Winning Secrets: Leadership development is embedded throughout the People strategy at FUJIFILM Business Innovation Singapore

Hiow Yim Ong, Head of People, Culture & CSR, FUJIFILM Business Innovation Singapore explains how this approach helps to foster DEIB, strengthen employee engagement, and develop a growth mindset in people.

FUJIFILM Business Innovation Singapore is committed to continue offering innovations to businesses globally to help maximise their organisational strengths.

The 11^th edition of the HR Excellence Awards, Singapore (2023) saw FUJIFILM Business Innovation Singapore winning the silver award for 'Excellence in Leadership Development'.

On this milestone, HRO catches up with Hiow Yim Ong, Head of People, Culture & CSR, FUJIFILM Business Innovation Singapore on the importance of fostering DEIB, strengthening employee engagement, developing a growth mindset in people, and striving for operational excellence.

Q Congratulations on your top performance at the HR Excellence Awards! How has your HR and people strategy contributed to your success this year?

Thank you, we were overjoyed to receive silver for Excellence in Leadership Development, amongst the best in the industry.

At FUJIFILM Business Innovation Singapore (FBSG), we truly believe that if 'We grow our people, our people will grow our business' and for this reason, Leadership Development is embedded throughout our People Strategy, which consists of four key pillars, established to achieve our mission of Employer of Choice.

• Fostering diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging to create a thriving workplace that is innovative and inclusive.
• Strengthening employee engagement, experience and wellbeing.
• Developing a growth and high performance mindset in our people.
• Striving for operational excellence and enabling data-driven business decisions through HR insights.

Q Looking back at your achievements, what aspect of your HR initiatives are you most proud of and why?

At FUJIFILM Business Innovation Singapore, Transformation is in our blood and our HR team are true business partners, playing a vital role in our continuous business transformation and ensuring our business is ready for the future of work, by:

• Investing in people development to empower them to grow and progress  
• Going back to basics, getting all people managers onboard to unlearn and relearn
• Forming a support community, instilling coaching habits to draw out the best in each employee
• Challenging the ways we work, with our hybrid working model
• Listening to our employees and responding, which has seen an improvement in our Employee Engagement results, which we are very proud of.

Q During your HR journey, what were some significant obstacles you faced, and how did you overcome them to achieve excellence?

The pandemic presented unique challenges to our employees and our organisation. During this time, we also changed our business name to FUJIFILM Business Innovation Singapore Pte. Ltd., formerly Fuji Xerox Singapore Pte Ltd, embodying our commitment to continue as a company that always pursues business innovation.

We saw the skills required by our business change and they will continue to do so, but our Never Stop, to be Ever Better mindset, has allowed our business to continue to transform, as we invest in self-development, our openness to unlearn and relearn and commitment to step in and step up to make a meaningful impact.

This mindset is reinforced across all levels with prolific communication, to help our employees understand that they need to co-invest their time and take ownership of their own personal and professional growth.

Q How does your organisation measure the success and impact of your HR initiatives?

The impact of our HR initiatives is measured through hard & soft measurements and various channels:

1. Employee satisfaction through engagement surveys, with detailed metrics on employee engagement, DEI, workstyle and wellbeing
2. Dashboards measuring attrition trends & reasons for leaving
3. Regular face to face engagement and focus groups with stakeholders
4. Business results
5. Awards such as this and benchmarking against industry standards

Q In what direction do you see the HR/people function evolving in the future, considering the emerging trends?

Artificial intelligence and machine learning will replace some human tasks and jobs and change the skills that the workforce needs within and outside Human Resources.

We will need to equip our people to be future-ready, keeping abreast of new trends & technology, learning new skills and cultivating new ways of thinking. We will play an even more critical role to nurture agility and adaptability, upskilling and reskilling our people to prepare them for tomorrow.

Read more interviews on why organisations have won trophies for their HR practices - head over to our Winning Secrets section!

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