Finally, a breather for Chua Hoe Sing. It came after months of toiling on the gruelling integration process, involving two of the nation's largest rivalling media owners. As the merger progresses into the post integration phase, the MediaCorp executive vice president of group human resource and corporate services believes that at least from the HR perspective, its free-to-air mass TV channels and free newspaper operations merger with Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) is still far from completion, but sees the neck-breaking pace relenting.
Chua is also a member of the organisation's Manpower Synergy Committee, which was set up to oversee the selection of the most suitable individual for the merged organisation. His role at MediaCorp is not restricted to HR. He also has responsibility for group administration, legal, property and security services and its training arm, Media Academy. The combined role offers him the opportunity to be much more involved in company strategy and to keep a closer watch on the bottom line.
A self-professed Chinese antique aficionado, Chua has become a familiar face among antique establishments in Singapore's Chinatown, where he spends his free time scouring for gems from the past. Amongst the collection of this articulate and humourous senior executive are valuable historic artefacts and ornaments worth thousands of dollars, which he laments, are not equally appreciated by his family members. He travels extensively throughout China and undertakes courses in antique authentication to pursue his love for Chinese art and history.
That Chua is so passionate about antiquities it came as a surprise that being an antiquarian was not his choice of career. "If I weren't an HR practitioner or in management, I would probably end up as, well, a consultant in HR. Antiquarian? Maybe after my retirement," he says.
As for now, ensuring proper integration of the merging business units is the order of the day. The merger mainly affects the free newspapers, MediaCorp Press' TODAY and SPH's Streats and the free-to-air mass TV channels. The TV merger consolidates MediaWorks' Channel U and i and MediaCorp's Channel 5, 8 and TV Mobile under MediaCorp TV. Having a net asset value of $50 million, the new TV company is 80% owned by MediaCorp Group and 20 percent by SPH, MediaWorks' parent company. The new company includes MediaCorp Studios - which produces the bulk of MediaCorp's local programming. Channel i has ceased broadcast on 1 January, while Streats has been combined with TODAY and managed by MediaCorp Press, which is 40 and 60 percent owned by MediaCorp and SPH respectively.
The merger stems from the need to pull the plug on the costly experiment in market liberalisation which saw both entities losing millions every year - thus the reference to the merger as a rationalisation move. Competition between the two companies got intense from 2000, when print giant SPH was given a TV licence and broadcaster MediaCorp a newspaper licence by the Media Authority of Singapore in a quid pro quo move to inject competition into the domestic media. However, their foray into each other's pie was unprofitable - to say the least. On the TV side, SPH, racked up loses of more than $40 million a year since inception, whilst MediaCorp Group lost $20 million in 2004 due to severe discounts in advertising rates. Their free newspaper ventures were not doing too well either. SPH's Streats lost more than $5 million each year since its launch, whilst its rival incurred $9.6 million in losses in the fiscal year 2004.
Once the merger had been agreed by both parties, HR's expertise was sought to drive parts of the integration. Chua puts HR's role into perspective by explaining that the team's involvement was in the due diligence, integration planning, integration implementation and post integration phases.
Keeping the courtship a secret, recalls Chua, was one of the biggest challenges in the initial phases of the merger as a massive project had to be conducted to uncover the terms and framework of the proposed marriage. "The initial stages of a negotiation could make or break a merger. As we didn't want to alert the whole organisation to the plan, we had to be careful to limit the access of information," he explains.
The due diligence phase helped MediaCorp ascertain merger compatibility. Factors such as cultures, values, strengths, capabilities and leadership styles were assessed. That started a painstaking process of obtaining, understanding and reviewing information regarding its counterpart's framework for contracts of employment, contractual obligations for future and recurring payment to employees, such as bonuses and compensation and benefits packages. The process also identifies key operation and management staff, including risks associated with loss of key staff. There was also a need to establish whether or not the company was unionised and its associated union relationships.
"We involved the union at the early stages because we wanted them to be prepared about the merger and to understand the rationale for it," says Chua. This serves to pre-empt the union about issues like redeployment and severance package that may come into the picture later on. "On the other hand, we wanted to be able to manage the union's expectations." Whilst this admission suggests the company's unwillingness to proceed in the face of resistance, that was not the case. The merger was to Chua and his organisation, a business decision and it was determined to forge ahead, even if it means ruffling a few feathers.
A major task moving forward was workforce planning for the merging business units. Overseeing the staff rationalisation project were two other members from the MSC, the committee's chairman, Wee Leong How, MediaCorp's independent board director and Soo Kok Leng, head of SPH's HR.
"An individual's skill sets and performance were key assessments," says Chua. This seemingly straight-forward process turned out to be more complex than it sounds. "Deciphering job titles was a major challenge," he recalls. The team found themselves drilling into specific roles of those affected by the integration, making sense of technical jargons and poring over job scopes and depth of functions - all these against a ticking deadline. "Take cameraman, the role encompasses different functions here and at SPH, and then there were those crew members who specialised in only current affairs or sitcoms. At which level should they come in? The list goes on."
In the end, the company decided that the strategic direction of the merged entity was what the assessment criteria of competencies and skill sets should be based on. "If we planned to emphasise on entertainment channels in the long term, for instance, then people who have been involved in entertainment productions in the past will stand a high chance," he elaborates. The majority of staff affected by the staff rationalisation exercise were from SPHMediaWorks. Of these, 200 were transferred to MediaCorp and 97 absorbed by SPH.
