysia (ASM), our business objectives are to ensure we strive for excellence across three pillars – workplace, operational, and people. When we design and initiate any employee experience initiatives, it will always revolve around the three pillars. This is to ensure there’s consistency and sustenance towards our initiatives.
Our HR department plays an important role in bridging employees, the management, and the business via various initiatives. The way to go forward is to continue to champion and promote open communication, transparency, and progressive learning. As we continue to grow the business, it is vital that our employees feel they are part of the organisation’s success.
Q Can you provide examples of how the organisation has invested in the employee experience?
From doing market research for benchmarks to taking into account our employees’ suggestions and feedback, we have found a sweet balance in ensuring our employees have the best 360-experience at ASM. From talent attraction to talent engagement, talent development to talent retention, we have carefully crafted various initiatives for employees to understand what it is like to have an immersive working experience.
We believe the investment in our people is invaluable and it translates to having happy and satisfied employees. We want our employees to have their wellbeing taken care of and we take it upon ourselves to ensure their benefits at ASM are comparable, if not better than many other organisations. For instance, we have special benefits for our expatriates who are relocating to Malaysia, a health and wellness programme, competitive allowances, and various employee recognition programmes to acknowledge their hard work and commitment to the organisation.
Q What are some of the key challenges that you faced in implementing your EX initiatives, and how did you overcome them?
For us, we perceive challenges as a way to motivate and push us further to improve our HR strategies, see things in a different perspective, and understand better why we need to adapt to digital transformation. Our main challenges are finding the right skillset and adapting to different forms of digitised strategies such as automation.
For us to find the right skillset, we have leveraged different platforms to maximise our talent acquisition strategies. This includes using modern recruitment tools, digitising the candidate experience, proactive talent sourcing, maximising the utilisation of new job platforms, engagement through social media channels, and attracting young talents through university engagements.
As for adapting to digitalisation, we understand that it takes time for employees to accept change. Therefore, we always ensure there’s proper communication, smooth transition, and continued education on how such changes can benefit the employees in the long run.
Q Do you have processes to measure the effectiveness of your EX initiatives, and what metrics do you use to evaluate success?
Two of our most effective measures to evaluate the successes of our initiatives are through employee surveys and a virtual suggestion box. It is important that our employees share their thoughts and feedback in order for us to improve the initiative, ensure we are on the right track, and it also acts as an evaluation tool.
On the other hand, the virtual suggestion box is an initiative launched during the pandemic for employees’ ease of access when sharing their thoughts and feedback. The suggestions are then shared during the town hall where solutions are provided.
At ASM, we highly value transparency and open communication. Through the employee surveys and virtual suggestion box, employees channel their ideas while ASM’s HR personnel ensure that actions were taken in consideration of feasibility from business standpoint and status updates of action plans are also shared in the company’s Intranet.
Q Finally, what role do leaders and managers play in driving a beautiful employee experience, and how are they held accountable for the success of these initiatives?
At the end of the day, we believe the success of our employee experience initiatives is a collective effort from everyone. What we do differently is ensure that we involve all leaders and managers in the decision-making process. We get to understand their thought processes and find suitable solutions / recommendations when initiatives are being rolled out.
In general, our leaders and managers feel appreciated and heard to be in a setting that allows them to share their ideas and actualising them to contribute to the success of the organisation. One example of where we see our leaders and managers work well together and are very much involved is the quarterly orientation for new joiners. Each department will prepare materials for knowledge sharing during the orientation to further introduce the roles, responsibilities, and the nature of the work they are doing.
On a regular basis, the Managing Director has coffee chat sessions with the new joiners to showcase how the organisation has been established and he opens the floor to any questions. As he continues to lead by example for all levels of employees at the organisation, we believe respect for each other is always needed, the passion to learn, and to encourage open communication & transparency.
This is the type of culture and values we cultivate at Arvato Systems Malaysia.
Photo: Provided
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