Corporate culture glues the global and local hr strategies

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Founded in 1888, Lee Kum Kee Sauce Group is a Hong Kong-based global family business with 5,500 staff.

With its continuous development in 130 years, Lee Kum Kee has become a globally renowned multinational enterprise providing more than 200 products to over 100 countries across five continents from its five manufacturing plants in Xinhui, Huangpu, Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Malaysia.

To ensure the highest food safety and standards, Lee Kum Kee manages the whole value chain from raw materials, research and development, production and logistics to sales and marketing. As a century-old leading brand in the sauce industry, Lee Kum Kee is not only a household name as an ethnic family enterprise, but also a symbol of quality and trust.

To support Lee Kum Kee’s vision “Where there are people there is Lee Kum Kee” and its mission “Promoting Chinese cuisines worldwide”, the global HR team in the Hong Kong headquarters and local HR professionals in different countries work together to drive people strategies and business results.

Derek Wu, executive vice-president of global human resources at Lee Kum Kee, highlighted: “With a workforce of growing diversity in terms of geographic locations and demographics, we strive to be the employer of choice through recruiting, developing, motivating and retaining the right talent.”

All these are well-recognised professionally, as evidenced by Human Resources' HR Distinction Awards 2018 where Lee Kum Kee garnered three prizes– a gold in Excellence in Global and Local HR Strategies and two silvers in Excellence in Employer Branding and Excellence in Workplace Culture.

As a global enterprise, the challenges of designing and rolling out global strategies and standards are more complex in terms of variations in social, political and economic environments.

Understanding the continual change of the global competitive environment, local employment laws and compensation and benefits practices, employees’ expectations are essential to cultivate a global mindset for the HR team to create practices that will be consistently applied to different countries in maintaining the various local cultures and practices.

Therefore, timely and effective implementation of HR strategies in conformity with the global framework and standards while catering for local needs is crucial.

Lee Kum Kee’s corporate culture and core values “Pragmatism, Integrity, Constant entrepreneurship, Si Li Ji Ren, Benefitting the Community, and Sharing Fruits of Success” bind the group together across geographic, functional and cultural boundaries through effective HR policies and practices to facilitate and align individuals and local business units with the overall sauce group’s strategic plan.

Global HR is responsible for people strategies and the standardisation of HR policies and procedures, while local HR implements the policies and practices with adaptations to the local environment and culture through goal alignment, practice conformity and effective communication.

With support from top management and the local management team, which embrace a common and consistent corporate culture and core values, HR can be invaluable for driving people strategies and business results in the global marketplace and effectively manage people in different cultures and environments.