Job function was not the only factor the team had to scrutinise. There was also a need to review and match the compensation and benefit packages for staff crossing over, yet ensure that their offer is equitable to what the existing staff were getting. "Fortunately for Chua and his team, both companies' packages were comparable. "We decided to continue with MediaCorp's existing benefits package and have the newcomers infuse into the structure," says Chua. As for salaries, He says the crossovers will continue to receive what they were getting previously. "MediaCorp honoured the salaries of the newcomers. If you go into salary negotiation, that's going to add another layer of complexity to the negotiation process."
During integration planning, HR also paid specific attention in forming the new management team, line management and various other staff appointments. In the meantime, the team was also planning for work environment, office location and transition strategies to move people into the new roles. Chua states that the outcome of the integration planning process is pivotal to the merger's success.
The MSC was also given the delicate task of overseeing redundancies. SPH's Soo said in a recent press statement that the committee had met several times a week during the two-month planning process to run through the list of 1,200 people affected by the merger. Describing the deliberation as "tedious", he said some names took a "few seconds" to process whilst some provoked heated discussions and needed a couple of meetings to contemplate. Overall, he believed that the process had been exhaustive and fair.
At the end of the deliberation, 132 SPH were laid off. Separately, a staff review aimed at further enhancing MediaCorp's efficiency resulted in 72 staff being retrenched across the group. The retrenchment benefits were in line with industry practice - one month per year of service, subject to a cap of 25 years. The retrenchment benefits cost SPH $5.3 million and MediaCorp $3.9 million.
Chua indentifies fear over job uncertainty, cultural difference and anxiety about the new operations to be the three key concerns staff encounter during a major change. Communication, he states, was the primary way to alleviate such anxieties. To that end, HR organised several dialogue sessions with the group CEO, Ernest Wong, who has recently tendered his resignation, and strategic business unit CEOs to clarify business rationale, and to address concerns of all stakeholders.
To make sure that communication happens both ways, staff were given the opportunity to ask questions and clarify matters like offer terms. HR also developed staff Q&As to assess reliability and consistency of its messages across business units. In fact, Chua believes that MediaCorp's communication initiative was so effective at addressing staff concerns about job security and the company's future, he saw retention as "a non-issue".
At the time of printing, the merger had entered the post integration phase, to which Chua describes was a little less hectic but significant nonetheless. "Currently, we are reviewing the achievements against the original objectives," he says. Chua adds that MediaCorp is also looking to conduct an employee survey at a later stage to assess and monitor the success of the new organisation. Re-training and skill retention programmes are also in the pipelines to ensure all interface requirements for business continue.
A good skill retention strategy is indeed imperative to a major industry player like MediaCorp, given the scarcity of local talent. According to Chua, good, experienced professionals such as actors, executive producers, script writers, audio and video engineers and animation production crew are hard to come by. "That's why we widened the scope of our star search programmes to include countries like China and Malaysia to attract foreign actors." For other roles, headhunting and poaching from international media organisations like Disney is sometimes an option. "It helps that the company is well recognised in the region." Then again, he adds that there is concern about the level of staff engagement and motivation in regards to hiring foreign talent. Chua was referring to the sometimes lower volume of work in Singapore, compared to what the professionals are accustomed to in their home countries.
Another constant HR challenge of the media industry, says Chua, is the need to provide for flexibility, especially where news and current affairs productions are concerned. "New is about getting there first. Look at the December 26 Tsunami. When the disaster broke out, our journalists and camera crew had to be there with little time to make arrangements for accommodation and lodging but as HR, you'll have to be resourceful and react quickly."
To further illustrate the need for a company's HR policy to take into consideration the industry's idiosyncrasies, he notes, "We may have stipulated official working hours here but if a fire broke out the night before and our journalists were working through the night to file the story, we can't expect the team to turn up at work at 9 the next morning. The same goes for staff who have stayed through the night to cut a trailer."
The irregularity of staff work schedules also renders it impossible for the HR team to implement standard, company-wide work-life programmes. Nevertheless, Chua says such initiatives do exist. They are often left to individual business units or divisions to administer so they can be better tailored to suit individual units.
As for his views on the need to maintain work-life balance, Chua says it's something he truly believes should not be overlooked. In fact, Chua takes an interesting - if intimidating - approach to creating a corporate culture that respects the need for a balance work-life. "If someone steps into my office at 5.59 in the evening for an unplanned discussion, I tell him or her - jokingly, of course - that they only have a minute left."
However, on days where he has to work overtime, Chua prefers to work from home. "I think that puts less pressure on my team. Staff sometimes feel they have to stay up because their bosses are still in the office."
Perhaps working from home after a long day at the office also offers Chua a welcoming change from the workplace. After all, the antique enthusiast says a change in surroundings, such as through walking around the office premise, often helps him gain fresh insights and inspirations. Besides, who knows what a gem of an idea he'll discover.
Biographical data
Chua Hoe Sing
1986
Graduated from the National University of Singapore with first class honours in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and in 1994, obtained an MBA with major in Accountancy from the Nanyang Technological University.
Joined Sierra Semiconductor located in the Silicon Valley, USA, as an integrated circuit design engineer and then later moved on to Tritech Microelectronics as a Senior Engineer
1993
Human resource manager
Siemens Components
1996
Division head of business development and operations
Cathay Organization
1997
Joined Citibank as the Asia Pacific regional human resource director overseeing strategic HR functions across 12 countries.
2002
Executive vice president of group human resources and corporate services
MediaCorp Pte Ltd
Media planner
Chua Hoe Sing's workforce planning and integration strategies are crucial in helping the MediaCorp-SPH merger stay on track
