ITIC APAC 2024 | Recruitment, retention and staff wellbeing
Julien Tardivat, Consultant, and Alex Besson from aware24 speak about how the industry is struggling to attract and retain skilled staff, and ask if this can be improved through higher levels of training and staff support
The ITIJ team share their reports from ITIC APAC 2024 in Bangkok (16–18 June). Read all reports
Julien Tardivat, an industry consultant, started his talk by explaining that he has been living and working in the Asia-Pacific region for 20 years, yet confessed that he was still learning every day. He also admitted that before he moved to Singapore he had no comprehension of the multitude of cultures, peoples, landscapes, and economies within APAC.
In Singapore, he said, employees expect to do exactly what they were hired to do, whereas in other countries such as Thailand, a more flexible and harmonious approach will be common.
Tardivat said that in Asia communication is often indirect and subtle, and there was a need for a Western employer to read between the lines. Direct confrontation, a common way of dealing with issues in the West, simply doesn’t work in Asia, and it was important to understand the concept of ‘losing face’.
Moving on to differing expectations between foreign and locally hired staff, Tardivat said expats generally focused on the package salary and extras benefits such as relocation support and health insurance.
For those tasked with hiring an expat, he stressed the importance of recruiting someone who would be a good fit culturally and open to the challenges of living and working in a new environment. Regarding local hires, he said they tended to focus on their long-term expectations from the job, gravitating to the highest payer.
When hiring, Tardivat said it was important that there was a good balance of local employees and expats to avoid “groups or cliques” that can hinder communication and professional relations. Diversity in all teams, he said, was the best way to avoid this.
Another important issue that he said was often overlooked is language. When speaking to people whose main language is not English, it requires that you pay attention to your own speech – the speed, use of words and idioms.
Finally, he said that employee engagement is essential for staff retention. He said regular team outings and bonding activities were important. He added that a useful trick to help retention was to ensure there are enough hierarchical levels in the organisation, as staff expect promotion every two or three years. A job title is usually very important in APAC, he said.
Alex Besson, Founder of aware24, then drew on his experience of working in Southeast Asia to give an honest and interesting presentation on recruitment, retention and staff wellbeing from the perspective of a local medical assistance provider.
He opened with the claim that we get the employees we deserve. But, he asked, will we be able to keep the employees we deserve?
Regarding recruitment, he said that it was important to talk about real skills. His objective when recruiting was to build a great team. During an interview, he said, there was a need to discuss experience, qualifications, language skills and employee expectations, but it was also essential to try to identify personal character traits such as reliability, resilience, tenacity, compassion, and those who would be prepared to go the extra mile.
Alex also emphasised the importance of training and how there was a need to nurture real skills. Operational efficiency was developed through ‘learning by doing’ but never alone, he said. There was a need to teach awareness and how to anticipate and deal with problems. Empowering your team to make decisions, he said, would help them gain a greater understanding of the business and grow their confidence.
The key to keeping your team, Tardivat said, is making sure it is an enjoyable job. It was also important to build trust and show that you care.
In Asia, this often means organising regular team-building or social events, and attending weddings or funerals of staff members’ families.