2008 HRM Award Winners

Great Eastern Award for Employer of Choice
WINNER – Hewlett-Packard

Hudson Award for Champion of HR
WINNER - Kenneth Chan, Managing Director, McDonald's Restaurants

Robert Walters Award for Best HR Leader
Winner - Caroline Lim, Global Head of HR & Global Affairs, PSA

Michael Page Award for Best HR Manager
WINNER - Evelyn Ng, HR Manager, IKEA/IKANO

Award for Best HR Young Gun
WINNER - · Debbie Tham, Assistant HR Manager, Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore

Aviva Award for Best HR Team
WINNER - · Shell Eastern Petroleum

Excellence Healthcare Award for Best Health & Safety
Winner - Singapore Police Force

Drake International Award for Best Use of Technology
WINNER - Hewlett-Packard

Academee Award for Best Change Management Practices
WINNER - Shell Eastern Petroleum

HRnet Performance Consulting Award for Best Performance Management
WINNER: Singapore Police Force

JobsFactory Award for Best Graduate Development Practices
WINNER · Shell Eastern Petroleum

Grass Roots Asia Pacific Award for Best Reward & Recognition Strategies
WINNER · Credit Suisse

OmniTouch Award for Best Mature Workforce Practices
WINNER : Changi General Hospital

Talent2 Award for Best Employer Branding
WINNER: Hewlett-Packard

Clayton Ford Recruitment Award for Best Business Continuity Practices
WINNER - SMRT Corporation

Kelly Services Award for Innovation in Recruitment
WINNER · McDonald's Restaurants

Fair Employment Practices
WINNER: IBM Singapore

Adecco Award for Best Talent Development Strategy
WINNER · Hewlett-Packard

Marketing Institute of Singapore Award for Best Training, Learning & Development
WINNER - Chartered Semiconductor

Award for Best Retention Strategies
WINNER: Hewlett-Packard

ACE Insurance Award for Best Work-Life Harmony
WINNER - Apex-Pal International

Personnel Decisions International Award for Best Leadership Development
WINNER: Singapore Police Force

Frasers Hospitality Award for Best Corporate & Employee Citizenship
WINNER – Standard Chartered Bank

Bintan Resorts Award for Outstanding Contributions to HR
WINNER - Low Peck Kem - Director or People Matters Department, Ministry of Manpower

Child's Play

What can we do with a Rupee? I think – NOTHING. And what if we lose that Rupee? I believe – WHO CARES. Right?

Have you ever saw a child begging for a Rupee on road? One Rupee can be nothing to us, but just ask that child who is putting his life in danger. A hard fact behind this is that there are many hands behind single money. According to the BBC Documentary on “Child Beggars in India”, if the child is getting Rs. 100 per day, then he has to give Rs. 97 to the dealers for whom he is working.

You all must be thinking why I am writing all this in our HR Review. Coming to the point, what really HRM is for us? In short – MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES, right? Don’t you feel those children are our future Human Resources? So, why are we not managing them?

Many of us must have ill-treated, shouted, or beated those needless fellows, in some or the other form. But why can’t we help them to come out of the dirt?

EVENTS SHAPING HR!!

Thinking about the important things that happened in 2008, I think it’s appropriate to invoke James Carville. “It’s the economy, stupid.” Pretty much everyone knows we’re in a recession. A recession that’s changed everything.

With that in mind, here are the Top 10 Events of 2008 That Will Shape HR in 2009.

