Talent View:Talents contribute to a successful cause
Time:2016-01-03 11:06:36 From:
Talents contribute to a successful cause which leads to a successful life. An enterprise should create a better atmosphere for talents to work diligently and grow healthily, encourage those who want to succeed, support those who take responsibilities and establish a mechanism for cultivating the employees and turning them into talents.
“Feats are accomplished by capable people; enterprise develops because of talents.” Through the ages, talents have always been the foundation for the prosperity of a country, and also the core element and the most important resource for enterprises.
Since the foundation of Hiking Group, every innovation and every breakthrough we have achieved are inseparable from the ambitions and the continuous efforts of our employees. We know that the key to success lies in the people. To achieve our ambitious goal of being an honored century-old enterprise, we are in greater need for talents than ever before.
●Moral is more important than ability.
As an old Chinese saying goes, “Ability adds brilliance to moral; moral commands ability.” Ability is important, but moral is even more important.
Moral is the foundation and ability is the condition; moral is the core and ability is the key; moral is the essence and ability is a property. A person with both moral and ability can be put in an important position with exception; a virtuous but incompetent person can be used after training; an immoral person, no matter whether he/she is competent, should not be used.
We take a holistic, practical and accurate assessment of the relationship of moral and ability. We take a long term view rather than short term, leaning toward personal potential and future development evaluated through a performance appraisal system. With the help of such a dynamic system, we would be able to select desirable talents with great morality, ability and performance.
●“Adaptation” is more important than “qualification”.
As an old Chinese saying goes, “Horses can travel across mountains but cannot plow the field as well as cattle. Wagons can carry heavy duties but cannot cross a river as well as boats.” We have been adhering to the concept that “adaptation” is more important than “qualification”. In other words, it is important to put the right people into the right positions and weigh more the alignment of value and position description.
When evaluating talents, we mainly measure two dimensions: one is the alignment of personal value with corporate value; second is adaptation of personal capabilities with job description. In the long run, value alignment is more important than capability adaptation. This is because the longer an employee spends time at the company, the greater the conflict between employee and organization will be amplified due to the misalignment in values. Under this circumstance, it would be the best employee who can induce the worst damage to a company.
In an organization, different positions have different responsibilities and requirements. For example, if an ordinary employee practices the corporate culture, performs his duties well and keeps improving his productivity, this ordinary employee can be regarded as a caliber. In this regard, every employee in the organization has the ability and potential to become a caliber.
Building a team should also follow the principle of “convergence of values, complementation of advantages”. This is what we advocate. The primary condition for a qualified Hiking employee is to practice the corporate culture and the values of the Group. Otherwise, he/she is not a qualified one and will not fit into the Hiking family.
●Appoint employees on their merits through fair competition, regardless of their provenance or length of service.
As a diversified group with international trade as the main business, Hiking has been able to maintain its features of diversity, extensiveness and inclusiveness. As an old Chinese saying goes, “It doesn’t matter where a hero comes from”. We appoint employees on their merits regardless of their provenance, because excellent talents and good leaders always exist in different fields and grow up in different sectors.
No matter who they are, what background they have, what education they have, as long as they have real abilities and fit into the group, the business, the shareholders and themselves, these people are what we need. We will provide them a platform embedded with a wider vision and greater level to achieve their best performance.
●Practice is the best form of cultivation.
“Talents are not born but cultivated and should be used and tamed through battles in real life.” Rome was not built in a day, and the capabilities are developed through a cycle of practicing and learning. The process of evolution follows a natural routine and process.
Talents are like water and only flowing can maintain its energy. To maintain an enterprise’s vitality, we should cultivate and train talents at work, giving challenging tasks to those with great potentials. We should also give talents opportunities to practice and develop their skills by putting them at different positions and areas so that they can experience dealing with tough issues and can learn from it.
●“Support talents throughout the whole process”
Talent development needs an environment to foster in an organization. Giving talent great power and liberty does not mean no supervision is needed. We cannot develop talent by ignoring the process it takes for talent growth. We need talents to appreciate that they control their own destiny. If they work hard and are devoted to growth and with the help of the Group, they can achieve their goal. This is also an important feature of Hiking’s talent mechanism.
For newly recruited employees and employees with a recent promotion, we will make all efforts in the course of their induction into the Group, We will set up a special task force to help and guide them so they can quickly get into the job without wasting too much time in introduction and familiarization or possibly some mistakes. For key and seeds talents, the Group has a counseling system to provide consultation at work in a progressive way.
●Team building is the greatest achievement.
It’s the locomotive that makes the train run fast. Team building is a prerequisite and essential skill for a leader. We always believe that “team building is the greatest achievement” and attach high gravity when it comes to management performance review. If a leader does not know how to lead a team, he will not be a qualified leader regardless how great his business performance is.
A leader should assume his responsibilities with courage, the courage to take responsibility when things go wrong, and the courage to lead the team correct the mistakes. A leader should always stay focused on deeds rather than words, how to form a team, lead a team, how to promote transparency and coordination in a team. A leader should know how to make the most out of a team, how to correctly evaluate employees based on ethics, capability, performance and future growth. A leader should be inclusive, not to be judgmental about employees, balancing out on the positive and negative sides of employees, recognize talents and show appreciation of employees’ hard work. A leader should focus on team building and promote team spirit, addressing issues on site in a timely manner, creating a team that embraces respect, trust, understanding and coordination.
●Criticism is an enabler
As an old Chinese saying goes, “We should be happy to hear about our fault, not hesitate to admit and correct our fault.” At work, we often receive criticisms. As long as those criticisms are on good faith and focusing on work itself, such criticisms are an enabler. They enable us to timely identify our shortcomings and correct them, so we should accept criticism humbly. Even if the criticism is not completely correct, it can still help us to look at the problem from a different perspective, correct it if there is something wrong or remind us to avoid the mistakes. At the same time, we must dare to criticize others’ mistakes and sincerely help them to correct them. As long as everyone is open-minded and honest with each other, we can create a harmonious and upward working atmosphere, and help and remind each other to make progress.
