HSBC Bank Taiwan Ltd (匯豐台灣商銀) plans to adopt several approaches to build a happy workplace for its employees, chief executive officer Adam Chen (陳志堅) said yesterday.
Chen’s comment came after the bank ranked first among all domestic companies to win Chinese-language Global Views Monthly magazine’s Happy Enterprise Award on Monday.
“We can only be cheerful about winning the prize for a short moment, as creating a pleasant work environment is an ongoing journey and we cannot relax and stop,” Chen told the Taipei Times in a telephone interview yesterday.
Photo courtesy of HSBC
The magazine said that HSBC Bank Taiwan’s flexible working arrangements was one of the reasons it was a happy enterprise.
Chen said that the bank would continue its flexible working arrangement even after the COVID-19 pandemic ends.
FLEXIBILITY
“We allow employees great flexibility on where and when they want to do their jobs; they can start working early to get off early or choose to work from home. It is the quality of output that we focus on, not the process,” Chen said.
Although some entrepreneurs think flexitime reduces productivity, Chen disagreed, saying it is important to believe in the good of human nature.
“We have demands about the quality of their work, but we also offer business tools such as a computer for each employee so that they can reach each other using computer software, not phones. The staff has no problem in maintaining their productivity,” Chen said.
Another approach to creating a happy workplace is to make improvements based on staff proposals, so the bank has a staff engagement club and Chen routinely meets with employees to listen to their voices, he said.
Staff proposals range from the light-hearted ones, such as birthday celebrations for colleagues and snack choices for Friday afternoon, to serious ones, such as the need for office computer updates, Chen said.
To ensure that employees are satisfied with the bank’s policies, Chen also asks all section managers to find out if staff have any issues, and if they do, managers must report to him to discuss what can be done, he said.
The bank’s parent company, HSBC Holdings PLC, asks all of its units’ staff to file an anonymous employee survey once every six months, and compares the results across different countries and continents, Chen said.
The survey questions cannot be disclosed, but are mainly used to measure whether staff are confident or happy with the company’s policy and strategy, he said.
DIVERSITY
HSBC values its employees’ differences regarding their age, gender and cultural background, Chen said, adding that the bank aims to boost its LGBT-friendly policies.
The bank offers spouse benefits to employees’ partners and would be relaxing some basic rules to benefit staff more, he added.
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
STIMULUS PLANS: An official said that China would increase funding from special treasury bonds and expand another program focused on key strategic sectors China is to sharply increase funding from ultra-long treasury bonds this year to spur business investment and consumer-boosting initiatives, a state planner official told a news conference yesterday, as Beijing cranks up fiscal stimulus to revitalize its faltering economy. Special treasury bonds would be used to fund large-scale equipment upgrades and consumer goods trade-ins, said Yuan Da (袁達), deputy secretary-general of the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission. “The size of ultra-long special government bond funds will be sharply increased this year to intensify and expand the implementation of the two new initiatives,” Yuan said. Under the program launched last year, consumers can
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
TECH PULL: Electronics heavyweights also attracted strong buying ahead of the CES, analysts said. Meanwhile, Asian markets were mixed amid Trump’s incoming presidency Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares yesterday closed at a new high in the wake of a rally among tech stocks on Wall Street on Friday, moving the TAIEX sharply higher by more than 600 points. TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock in the TAIEX, rose 4.65 percent to close at a new high of NT$1,125, boosting its market value to NT$29.17 trillion (US$888 billion) and contributing about 400 points to the TAIEX’s rise. The TAIEX ended up 639.41 points, or 2.79 percent, at 23,547.71. Turnover totaled NT$406.478 billion, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The surge in TSMC follows a positive performance
RSS