Ms. Lesley Watt

Pursuit of work-life balance is an important agenda for every employee and the realisation requires the support and commitment of senior management. Sino Group's employees are fortunate as both their career development and well-being are taken care of. A wide range of recreational activities are organised for them and their family members. This helps enhance their sense of belonging leading to a win-win situation for both employees and the company.

Sino Group has received the Employer of Choice Award for four consecutive years. It also received the Work-Life Balance Award for the first time this year. Ms Lesley Watt, Senior Manager, Training and Development of HR Department, elaborates that the vision of Sino Group is 'To make Sino the preferred choice for customers, investors and employees'. Taking care of its employees is top priority and the two awards are recognition of the efforts. Lesley said raising employees' sense of belonging and supporting their career development are the goals and keys to success for the company.

'Providing competitive remunerations, reward schemes and an engaging work environment are critical to retaining talents. There are also comprehensive training programmes for employees at different levels,' adds Lesley. Sino Group places a strong focus on direct communication with employees to listen to their feedback and implement viable suggestions with the best possible effort. A wide spectrum of communication channels are in place, ranging from annual Townhall Meeting, monthly Mini-Townhall Meeting to regular on-site communication meetings and site visits.

Care Extended to Family Members

Regular recreational activities for employees and their family members are organised, including vacation in company's holiday flats, day trips to Tai O, Ocean Park, Geopark and organic farms, movie nights, interest classes, hiking and Children Christmas party. Family-friendly practices are implemented like birthday red packet and leave, increasing maternity leave period, providing scholarship, bursary, textbook subsidies and summer internship programme for employees' children. All these practices aim to extend caring from employees to their family members.

In 2018, over 5,400 employees participated in various employee activities organised. Employees are enthusiastic about charitable events in particular. Over 600 employees and their family members participated in the Walk for Millions of the Community Chest in January this year.

'It is important that employees are happy at work as this can foster their commitment. There is great teamwork among different departments. This is particularly demonstrated when companywide project like property sales launch takes place. Departments, ranging from Property Management, Leasing, Business Technology, HR, Internal Audit and Finance will work hand-inhand with Sales Department to ensure an effective sales launch,' shares Lesley.

Over 1,000 Primary Students Learn to Code

Sino Group is a committed corporate citizen. 'We strive to build a greener and more sustainable community through actively participating in a wide range of events, initiatives and programmes around the four pillars, namely Sino Art, Sino Green, Sino Care and Sino Heritage. The flagship community programme 'Go Code' was initiated in 2014 to support primary 4 to 6 pupils from underprivileged families to learn coding, an essential skill in the technology era. The number of participants has increased from around 20 in the first year to over 1,500 in 2018 with number of NGO partners reaching 18. This is one of the programmes to extend our caring to community.

'Enhancing colleagues' engagement is important and thus taking care of their career development and well-being is a top priority of Sino Group, remarks Lesley. She reiterates that a holistic approach is adopted, covering core values, two-way communication between top management and employees, competitive remunerations and promotion opportunities, comprehensive training and development programmes and familyfriendly policies to support the building of an engaging work environment. This is the foundation for the company to progress towards Sino Group's vision - "To make Sino the preferred choice for customers, investors and employees".