There is a strong notion that great organization culture and excellent employee branding strategy shapes one organization greatly. While it sounds easy to put on paper, the execution and deployment of various strategies are essential and only those who had done it can tell us the dos and don’ts to arrive to the success in implementing such strategy. To understand this, LeadersTalk recently interacted with Ruziah Zain, Vice President of Group Human Resources Hospitality Division at UDA Holdings Berhad, Malaysia.
Here are a few interesting excerpts from the interview:
1. What is organization culture? How do you as an HR leader assess your organization’s culture?
Organizational culture encompasses the organization’s expectations, experiences, philosophy, as well as the values that guide behaviour; expressed in associates’ self-image, inner workings, interactions with the outside world, and future expectations. Culture is based on shared attitudes, beliefs, customs, as well as written and unwritten rules that have been developed over time and are considered valid – in alignment with organizational values, serving as standard practices in the organization.
The first action you should look to take as a HR Leader – especially if you’re new in the organization, is to carry out HR Audit as well as understand and familiarize yourself with the current practices. Deep dive into existing HR setup via 360 HR audit point. Then, once you’ve identified the pain points of the organization, flaws of the current culture will begin to surface. Follow up with an action plan by formulating a diagnosis. Transfer all the facts discovered upon your diagnosis into your Total HR Transformation Plan, and ensure the plan and key result area and/or deliverables are agreed upon. For organizations that have been operating in the business for a period of time, it might require slightly longer to map out the road to culture transformation success, with a minimum of 1 year to witness meaningful change.
Developing organizational culture for Pre-Opening Properties; or in my case, Hotels, is relatively straightforward – draw the plan of what the Culture should be, align it with Organization Branding, Needs, and Goal(s). But, how do you start? Start right from all the HR touch points; recruit the right talent for the right job, carry out the Onboarding process, present your Career Development Pathway, practice Employee Recognition, and subsequently Off Boarding. Data mining within all these touch points is pivotal as it assists us in developing the right culture for your organization.
2. How to start a cultural transformation that is sustainable?
Organisational transformation programme initiative is a companywide exercise driven by the top management. The goal is to spark changes in the culture, structure, strategy, and build people as well as the operation’s capability to be competitive in the market place and achieve sustainable business results.
Hence, it should be taken into account that organizational transformation is a gradual and systematic change undertaken by the organization to redefine itself according to the everchanging and competitive landscape guest needs. The company recognises that change is needed according to the way business is done – and it starts with the company’s values, mission, vision, and the overall culture of the organization.
In order to anchor your organization within the market with a competitive edge, it is essential for organizations to constantly evolve. While product and service innovation are critical, it is equally important to ensure that the organization, employees, and business processes are also up to speed. Organizational transformation focuses on changing and evolving the way employees of a company operate in. Along with the structural changes, employee attitude, perspective, as well as the culture of the organization undergoes significant change. It’s about remodelling an organization in its entirety. Organizational transformation breeds enhanced employee performance, positive work culture, competitive advantage, and in the end, a higher business.
The four main areas which will be addressed in planning a strategic transformation are People, Process, Technology, and Guests Review.
People
The shift in culture and values in an organization are critical when we look at organizational change. Employee feedback, good work benefits, regular feedback, training and development, well defined organizational structure, etc. all represent ways to ensure employees are consistently motivated to be at their level best.
Process
Improving existing processes and adopting agile processes is another important aspect of organizational transformation. Improved processes increase efficiency, productivity, and overall performance of a company.
Technology
Innovation, technical expertise, and automation are essential elements capable of boosting a business. A business that possesses reduced technological advancements can stagnate and result in losing any competitive advantage they might have.
Guests Review
Guest reviews and comments are critical to understand what customers think of us, providing us with data to initiate positive changes to product and service offerings to meet their needs. Designing an Organizational Service Culture while simultaneously develop employee ability to provide guests with memorable experience is the key in building guest loyalty.
With all said and done, organizational transformation is a continuous process in which the organization must consciously strategize and prioritize these changes to remain relevant in a competitive market.
3. You mentioned that culture transformation and employee branding are essential to shape up the organization. Do you think one must have culture first before employee branding or vice versa?
Employee Branding has always been the key indicator to chart the right Culture Transformation. In large organizations, especially International Chain properties or GLC, employee branding strongly determines the culture of the organization. It represents the guiding principle to drive organization culture. The Employee Core Value meanwhile, portrays the employee branding beliefs, paving the pathway towards the end result the organization intends to achieve while not losing sight and staying true to the culture of the organization.
4. What success have you seen as a result from focusing on these two strategies, among other strategies that comes along.
Whether we like it or not, the success of cultural transformation rests on how strong you drive employee branding towards the desired organization culture.
In my many years of leading this culture transformation initiative, I have seen success by focusing on the aforementioned two strategies. In two of my prior organizations, I worked in a unionized environment where employees were led to understand that changes were necessary to achieve the desired goal not only for the organization but also for the betterment of working environment, enhance the working ambience, revising the perks and benefits as well as promoting all the employee engagement initiatives. Not to mention, improving knowledge and employee skills which in turn saw the growth of talent pools within the organization strong bonds amongst employees, providing full support to drive the goal – with everyone buying into this initiative and strategy from rank and file to top management.
I had experiences of transforming fire-fighting environments to healthier environments. What was once a heated environment was now filled with a culture of togetherness and teamwork – all through forming a diagnosis and following up with developing a proper plan. During MCO, we got everyone to voluntarily assist every department, even unionising the environment.
In the Pre-Opening of Hotels, one way of measuring employee branding and culture development success for us was via employees giving shoutouts even after departing the organization. One success story of this was when we launched Dorsett Putrajaya (DPJ). Everyone was involved in everything during the pre-opening and assisted in promoting the properties on social media. We developed the tagline #dpjdihati for associates, with this tagline being widely used by associates; so much so it was used in throwbacks regarding their memories with DPJ in employee engagement activities.
5. What do you think has been the greatest challenge while making changes in cultural transformation and working on employee branding strategy, from strategizing to execution?
There are great challenges that we have to face, especially in organizations that have been operating a certain way for long periods of time, with the majority already deep in their comfort zones. Reluctance in accepting changes, negative mindsets, and unhealthy grouping (especially amongst leaders) are some of the challenges that will take a huge chunk of time to successfully achieve culture transformation change.
6. Your leadership advice to aspiring HR or non-HR who would like to be in your position one day?
Put your passion in Human Resources and above all. True HR Leaders are leaders that find satisfaction in developing and growing their employees, helping, and guiding them to achieve their goals in life, as well as continuously and consistently assisting the improvement of knowledge and skill of their employees. Seeing your associates grow to become one of the industry leaders is a real success for HR Leaders.
Walk the talk, involve yourself in the ground work, and most importantly speak your mind in areas that you feel the decision goes against your HR principles, especially when it involves the future of an employee.
