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Joann Goh, Senior HR Manager, shares more on the group's effective change programme amidst a fast changing and increasingly competitive environment.
The world’s leading independent tank storage company, Vopak Terminals Singapore introduced a slew of initiatives to deliver step changes in people, service, safety, operations and technology. Not only have the group's efforts been rewarded with both business and people results, it also won gold in Excellence in HR Change Management and Excellence in Business Transformation at the 10th edition of HR Excellence Awards 2022, Singapore.
Joann Goh, Senior HR Manager, Vopak Terminals Singapore shares how the group increased buy-in from the workforce on its change programme and saw a steady decrease in voluntary attrition, all amidst a fast changing and increasingly competitive environment.
Q Congratulations on the achievement! Could you take us through the highs-and-lows of your people strategy?
Overview of Royal Vopak and Vopak Singapore Terminals (VTS)
Vopak has 400 years of long-standing history. As the world’s leading independent tank storage company, we connect supply and demand for these products and enable the delivery of products that are vital to the economy and daily lives of people on a global scale.
In Singapore, we operate in five terminals, namely;
- Penjuru Terminal
- Sakra Terminal
- Sebarok Terminal
- Banyan terminal
- BCSS; a consortium comprising of VTS, Geostock SAS and Jurong Consultants.
Given the fast changing environment, the industry that we operate in has grown more complex and increasingly competitive. Inevitably, this has resulted in increased pressure and challenges to meet our long term financial ambitions.
We also faced a great deal of resistance from the ground as many were unable to appreciate the purpose of the change programme.
Q How did the HR team identify and align the business & employee needs, and craft out this perfect solution?
Apart from dealing with the direct impacts sustained from COVID-19, we had to also re-look into our business fundamentals including organisational structures, policies and processes, and introduce viable change which would adapt to the new normal. Our workforce needed to be agile, flexible and resilient, essentially relevant and future ready. We then embarked on the change programme - ‘One VTS’ in 2022; a programme of initiatives to deliver step changes in people, service, safety, operations and technology.
Our people strategy focused on three key areas:
- Fundamentals; revisiting the basics
- Engagement; establishing a high engagement culture
- Growth; upskilling our people managers
HR also implemented a robust communication strategy to raise awareness and reiterate the significance of the change programme to our employees at various junctures and requested their partnership with the management team on this journey.
Q Could you share the results that your strategy has delivered – be it on the business, HR, or people side?
Business results:
- We maintained a lower personnel cost and saw an increase in the productivity of the workforce; we were able to reassign colleagues to new job opportunities
HR / people results:
- At a high level, we were able to increase the buy-in from the workforce on the change programme, where we saw more employees being committed and proud to be on this change journey together with the management team.
- Moreover, we also saw a steady decrease in our voluntary attrition since we embarked on the change journey, which continued to remain relatively healthy in the subsequent months.
- There was also an increase in the people competency as we saw progress on the people manager’s capability, wherein 70% of the people managers were applying key learnings from the trainings to their daily work interactions with their team members
Q What is your message to all the stakeholders who have supported you in this journey?
Thank you to all the key stakeholders who were onboarded with the programme and partnered us on this journey.
Q What are you most excited about when you think about the future of HR?
The role of HR is continuously evolving, just as with the business climate. HR is and will continue to be the driving force for many initiatives; ranging from talents, leadership development, to workforce engagement.
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