For employees who violate the regulations of the Group, we should also do our best to help them based on the principle of “learning from past mistakes to avoid repeating mistakes and never “deny a person because of a single fault”. As long as they can correct their mistakes, there is still a chance for them to continuously work for the Group.
●Respect individual growth and development
Putting people first is the fundamental of Hiking’s view on talent. People are the primary purpose and also the basic driving force of development. Everything is for people and everything depends on people. Only when the abilities of individuals are brought into full play can the organization be vibrant and prosperous.
We always take personal needs as one of our priority by showing respect to personal needs in fulfilling goals and building future career path. We motivate employees to strive for personal growth by identifying personal strengths and excelling them at work in order to synchronize the growth of employees and the need of the enterprise.
We hope that every member of the Hiking family can grow together with the development of Hiking, enjoy the benefits of Hiking’s development and advance the career path. We don’t want anyone to be left behind. We also established a sophisticated training system so employees will have a complete training covering both all aspects of work and special skills, thus enabling personal skill development and growth. We will not give up on or abandon those employees who are loyal and devoted to the group even if some of them have limited capabilities.
Meanwhile, if employees have better opportunity elsewhere than in Hiking, as long as it is beneficial to employees’ future development, we will support it. Even if the employee’s departure will temporarily impose some impacts on the Group, we should still support employees to fulfill personal development needs.
●Advocate the spirit of teamwork, believe in ourselves and have faith on our team members.
Individual growth and teamwork are not contradictory but complementary to each other. A person can run fast, but a group of people can go farther. Just like charcoal and diamond, both are carbon atoms, but have completely different effect as a result of different structures and combinations.
There is a saying in Chinese that “If a thousand people are of the same mind, you will get all their strengths; if people are of different minds, even you have ten thousand people, no one will be of any use.” Each individual’s personality and ability can only be fully realized when working collectively. Similarly, in a team, only when each member maximizes his/her potentials, coordinate and cooperate with each other and be responsible and holistic, can we achieve our goals and vision for both individuals and the team.
●Work hard for our cause, empower talents, strive for happiness
Talent acquisition is important, but talent retention matters the most.
We hold a strong view that “a successful cause is based on hard work and happiness comes from striving”. Therefore, we emphasize that “performance is everything”, advocate the performance and result-oriented culture, evaluate the value created by employees objectively and fairly, allocate the rewards fairly in correspondence with employee’s value creation so that the hard working employees gets more rewards.
Since its establishment, the Group has been evaluating different incentive models that can meet the requirements of enterprise development, including material incentives, official award, cultural incentives, etc. In 2005, we carried out share restructure, making every employee a shareholder of the Group. In 2020, a second share restructure was phased in to include those employees who missed the first share restructure, making most new employees shareholders, from “the community of common interests” to “the community of common cause” and “the community of common future”, so that the majority of employees can enjoy the benefits of the reform and development of the Group. At the same time, the Group also constantly reviewed the incentive mechanism and introduced various material incentive methods such as the dynamic phantom stocks, the project co-investment mechanism and the special reward for key and important positions. All these have contributed to promote the innovation and development of talents. In terms of incentive policies, to better stimulate the vitality of talents, the Group has adopted the principle of “one business, once policy; one company, one policy; even one person, one policy for featured talents”.
The incentive mechanism focuses on true performers and value creators to create an atmosphere in which “the truly competent employee can be promoted”, those who have fulfilled their duties will be recognized, respected, rewarded and encouraged to do better, and those who work hard and have made outstanding contributions will be officially evaluated, better remunerated and promoted.
●Talents contribute to a successful cause which in turn leads to a successful life.
Talents and cause are two interdependent factors to a company.
First, talents are essential to the success of our business. The core element of each business is people and people’s ideas, spirits and capabilities. No matter how good a strategy is, it needs to be implemented by people; and no matter how good culture is, it needs to be inherited by people. The grand goal of building an honored century-old enterprise needs to be implemented and realized from generation to generation. Our company goals can only be achieved if we build a dynamic and sustainable talent acquisition and retention system.
Second, career is one way leading to a successful life. An enterprise is a platform for displaying personal abilities and career is the foundation for a successful life. The resources and environment provided by the enterprise are important conditions for talents to be successful. A person’s efforts may lead to a prosperous life and a happy family, but to achieve an ideal, achieve something in a lifetime and contribute to the society and the country, a good platform will be indispensable. A cause can lead to a successful life and enrich the meaning of life, making the value of life be reflected in the devotion to the cause.
Talent acquisition and retention is not only about satisfying material interests, but also about the future career path and value creation, the platform where employees feel inspired and motivated to devote themselves to the company. A good talent strategy is like an incubator that continuously cultivates talents; allow top performers emerge and perform even greater; has the ability to train employees into specialists in certain areas. A poor talent strategy, on the other hand, will not only kill the creativity in the company, but also demotivate employees and make the future uncertain.
Therefore, we try to incorporate employees as an important ingredient into the group’s regulations and culture, thus to form a mechanism for cultivating and transforming employees into top performers and to advocate the spirit of working for ourselves, which will help to improve employees’ abilities and capabilities at work and, ultimately, achieve personal goals. An enterprise should create a better atmosphere for talents to work diligently and grow healthily, encourage those who aspire for achievements and support those who take responsibilities. We hope that every member of the Hiking family can enjoy working at the company, learn from work, build personal career path and achieve personal goals.
