Running since 2001, the Aon Hewitt Best Employers Asia-Pacific Programme is now the largest of its kind in the region, covering 14 markets.

“In 2017, over 550 organisations representing multiple industries, and encompassing over 700,000 employees, participated,” says Jennifer Choot, Aon Hewitt’s Best Employers Hong Kong project manager.

As the company prepares for this year’s awards ceremony, to be held on August 1 at the Renaissance Harbour View Hotel, Choot explains the programme’s original goals.

“It was established to provide insights into how organisations can create a real competitive advantage through their people, to identify action areas to enable their advance to high performance, and to compile a list of best employers in the Asia-Pacific region.”

Today, Aon Hewitt believes success as a “Best Employer” is measured by four indices: employee engagement, employer brand, leadership and high performance culture.

However, Stephen Hickey, the company’s head of employee engagement, Asia-Pacific and Middle East, points to another, less tangible, factor.

“One thing I’ve always admired about best employer organisations, irrespective of what market they’re in, is that they never feel like they’ve arrived,” he says. “They have an unbelievable level of commitment to continually raising the bar.”

Hickey sees this manifest itself as “a healthy level of dissatisfaction, which means they’re always thinking there’s more, and better, things they could be doing for their employees.”

Tzeitel Fernandes, managing director of Aon Hewitt Hong Kong, agrees with Hickey’s assessment. She also highlights the hard work it takes to achieve this status in the first place.

“It is a journey for an organisation to become a best employer,” she says. “Typically, improvement in the indices is around 3 to 5 per cent, annually.”

These gains don’t happen in isolation, she notes. “Our best employers not only score highly in all Best Employer indices, but also have people practices highly aligned with organisational strategy. Best employers ensure that the efforts and investments they put into their HR programmes are in direct support of the company’s goals.”

Fernandes adds that the people practices of these organisations are also integrated with one another, giving employees a consistent employment experience that reflects the culture of the organisation.

A governance model that is both disciplined and sustainable enables organisations to make steady progress in their performance as an employer. “In addition to just measuring employee engagement, best employers are creating follow-up actions based on the results, and tracking the effectiveness of actions being taken.”

Mary Yu, head of talent Hong Kong, says that, while the order of importance may have changed in recent years, Aon Hewitt continues to find that the five most significant drivers of employee engagement remain the same. They are employer brand, career opportunities, the quality of senior leadership, performance management, and rewards and recognition. The last driver, the lowest rated of this top five, includes pay.

“An employer brand refers to the ‘promises’ an employer makes to existing and prospective employees,” Yu explains. These promises concern the nature of the experience employees can expect to have. The best employers offer one that is unique and compelling, and attracts, motivates and retains the right people for their business.

When assessing an employer brand, Aon Hewitt looks at three factors. “The first is reputation – whether the organisation is well-known and has a good reputation in the market and the community,” Yu says. “Then we also measure the internal brand – how the employees perceive the employer, whether they are proud to be a member of the organisation, and whether they can explain what makes working there different from other organisations. The third factor is credibility: do the employees believe that the organisation will deliver on its promises?”

The shift from a reliance on annual appraisals to what Aon Hewitt calls “continuous listening” is having a major impact on employer-employee relations, helping many organisations better understand the overall employee experience, not just their levels of engagement.

When it comes to this continuous feedback, insight and action loop, Hickey reports that 80 per cent of best employers are using ongoing measurement, while only 60 per cent of Hong Kong organisations are doing it continuously.

“We’re seeing organisations place more importance on data, analytics and metrics to drive decision making. Forty per cent of our Hong Kong Best Employers said data analytics and metrics were either the first or second most important area for the development of their HR capabilities.”

As for the future, Fernandes sees it shaped by the process of digitisation.“With artificial intelligence and robotics, employees around the world are wondering if AI will take over their jobs and whether their skills will still be relevant in the future.”

She believes leaders need to respond to this by developing a greater understanding of the digital world, and the direction in which their industry, their competition and demographics are moving. This would make it possible for them to take timely measures to ensure their workforce stays abreast of the times.

“They also need to provide employees with more training and opportunities for development, so they can gain the skills that will be needed. In addition, seeking feedback more frequently would enable them to better understand the needs of their employees, and to act on issues more quickly.”

This article appeared in the Classified Post print edition as Ample reward.