Stephanie Ho, General Manager
AsiaMalls Management
A COMPANY THAT TRULY VALUES ITS STAFF
In this issue of Work-Life Movers, we meet Ms Stephanie Ho, General Manager of AsiaMalls Management.
Few companies treat their management and staff alike. At AsiaMalls, not only are ordinary workers allowed to work flexi-time to cater to special family needs, even its General Manager can take half days off during an important period when her son needs her.
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In the run-up to her son’s PSLE, Ms Ho worked half days for a month. “This not only freed up time for me in the afternoons to be with my child to coach and encourage him in the preparations for his exams, it also enabled me to still continue to be effective in completing my work while in the office in the mornings,” she said.
Ms Ho is not the only one who enjoys flexible work arrangements at her organisation.
Over the past year, as part of its efforts to ensure a healthy work-life balance among its employees, under the leadership of Ms Ho, AsiaMalls has set in place work-life integration (WLI) programmes such as telecommuting and flexi-work schedule arrangements.
The management has also opened its doors to ideas from its employees.
“The channel for communication is in place for staff to voice their views and suggestions on how better the company can respond to their needs and expectations in the work context,” said Ms Ho.
For example, she has staff who work part-time because they are worried about the studies of their children and some who work on flexible arrangement because they need to look after their elderly parents.
However, keeping the balance between individual needs and that of business and operational needs is no easy feat. Ms Ho shared, “As the GM, being mindful of my responsibilities in delivering the targets set by the company, I need to ensure that work-life integration does not compromise the over-arching needs of our business.”
Hence it is not possible for staff on shift work to choose not to work on public holidays or weekends. But if shift workers wish to work part-time because they are attending lessons in the day and can only work in the evenings or weekends, the management is able to accommodate that.
Ms Ho said the management realises that when they increase staff engagement and satisfaction, the company also reaps the benefits of having a generally happy staff population.
These measures have helped to retain experienced and valuable staff and provide a greater buy-in and loyalty to the company.
The success of WLI programmes has given AsiaMalls the impetus to implement more work-life initiatives. |
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AsiaMalls is a property management organisation jointly owned by ARMF (Singapore) and the Guthrie Group. It manages Tiong Bahru Plaza, Century Square, Hougang Mall, White Sands, Liang Court and Tampines 1 and Central Plaza.
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