Rewarding Employees to Take 10,000 Steps Daily for a Healthier Lifestyle
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Ms. Terenze Li |
Living a fast-paced life, office workers are always too busy to do exercise. As NWS Holdings Limited ("NWS Holdings", "NWS" or "the Group") has always placed great importance on employees' well-being, it launched a "Steps Challenge" last year to encourage its corporate office staff to take 10,000 steps daily. To motivate employees to do more exercise for the sake of their health, the Group rewards successful goal achiever every quarter. As a caring employer, NWS has been awarded "The Employer of Choice" for 4 consecutive years.
As a conglomerate, NWS Holdings Limited has diverse business and investments comprising toll roads, environmental management, logistics, aviation, facilities management, construction and public transport, with around 40,000 employees in Hong Kong, mainland China and Macau. Ms. Terenze Li, Assistant Director Human Resources of NWS Holdings Limited, feels delighted with the Group receiving "The Employer of Choice" again as it signifies the success of NWS' HR policies. And in the future, NWS will continue striving for excellence. In fact, striving for excellence is always the mission of NWS Holdings and the Group will award outstanding employees to recognize their efforts. For instance, NWS organizes the NWS Awards Presentation Ceremony annually, inviting subsidiary companies to nominate outstanding employees. "NWS Outstanding Employee Grand Award" and "NWS Annual Best Team Award" will be presented to different levels of staff from different categories after the selection process.
"Last year, one of the awardees was a crane operator in our subsidiary construction company. He is a university graduate with diligence and perseverance, aiming at long-term career development in the construction industry. His working attitude is highly appreciated." Terenze said all the awardees possess some common personal attributes: strong sense of responsibility, spirit of craftsmanship and the essence of entrepreneurship.
Consider Employees' Needs from Their Perspectives
To motivate employees, NWS is always in an attempt to perfect its welfare system, including providing competitive salaries, performance bonus, different types of discounts, and medical benefits to the employees and their family members. Meanwhile, NWS aims at helping employees to achieve work-life balance. As mentioned, NWS has launched a "Steps Challenge" since last year to encourage employees to take 10,000 steps daily. Employees who have accumulated over 900,000 steps quarterly will be rewarded sports gift vouchers. This scheme has been highly supported by employees so NWS had further awarded 10 staff with the greatest achievements in the "Steps Challenge".
"Awardees shared their experience on how to walk and hike more in the award presentation ceremony and encouraged each other. We think this scheme is worth promoting! Therefore, we have launched the 2nd phase of the scheme, by setting a higher target at 1,100,000 steps quarterly, aiming at helping the employees to build good living habits."
Terenze said NWS has put itself into employees' shoes when formulating welfare policies so that the policies can truly benefit them. For example, NWS has reserved two suites in Hyatt Regency Sha Tin Hotel extendedly for its employees to enjoy the time with family at weekends. Recently, NWS has chartered Hong Kong Disneyland and invited over 8,000 employees and their family members to enjoy a fun day out. NWS has also organized Movie Day, sports competitions and Family Visit Day to visit bus depots. Besides, NWS provides breastfeeding facilities at corporate office to cater for the needs of the working mothers.
Encourage Open Communication
NWS highly emphasizes effective communication among employees and has different channels to get its employees connected, e.g. organizing welcoming parties for new joiners, regular luncheons, festival celebrations, team-building and outings, etc. to enable employees to get to know one another regardless of their seniority under a relaxing atmosphere. Besides, its Intranet and internal newsletter enable the employees to better understand NWS' business development.
Terenze said NWS highly values the communication with the young employees and always encourages them to be creative. "First, we do not label them as "post-80s and post-90s generations" but emphasize our unity. We encourage them to share their thoughts and stay innovative in brainstorming business ideas. Every little idea counts towards a big improvement!"
In terms of training, NWS encourages employees to learn from one another and participate in continuous education. Through different types of training, e.g. on communication or computer knowledge, we can cater for the individual needs of employees at various positions. Meanwhile, employees can receive a maximum of $10,000 learning allowance annually to take courses relevant to their work. "We also organize seminars on continuous development and invite experts or economists to share the latest market information with our employees." Through a variety of measures, NWS has fulfilled its notion of striving for excellence and creating values.
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