Talent Management in VUCA world by Emtek

Every corporation has its own strategy to face the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertainty, Complexity and
Ambiguity) environment in today’s business. Up to now, no corporation immunes from VUCA
environment.

SWA magazine edition 19/2017 put VUCA as its headline. An interview was conducted with Pieter
Andrian, VP HR of Emtek Group on how Emtek Group dealt with its VUCA world.

Summary of such interview is as follows:

 The Company keeps trying to rejuvenate its core value to always be relevant.
 Its current core value is “Embrace Change”.
 Most of its employees are millenials so that they are trying to treats its employee well
according to millenials acceptance.
 Open for company’s culture refresh, because millennials have their own culture, and
they tend disobey the conventional rules and can’t be forced to follow the conventional
rules, as they don’t take dismissal as a threat.
 Career flexibility for millennials. With recommendation, employee can be transferred to
any other companies under Emtek Group.
 Flexibility in compensation and benefits, benefits are given based on the employee’s
aspiration and needs. Example COP for those preferred car, MacBook as office laptop,
Vlog competition, fitness classes at office, etc.
 Convenient working environment example informal clothing, office locates nearby the
lifestyle sites.
 Differentiate strategy for each talent level.
 Assign a VP engineering to focus on analytical of “big data” to enhance recruitment
process

Emtek strategy is more focused on millennials because:

1. The company’s business is on media and content; which need younger employee
 2. Total millennials in workplace is about 45% which is pretty dominant

How is Millennials culture differs from previous workforce generation? Below is the distinctive
characteristic of Millennials
a. Loyal to profession instead of loyal to the employer
Which then cause millennials employees tend to jump from one company to another, one typical
reason is that they see no further challenge in existing job. Several ways to retain them are by
transferring to another challenging division, setting a continuous short term and pushing to
pursue challenging target.
b. Fast respond and agile to make sure the job done
Some of the initiatives could be to cut down the decision making chains, in order to be fast and
responsive to the VUCA situation. Delegating more authority to be highly adaptive/high potential
millennials also could be considered to embrace above initiative.
c. Higher health conscious and more demand to work and life balance
Flexible working arrangement, such as work from home, office hot desk, meals provided and
flexy work hours are very strong “Employee Value Proposition” to millennials. The companies
can also take benefit from such practice from productivity of its employee, less overhead cost
(from less office space) and even promote employee engagement & retention.
d. Demand transparency on compensation scheme and career path
To adapt with fast changing VUCA world, timeframe for employee performance management
review also become shorter, from yearly to weekly or even daily. Millennials also demand for a
transparent career path / individual development plan. Companies could also take initiative on
using the big data for IT based recruitment & training / assessment system.