Susanna Yau
Director of human resources, The Peninsula Hong Kong

Human resources landscape  

Talent management and development, and a structured succession planning strategy are key aspects we will focus on this year. The improvement of employee quality is critical and to a large extent achieved through continued learning. Training resources have been more than doubled to provide continued learning and development opportunities for employees.  

Policies  

With the expansion of The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels in recent years, namely, The Peninsula Tokyo, The Peninsula Shanghai and The Peninsula Paris, we are a fervent believer in structured succession planning. We wish to prepare employees with suitable qualifications in the flagship hotels to step up and progress when opportunity arises in other sister properties. Hence, talent management and development, and structured succession planning will work very well hand in hand. In addition, we have an education subsidy for full-time employees where they can apply for external job-related training and education programmes in their own time. It has always been in place and the ceiling has been lifted to benefit a wider range of employees. Aiming at a structured system to improve language skills of our staff, the hotel acknowledges the increasing importance of Putonghua by offering in-house Putonghua classes and hiring a teacher on site.  

Expected results  

We expect our staff to be more multitalented, multilingual and to have the confidence to overcome economic, social or cultural issues that are prevalent in any hotel environment. These efforts also act as a tool for staff retention. It nurtures and develops our staff's knowledge and skills. Most importantly, we hope they can learn.

Florence Cheung
Vice-president, human resources, Wharf T&T

Human resources landscape

Since the economy is recovering, there will be expectations and pressure for salary increases. For the company, this will lead to challenges in terms of staff engagement and human capital costs. Another important factor will be deciding how best to attract and retain members of Generation Y - those born in the 1980s and early 1990s - and avoiding conflict that might arise as a result of differences in outlook with older employees.

Besides that, work-life balance will become a priority, so HR teams must be able to ensure employees get the breaks they need.

There is no doubt that new challenges will appear in the coming year and we must be ready to deal with whatever comes up.  

Policies  

To engage and retain colleagues, the company has promised to increase staff salaries at a percentage higher than the rate of inflation. We will also continue to allocate resources to accommodate different types of employees.

For example, there will be more workshops for managers on how to integrate and manage Gen Y staff and we will provide more support and training for experienced employees. In addition, staff are now encouraged to take "family care leave" for the birthday of their loved ones, or when their children are taking examinations.  

Expected results

We understand that it takes time for any new policy to bring about noticeable results. It is often a slow process and can take more than a month or two. Our priority, though, is to see colleagues growing with the company, developing their professional knowledge and enjoying their work.