Mr. Charles Mok, Legislative Councilor - Information Technology of the Hong Kong SAR.

Extensive research has shown that engaged employees have stronger ability to create and innovate. With the proven correlation between employee engagement and creativity and innovation, it is also believed that creativity and innovation enables every member of the workforce to perform better, contributing to higher productivity and efficiency.

Despite the mistaken impression that only IT professionals or those in the creative industry need to be creative and innovative, it is really an organisation's ability to innovate that separates the winners from the pack in today's competitive business world.

Engagement Is Built on Openness
"All employees can create and innovate regardless of position, level or industry. With the rapid change of society and development of technology, all businesses, not just the IT industry, should value creativity and innovation to maintain sustainable business success," says Mr. Charles Mok, Legislative Councilor representing the Information Technology Functional Constituency of the Hong Kong SAR.

In Mr. Mok's opinion, leaders who want to drive growth through creativity and innovation should first create an environment that inspires creativity and welcomes new innovative ideas.

"Openness in the workplace is the key to effective employee engagement. Today's business and HR leaders should focus on empowering their employees at all levels, creating an atmosphere favourable for knowledge and idea sharing. When employees are provided room to voice their opinions, they will certainly be more engaged to the company."

"More importantly," he continues, "the top management ought to make employees feel recognised and valued by adopting good ideas and views from the bottom. This is not only conducive to enhancing business operation efficiency, but also creating a sense of belonging within the entire workforce."

Now that we see the significance of workplace openness is increasingly recognised. Are Hong Kong organisations doing well in cultivating an open culture in the workplace? Mr. Mok answers, "Workplace hierarchy is being obsolete as Hong Kong evolves into a more open community. Organisations are now more willing to create an atmosphere in the workplace where employees are encouraged to express their feelings and opinions, so Hong Kong organisations overall have had improvements in this aspect over the years."

"However", he adds, "from my observation, not every organisation has a well-established mechanism to execute its engagement policy and to encourage and reward employees for their contribution of innovative ideas, even if they have a mind to do so. Therefore, I think organisations should rethink their own approach to foster creativity and innovation in the workplace and see if it is possible to develop a systematic yet consistent approach to collect and handle employees' ideas in an effective way."

Mr. Mok suggests Hong Kong organisations to develop a systematic approach to collect and handle employees’ ideas in an effective way.

Embrace New Technologies
The development of new technologies has revealed a new employment landscape where new types of jobs, skills and work styles emerged. Mr. Mok holds that it is indeed a challenge for business and HR leaders.

"It is imperative that employers and HR practitioners have familiarity with social networking and other new technologies as fast adoption of new technologies will be a significant business advantage," he explains.

As the employee demographics change with greater flexibility, traditional metrics and measurement may have to be reviewed as well to measure and assess employees' work performance in a consistent way. In this case, optimising talent-related processes with the adoption of new technologies may be necessary.

"Today's job duties are turning to be cross-functional and more complicated and may require multiple skills. Therefore, creativity and innovation plays a more important role in getting jobs done. Now, not only IT people need to be creative but everyone!"

Known as a pioneer in the IT industry and an outspoken IT professional who advocates the application of information and communications technologies in the Hong Kong community, Mr. Mok urges employers and HR practitioners to get ready to embrace the new age of technologies in order to keep up with the times, as technology is also one of the factors that drive better employee engagement.

Representing the Information Technology Functional Constituency, the legislative councilor is known as an out-spoken IT professional who advocates the application of ICT in Hong Kong.

"The problem we find is that many employers and HR people know the importance to embrace the technological trends, such as the social media, and they do employ new talents to work on it. However, as technologies change so rapidly, employers who have limited IT knowledge fail to catch up the latest trends. Although they have got some staff to work on it, they actually don't know much about what their people are doing! I think employers and employees should join hands and seek the best way to learn new technologies together, so that both the people and the organisation can move forward," says Mr. Mok.

As the Information Age has become firmly rooted, technology is obviously a critical component of nearly all businesses. A common phenomenon found in the workplace is that people are moving towards a multitasking work style with frequent use of new communications tools such as smartphones or online communications devices. Employers find it hard to know whether employees are using these tools for work or private matters. Mr. Mok suggests employers and HR practitioners to adjust their mindset to acknowledge that it is no longer feasible to define duties and tasks with clear borders as in the old days.

"The workplace is getting complex, so is the workforce. People are shifting to be tech-savvy, which is an irresistible trend. Employers really have to give up the traditional method they have been using in managing their talents. It's time to adapt to the change with a new mindset and a new talent management approach, if they want to get closer to their people and engage them."

From Top-down to Bottom-up
To sum up, it is Mr. Mok's belief that success of any employee engagement approach lies in openness and communication. "From a talent management perspective, organisations that set to embrace the new technology era and engage talents need not to develop many strategies but to go back to the basics – encourage a carefree ositive atmosphere that welcomes sharing and communication." "As work goes more flexible, the border between jobs and positions become vague. A cookie-cutter approach or fixed working schedule is no longer the case. Now, it's more about taking ideas from the bottom up instead of sticking to the traditional top-down communication.

Conventional top-down hierarchy should be abandoned, whilst more bottom-up communication channels should be paved for getting new and creative ideas from the people. This would help brighten workplace morale and maximise employees' competencies for higher productivity. Business and HR leaders should be open-minded to eliminate all the organisational boundaries and encourage people to speak up," he concludes.