Ask Our Expert gives you an opportunity to ask
questions, get answers, and gain insights from our thought
leaders on the latest trends in HR. We address a variety of strategic
areas that impact employers and their employees around the world.
To answer your questions about becoming a Best Employer, we've asked our expert Jo Reinhard, Regional Project
Lead for Best Employers in Asia 2007, to share her insights. If you'd like to
ask a question regarding becoming a Best Employer or on any pressing human
resources challenges you might be facing,
email us,
and we'll share responses to selected questions on a regular basis.
Ask Our Expert: Becoming a Best Employer
Q. We want to become a Best Employer, but don't know if an organization from our
industry could ever make the list?
A. All organizations, regardless of size, location, industry type, or length of
operation can be a Best Employer. If you review the list of
Best Employers in Asia for 2007,
you will see that the organizations represent all markets in the study, nine
different industries, and range in size from just over 100 employees (Novartis
Consumer Health in Australia and New Zealand) to tens of thousands, in the
diverse Aditya Birla group in India. During the years that Hewitt has conducted
the Best Employer studies, we've had Best Employers
from nearly every industry imaginable. These organizations all have different
business strategies, but the common trait is that they design and align their
own people strategy to support their business. The formula for being the Best
is not one based on size or industry, but rather based on the alignment of
business and people strategies. Best Employers have aligned
business and people strategies and have highly engaged employees.
Hewitt has found that there are five key characteristics an organization needs
to have in order to be a Best Employer. You should assess your
organization against these criteria to determine how close you are to being one
of the Best, or how far you need to go in order to become one. The five
characteristics are:
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An effective and committed leadership team—The Best are lead by
strong leadership teams who really do value their people.
-
Talent as a part of strategic focus—Best Employers
have clear talent management strategies, with CEOs as champions for talent and
leadership development. These organizations also have robust performance
assessment, which allows them to segment talent and manage it accordingly.
Finally, they have compelling career development practices and processes in
place.
-
The Best have high performance workforces—They build accountability
into every job, they make sure the people they depend on for high performance
are valued and they manage opportunities such that the strongest performers are
in key jobs.
-
HR effectiveness—HR is very effective among the Best Employers;
the strategy, the structure, the costs, the service delivery, and measurement
systems are all viewed by their organizations as being absolutely right for
their business.
-
A strong customer focus—The Best understand that the customer is key to
their success and employees need to be able to understand and meet customer
demands. The customer is not remote among the Best.
So if you want to become a Best Employer, consider how your
organization measures up against these characteristics. That would be your
first step along the journey.
About Our Expert
Jo Reinhard is the Regional Project Lead for Best Employers in Asia 2007.
