Enhancing HR Practices in Fiji: The Zappos Experience Adapted

1. HR IN PRACTICE THE FIJI EXPERIENCE

2. ZAPPOS • US Online Company • Offers new employees a sum of money to leave after one week • Testing their Commitment to the company • Would this work in Fiji????

3. What’s out there? • Gen X vsMillenialsvs Gen I • Adverse Impact • Aging Workforce • Worklife Balance • Emotional Intelligence • Employment Branding • Balanced Scorecard • Blended Workforce • Corporate Social Responsibility • Human Capital Management

4. What’s out there? • Horizontal Integration • Intangible Rewards • Knowledge Management • Offshoring • 360 degree appraisals • Talent Management • Transformational Leadership • VIRTUAL HR

5. How do we know what will work? • We Don’t • Trial and Error • Experience • A strong network of HR contacts

6. Some useful HR practices • 5 current HR practices that I think would work well in Fiji: • ONBOARDING • SUSTAINABLE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT • TALENT MANAGEMENT • RECOGNITION AND REWARDS • EMPLOYER BRANDING

7. onboarding • More than just Orientation • Mechanism through which employees acquire the knowledge, skill and behaviours to become effective organisation members • Research shows that socialisation techniques used in onboarding lead to positive outcomes – higher job satisfaction, better job performance, higher retention levels.

8. Onboarding – the Fiji experience • Some larger multi-nationals have this in place • Most companies do some kind of orientation, as it is generally accepted that new employees need to learn the rules and policies of the company when they start • Not a lot of information available to convince companies to invest a lot of effort and resources in lengthy onboarding processes • Shangri-La Onboarding is themed: • Phase 1 - Discover • Phase 2 - Explore • Phase 3 - Care

9. Sustainable employee engagement • Movement away from Employee Satisfaction to Employee Engagement • Growing evidence that validates the quantifiable relationship between engagement and performance • Engaged employees outperform their Non-engaged counterparts • Towers Watson –Sustainable Employee Engagement i.e. Employee must be: • Engaged • Enabled • Energised

10. Sustainable employee Engagement – fiji experience • Most of the smaller, local companies do not have the resources to formally measure employee engagement • Not too difficult to do as there are now lots of online tools around e.g. surveymonkey.com • Influencing employee engagement is not difficult – needs to be a change of mindset in regards to some things that are traditionally seen as “costs” • HR should be able to measure overall improvements e.g. Fewer customer complaints, lower staff turnover, etc.

11. Talent management • An organisation’s commitment to recruit, retain and develop the most talented and superior employees available in the job market • An important business strategy • Scarcity of skills, generational changes and increased global mobility of the workforce • Flows from the organisation’s mission, vision, values and goals • An effective talent management system helps crucial employees feel as if they are part of something bigger than their current job.

12. Talent management in fiji • Fully integrated computerised system not required but appropriate HR systems clearly need to be developed and in place • Goal of talent management is a highly performing workforce and some companies may need to make some changes to their current HR practices to achieve this

13. Recognition & rewards • Increased morale and positive workplace attitudes • Well designed reward programmes can be used to improve performance in specifically identified areas that the company wishes to focus on • Shangri-La rewards programme designed around the specific behaviours that make up its customer service standards • Incentives work well as long as they are designed to achieve specific goals

14. Employer branding • A recruiting strategy that positions a company in an attractive way and brings it to the top of the minds of potential employees • A focussed corporate message that speaks to current and potential employees and conveys the company’s culture and identity in a truthful and compelling manner • A long term vision – encompasses values, systems, policies and behaviours which define what employers expect of their employees and vice versa

15. Employer branding – hr branding • As HR practitioners, some important questions we should be asking ourselves are: • Do you know what your HR dept’s reputation is among the employees? • Do employees understand and appreciate the importance of the HR dept in furthering the organisation’s mission and objectives? • Does the HR dept make and effort to market its services to the organisation?

16. Continuously improve. Keep on keeping on.