During the Randstad Award 2016 at the Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre, we caught up with Justina Tan, Senior Vice President, People Team, who shared more about Changi Airport Group's employer brand.
How does Changi Airport Group stand out with its employer brand?
I would say, for one, I think we work in a very unique airport environment – that is something that many of our people can identify with, it’s something that they really enjoy. They find that the work is very meaningful, it contributes to something larger and that drives a lot of the passion in terms of what they do.
How have Changi Airport Group’s talent attraction and retention efforts benefitted from its employer brand?
It’s helped us in terms of reaching out to a very good pool of candidates who are keen to work for us and that has also helped us identify people who are passionate for our brand, who could help us in our journey to make that difference for our passengers and who help us to innovate in many of the ways. We’ve also been able to attract a very diverse pool of talents and that’s very useful in us in bringing different perspectives to help to push the brand forward for us to bring that experience for our passengers.
How was Changi Airport Group grown and nurtured its employer brand?
We’ve done it through many multiple different types of platforms, both through face-to-face and connecting with the individuals or through different mediums. And I think over time with the research that Randstad has provided, it’s also given us some insights into how we can reach out to some of these potential job seekers. So we’ve built a very strong career website to try to reach out to individuals to show them and help explain what perhaps a job in the airport is like, so they get to hear firsthand from our employees through that. We’ve also used LinkedIn in a very big way now that it’s taking up, and through LinkedIn, really established our brand presence as well. And onsite I think we have done many different things, be it through going down to the schools, getting people to come and interact with us, and through different events, networking events, or perhaps even running events like we did an Amazing Race equivalent event at the airport to reach out to potential job seekers so through that they experience and find out a little bit more about jobs at the airport. That is an interesting way for them to learn about us rather than just pure reading about us.
How have Changi Airport Group’s brand ambassadors made a difference?
One of the things about building our branding journey has been really building a team of people who are passionate about our employer brand, so I’m really deeply appreciative for this group of people who are actually volunteers, who actually go out with us whenever we go out for any of these events to try to bring to life what our brand is about. And there’s nothing like hearing directly from employees working in different job functions what is their job like, how do they feel about the company, what is the culture of the company, and I think for many of the potential job seekers when they hear firsthand from these employees, the experience is a lot different from really hearing from perhaps like the HR team, which in our context is called the People Team, who might be deemed as marketing the job per se. So I think they have really made a huge difference for us. We have also looked to grow them with us, equipping them with skillsets, so much so that we have people who walked up to us and said, “Hey, how do I become a brand ambassador for us.” So I think the award is also something that we are looking forward to bringing back to them to celebrate this journey, because without them, I think getting our brand out there is going to be a whole lot more challenging, so they have definitely made a difference for our brand out there in the market.
about Randstad Award Singapore.
Celebrating its 5th anniversary this year in Singapore and its 16th edition globally, the Randstad Employer Brand Research is presented each year to the most attractive employer in 25 markets across the globe. It is based on the outcome of one of the world’s largest independent survey into employer branding, covering over 200,000 global respondents and 75% of the global economy. For more information about the Randstad Employer Brand Research and how it can impact your organisation's employer brand, take a look at this list of frequently asked questions.
you might also want to take a look at changi airport group's employer brand.