K. Wah International Holdings Limited's (KWIH) peopleoriented management policies make employees to strike for excellence. It emphasises creating a pleasant work environment with comfortable hardware and transparent communicative culture to sustain employees' development. Being valued and respected, employees are motivated, which favours personal growth and business expansion, creating a win-win situation.

Mr. Wong Doon Yee Charles, Associate Director of HR and Corporate Affairs, said challenges in recruitment and management have grown bigger owing to the refined recruitment procedures and market changes. Merging corporate culture with youngsters' beliefs without losing their characters is challenging as well. To cope with these, KWIH executes human-oriented management policies with three focuses. First, it shows respect to employees. Mr. Wong said, "Both vertical and horizontal communications are important. The management should specify the employees' duties with rationales while encouraging independent thinking. They should also be patient and tolerant by giving immediate guidance when employees make mistakes without harming their self-esteem."

Open-door Policies Facilitating Communication

Second, it's crucial to create a pleasant work environment, making employees positive and motivated every day. Supervisors should give clear instructions and maintain good communication with employees. Mr. Wong believes the recognitions from management and professional training, for example on team-building are essential. Many corporates establish platforms or utilise communications software to connect with employees; however, Mr. Wong thinks open-door policies are the most important. When employees encounter problems, they're willing to discuss with supervisors who should show their support and give guidance. "Open-door policies sustain communication."

Third, KWIH supports employees' sustainable development in their careers and personal growth by providing workspecifi c training programmes and subsidies to encourage them to take external courses. This year, KWIH has a new online learning platform to support employees' continuous education. With these policies, KWIH has had lower turnover rates than the market's average level in the past 3 years, implying the effectiveness of human resources policies and promoting the employees' sense of belonging.

Personal Experience with Exquisite Quality

To recruit suitable talents, KWIH has invested much on recruitment. Ms. Lau Lai Wan Babara, Deputy General Manager of HR, said besides traditional recruitment channels, KWIH adopts target-oriented recruitment approach. It collaborates with tertiary institutions to arrange recruitment talks for part-time master degree students. They can know more about K. Wah Group and communicate with the senior management. "We invite them to visit our show fl ats and enjoy our hotel's food, providing them with fi rst-hand experience of our high-quality products and services," said Babara.

To retain talents, KWIH carries out family-friendly policies such as 5-day work week and flexible working hours. The corporate also organises "Mentorship Programmes" by assigning samedepartment seniors and HR Department's staff to give support to new employees, getting them adapted to the new environment.

"Young generation may not prefer didactic communication; hence, 'K-Channel', a multimedia platform with self-produced videos was established last year. It introduces the corporate culture, development directions, employees' talents in a fun and interactive way. We encourage employees to take part in the video shooting such as raising questions to the top management in the programme called 'K. Wah Family: Your Questions My Answers'. As the management do not know the questions beforehand, this requires their immediate response. Such an interesting programme is highly welcomed by our colleagues!"

Through K-Channel, Mr. Wong realised many hidden experts among the employees in K. Wah like Guzheng and dancing experts. These videos can create topics, reduce interpersonal distances and raise employees' cohesion. KWIH also has an internal mobile application to provide corporate information, training programmes, activity highlights, message boards, etc, creating a 24/7 communicative platform regardless of geographical limitations. KWIH also arranges various activities and interest classes such as Free to Run, Wing Chun, yoga, coffee-tasting and scented candle-making classes to relieve employees' pressure and promote work-life balance.