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Working in Asia Pacific: Key Hr and Leadership Priorities RESEARCH REPORT WORKING IN ASIA PACIFIC: KEY HR AND LEADERSHIP PRIORITIES FOR 2019 Sara Gopal, Julia Wellbelove, Meysam Poorkavoos and Carol Hatcher About Roffey Park About Profile About The Next Step Institute Established in 2005, Profile is Asia’s leading independent Established in 1998, The Next Step is a national talent search & selection firm. We offer bespoke recruitment and consultancy business with international partners who work human capital solutions to financial services, commercial with clients who seek to Buy, Borrow or Build capability. Roffey Park Institute is an internationally renowned and professional services clients. The business has since expanded to include The Safe leadership institute with offices in the UK, Europe and Step and The HR Space, together they sit under the parent Asia Pacific. We develop and facilitate action-based, real- Across our offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai company – The Next Group. life learning, qualifications and research tailored to the and Beijing, we provide access to a longstanding network explicit change and challenge needs of our clients and throughout Asia, bolstered by a team of consultants and We deliver integrated talent solutions that include executive their people. With over 70 years’ experience of leadership, in-house researchers with specialist expertise at the sector search and selection, and interim management. Our management, organisational development and human and functional level. From market intelligence to executive bespoke solutions include assessments and development resources, we work with organisations across the world in search, we use robust tools to find and secure the right for the HR and HSE community. We also deliver a full suite the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. leaders for your organisation, and offer key market insights of public and in-house development programs to build to inform your talent strategy. business capability in a constantly changing world of work. Roffey Park Institute’s mission is to enhance the welfare of all people at work, to focus on how people think, act and To learn more, visit www.profileasia.com or contact: To learn more visit us on www.thenextstep.com.au or contact us at change – together. As a result, we develop your people so Hong Kong Office that they develop your organisation, sustainability and for Sydney 02 82562500 the benefit of all. Tel: +852 3589 6800 E-mail: [email protected] [email protected] Research at Roffey Park Melbourne 03 9664 0900 Singapore Office Roffey Park Institute funds its own research programme with [email protected] Tel: +65 6513 2570 the aim of meeting one of its charitable objectives: namely E-mail: [email protected] to conduct and publish research in support of the health Brisbane 07 3169 2188 and welfare of people at work. Our research improves the [email protected] world of work and organisational performance by sharing Shanghai Office knowledge of good practice in people management, Tel: +86 21 6080 0628 Perth 0423 947 104 leadership and organisational development. E-mail: [email protected] For more information visit www.roffeypark.com or contact: Beijing Office Singapore Office Tel: +86 10 8514 8000 Tel: +65 6549 7840 E-mail: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Singapore Licence No: 16S8069 UK Office Tel: +44 (0) 1293 851644 Email: [email protected] WORKING IN ASIA PACIFIC: KEY HR AND LEADERSHIP PRIORITIES 2019 Sara Gopal, Julia Wellbelove, Meysam Poorkavoos and Carol Hatcher April 2019 ISBN: 978-0-907416-39-5 Acknowledgements The authors would like to give special thanks to our colleagues at Profile Search & Selection and The Next Step, who have been instrumental in helping us gain a strong response rate to the survey, and in thinking about the design and implementation of the project. The authors would also like to especially thank Alison Hoare and Debbie Beaney for the design and typesetting of this report; as well as Janice McBrown and Chapin Cheney for proofing the report. Working in Asia Pacific 2019 Contents Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 4 Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................... 5 Building a more confident and well-equipped HR profession ...............................................7 Attracting and retaining top talent in a competitive job market ...........................................15 Creating a thriving culture through leadership ........................................................................25 Building a culture of openness around mental health ...........................................................33 Appendix 1: Respondent profile ....................................................................................................41 Appendix 2: Methodology .............................................................................................................45 Appendix 3: About the team .........................................................................................................46 © Roffey Park Institute 2019 3 Working in Asia Pacific 2019 Introduction This report presents the findings of Roffey Park Institute, Profile Search & Selection and The Next Step’s research - Working in Asia Pacific: Key HR and Leadership Priorities for 2019. The report covers the views of employees on working life in Singapore, Hong Kong, mainland China and Australia. This survey is in its fourth year and is the sister report to Roffey Park Institute’s annual Management Agenda which covers the UK and Europe. The aim of the research is to highlight employee views on working life and provide rigorous and relevant data which will enable leaders in organisations across the four countries to decide what they may need to start, stop and continue doing in order to build and further develop their organisation to ensure continued success. Respondents from this year’s survey included 970 managers and non-managers from Singapore, 608 from Hong Kong, 492 from mainland China, and 732 from Australia. The respondents to this year’s survey were both HR and non-HR professionals of varying levels of seniority. The respondents were from a wide range of industrial sectors and from organisations both large and small. Details on the profile of respondents, and the organisations they work for, can be found in Appendix 1. Information on how the research was conducted can be found in the Methodology section in Appendix 2. The report covers a broad range of aspects of organisational life, from leadership, AI, HR, organisational culture and change, to well-being and diversity. © Roffey Park Institute 2019 4 Working in Asia Pacific 2019 Executive Summary Organisations need to develop the developers The capabilities and skills of HR professionals are critical to ensuring organisations and their employees can adapt to the changing business and market demands. Our research identifies an urgent need for HR professionals to build analytical capability to help drive engagement and performance, and technical skills, such as organisational development & design and managing (culture) change. A crisis in HR confidence? We found both HR and non-HR professionals reticent to rate any aspect of HR capability as excellent. Confidence in HR to deliver for the business across all capabilities was quite low, specifically in relation to their use of AI, analytics and their approach to succession planning. We encourage organisations to urgently bring people from across their business to work together to address this perceived capability gap. Looking for green shoots of confidence we identified, from HR professionals and non-HR professionals alike, a growing HR capability and reputation in the areas of developing inclusive and diverse workforces and facilitating learning. HR need to guide organisations to find people who ‘fit’ culturally, and engage with them during change The data shows that the biggest talent challenge for organisations is finding people with the right cultural fit, and that was a greater barrier than finding people with the right technical skill-set. Given the ever-present demands on organisations to adapt and change, combined with the challenges inherent in implementing change and the need for HR professionals to develop capability in managing change, it is perhaps unsurprising our research identified employee engagement and morale as a key people challenge. Is it that we are uncovering the impact of unsuccessful change occurring in organisations across Asia Pacific? © Roffey Park Institute 2019 5 Working in Asia Pacific 2019 Leaders and HR professionals need to drive more inclusive Mental health issues at work on the rise but positive workplaces where both ends of the age spectrum thrive change is happening All the countries surveyed are facing an ageing population issue. The impact of this Data from across all countries in our survey tells us that work-related mental health and demographic change on the workplace was identified in our research; managing the well-being issues are reported to be on the rise, and for the majority workplace stress is multi-generational workforce and building succession planning processes (likely to be increasing. Organisational politics and a lack of strategic direction are consistently felt to in anticipation of large numbers of
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