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The focus is on ensuring employees take pride in what they do, perform at their best, and trust and enjoy the people they work with, Cindy Chua, Head of HR APAC, Check Point Software Technologies, shares.
Check Point Software Technologies (Check Point) is a provider of cyber security solutions to governments and corporate enterprises globally. It offers a multilevel security architecture that defends enterprises’ cloud, network and mobile device-held information, along with a comprehensive and intuitive one-point-of-control security management system.
In 2022, Check Point's HR team in Singapore won the bronze trophy for Best Remote Learning Initiative, at HRO's Employee Experience Awards in Singapore. Let's learn more about this award-winning strategy in this interview with Cindy Chua, Head of HR APAC, Check Point Software Technologies.
Q Congratulations on the achievement! Could you take us through the highs and lows of your winning strategy – and how important is it for the organisation to have the strategy recognised this year?
Our vision for the organisation is to be the employer of choice within the market and beyond. We place a strong focus on building a high-performing workforce where employees take pride in what they do, perform at their best, and trust and enjoy the people they work with. Our strategy belief is that a healthy employee experience will always lead to a healthy organisation as a whole. This is achieved through our full range of People programmes from executive skip-level meetings with feedback and actions to drive personal and professional growth, to mental wellness and team-building programmes, to ensure a collaborative culture that contributes to overall organisational and customer success.
Added to that, we enable remote work and learning which is a priority in the organisation to enable our employees and help them become standout talents in their respective arenas.
Q Understanding and meeting your employees’ needs and expectations is never an easy feat. How did you and your team identify the business & employee needs, and craft the perfect solution?
We put effort into maintaining a close communication line with our managers and employees, so that feedback from the ground is correctly filtered from all channels via monthly All-Hands, monthly check-ins with teams, etc. This will enable further work and personal support and mentoring programmes which go from pre-onboarding to when the employee departs the organisation. Executive skip-level meetings also ensure unrestricted feedback from employees, which is then incorporated into further improvements in regional People policies.
An APAC High-Flier Programme continues to nurture new and mature employees for fast-track development to ensure these talented individuals reach their full potential. Additional team bonding activities focused on body-building health and team-building activities like hiking and archery continue to be held across APAC offices. For our remote learning initiatives, we worked closely with our HQ to develop original materials and create a training programme that could be personalised according to individual needs.
Q How did the strategy add to the overall employee experience in your organisation, in terms of ROI, when it came to fruition? Share with us the benefits of having such a strategy in place.
Our Check Point HR strategy’s ROI proved to be significant, as we were able to meet the needs of the business to nurture and establish a high-performing workforce. Providing a means for our employees to upskill in their own time and at their own pace also has a positive effect on staff retention levels. Our social enablement programmes, ranging from wellness talks and support for the community, to diversity & inclusion celebrations, lead to greater understanding and appreciation for each and everyone’s uniqueness, promoting even more understanding, collaboration, and support among the employees.
A Women’s Committee was also kicked off to allow growing female leaders in a traditionally male industry to congregate and drive support and growth for each other, creating a more holistic work environment.
Q Could you offer some recommendations to your peers across industries – what advice or lessons would you have to guide them into implementing something similar for their own EX foundation?
In order to accurately identify employee needs, it is important to earn the trust of the employees and maintain a clear communication channel with them, so that the initiatives that are implemented will be as relevant and effective as possible.
I believe our People programmes are also executed with transparency and sincerity with obvious employee benefits and organisational development in mind, with the effect of eliciting further employee support for initiated programmes.
Q If you were to reflect, what is one thing you’ll do differently in executing this strategy?
I feel confident in the range of people programmes that we have implemented and will continue to tweak as needed to meet the evolving needs of our employees.
Seeing the effect of successful people programmes resulting in positive outcomes for our organisation, I would love to introduce further social interaction programmes for workplace togetherness and new educational online courses to take in this transformational industry of today.
Q Looking ahead, how is the organisation going to take this winning strategy higher and further in the coming years? Give us a sneak peek into your upcoming plans to grow the overall employee experience.
With the gap in talent across all industries and the extremely competitive search for cybersecurity talent today, our people programmes at Check Point are on the right path towards developing the high-performance culture we need. We have already implemented a full hybrid working model, and we are looking into meaningful ways to incorporate in-person interactions back into our employee development with more plans in 2023 to implement further employee-positive experiences.
Q 10 years down the line, where do you see the future of HR?
The past three years have driven an increased rate of digital transformation, introducing new HR policies that were unthinkable before. From remote working to work-anywhere-and-anytime, and the evolving nature of jobs of the future, all People teams are the perfect business conduit to ensure roles of the future are filled by adequately skilled employees as today’s jobs are eliminated, with replacement positions requiring additional technological skills. The People teams will also rise in greater business importance, as the value of instituting more effective team building and management programmes is made essential by these far-flung employees and work times.
The success of an organisation will depend not just on their offering but also on their employees, to ensure the proper running of the organisation and development and contribution to the business. A progressive People team and programmes will have a big part to play in the success of any organisation, for as long as people are in organisations.
Image / Provided (featuring interviewee Cindy Chua)
Read more interviews on why organisations have won trophies for their HR practices - head over to our Winning Secrets section!
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