1. U.S. Presidential Election
   We elected Barack Obama, an African American, president. Hillary Clinton, a woman, ran against him for the Democratic nomination. Sarah Palin, another woman, was on the Republican slate as the Vice Presidential candidate.
   DIVERSITY, TALENT MANAGEMENT, LEADERSHIP.
2. AIG Bailout
   The U.S. Government provided AIG with about $150 Billion to rescue it from collapsing. The reasons for AIG’s decline are complex. There were allegations of wrong-doing. Our economy had survived Enron. Large companies had failed before. This was different. It triggered a wide-spread loss of consumer, investor, and employee confidence.
   ETHICS & SUSTAINABILITY, BENEFITS, STAFFING, TALENT MANAGEMENT, BUSINESS PARTNER
3. Votes on Gay Marriage
   Californians began performing same sex marriages in June then voted to outlaw it in November. Connecticut legalized gay marriage.
   DIVERSITY, BENEFITS
4. Smartphone Sales Skyrocket
   2008 U.S. Sales of smartphones grew at a rate of more than 70% each quarter over the corresponding quarter in 2007. Comparable global growth rates were in the range of 10-20% – still huge in a stagnant economy. More people are more connected than ever.
   HR TECHNOLOGY, BUSINESS PARTNER, ORGANIZATIONAL & EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT
5. Tina Fey!
   The uber-talented Tina Fey parlayed her Sarah Palin likeness and her considerable imitation skills into huge fame, a multi-million dollar book deal and a second stint on SNL. Oh, and she also won and Emmy for 30 Rock. In case anyone missed it, she capitalized on a golden opportunity.
   TALENT MANAGEMENT, LEADERSHIP, COMPENSATION, BUSINESS PARTNER
6. Something Rotten in Albany, Springfield, and…
   NY Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned after admitting being involved with a prostitute. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was accused of selling Barack Obama’s senate seat. Detroit’s mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, was indicted on eight felony charges, including perjury, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and misconduct in office because of an affair. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Alphonso Jackson, resigned as federal investigators looked into accusations that he steered housing contracts to friends.
   ETHICS, ETHICS, ETHICS (and LEADERSHIP)
7. Housing Bubble Bursts
   Unprecedented rise in housing prices. Unqualified borrowers. Subprime mortgages. Credit crunch. Foreclosures. Economic crisis. Pop.
   BENEFITS, ETHICS & SUSTAINABILITY
8. In With Marijuana, Out With Trans Fats
   Michigan legalizes medicinal marijuana. Massachusetts decriminalizes marijuana. And, liberal California bans trans fats. I won’t even try to figure this one out.
   BENEFITS (CDHP)
9. Wall Street Bonuses
   Executive pay was all over the news. All of a sudden, everyone is a comp. designer. Now that we’re using our tax money to save some of these companies, the government is taking an interest too.
   COMPENSATION, STAFFING, TALENT MANAGEMENT, ETHICS
10. Unemployment Rate Highest in 26 Years
    The unemployment rate is above 6.7 percent and it’s rising steadily. It’s higher than it’s been since 1982. The scary thing –- people don’t like to RIF people before Christmas. Beware the Ides of January.
    EMPLOYEE RELATIONS, LABOR RELATIONS, TALENT MANAGEMENT, BENEFITS, COMPENSATION, STAFFING, BUSINESS PARTNER, LEADERSHIP, ETHICS & SUSTAINABILITY

HR SHIFT!!

Most companies today face declining revenues, increasing costs, shrinking market share and depleting shareholder value. What does HR do in this situation? How will HR play its role to truly bring sustainable value to the company?

In the future, the HR's role will no longer be constrained to warming seats in the back office. It will play a critical front office role to address workforce performance issues and create sustainable business value. Traditionally, HR spends as much as 90 percent of its time, effort and costs on activities such as salary administration, medical claims processing, training coordination and employee-employer issues resolution. The remaining 10 percent is typically used for strategic HR work.

In the new paradigm, HR will have to allocate as much as 60 percent its time, effort and costs to perform strategic work and create workforce capabilities for profitable growth.HR is changing its role to the following -

• Strategic Business Partner—Address workforce and organizational impacts on business challenges and contribute directly to business plan.
  
  
• Change Leader—Lead company-wide leadership and culture change program, provide change management advice to guide business results.
  
  
• HR Functional Expert—Manage service providers instead of doing operational work, to increase efficiency within the HR function.

TECHNOLOGY AFFECTING HRM WORK - POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE?

Overall, has IT added or detracted from the amount of HRM work? In what ways? Interviews
among respondents provide a mixed assessment of this impact. Some managers felt their work was made easier; others said it was harder.One respondent reflected both views: “Life is easier as a result of IT.Work is more difficult because of the explosion of requests for information. E-mail has made communicating easier though.” Ways it was made easier include allowing greater access to information, gaining useful feedback, conserving time, improving data gathering and analysis, reducing reliance on paper forms and clerical staff, expanding managers’ capacity to visualize and model solutions to problems, enabling quicker and better decision making, and improving communication throughout the hierarchy and with a wider range of stakeholders. Typical comments in this regard are, “I feel I have better access of information which allows me to make decisions instead of spending time on research”; “I am excited about what it can do for us—so many processes that can expedite things and help in gathering and sorting data”; “I can set up meetings without making a phone call.” Examples of applications that made work easier are automated applicant tracking and screening (selection), job posting (Internet), contract bidding, position classifying, and training software.