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1 HR EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2015 Excellence in Employee Engagement HONGKONG BROADBAND NETWORK LIMITED
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HR EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2015
Excellence in Employee Engagement
HONGKONG BROADBAND NETWORK LIMITED
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COMPANY INTRODUCTION
Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited was established in 1999. We are the largest
provider of fibre hi-speed residential broadband service (symmetrical 100Mbps and
above) in Hong Kong with a market share of over 50%. We offer a diversified portfolio of
premium telecom services to both residential and enterprise markets, including
broadband and Wi-Fi access, communication, entertainment and Cloud solutions.
VISION AND GOAL
Hong Kong comes first in our name for good reason. Playing an integral part of Hong
Kong, we are proud of our city’s achievements. As a company at the forefront guided by
a core purpose to “Make our Hong Kong a Better Place to Live”, it’s our responsibility
to help pave the path forward and to lead by example.
We believe our Talents are essential to the success of our core value and therefore our
vision and goal of Talent Management is to “Make HKBN a Better Place to Work”. We
believe that having a Talent-oriented Co-Ownership culture is what sets us apart. Our
philosophy can best be seen in the way we invest to ensure our Talents are inspired and
supported in their continuous learning and development, and how we uphold LIFE-work
priority – by putting personal health first, then family, then work. Our target is to ensure
that all our 2, 400-plus employees whom the company called “Talents”, regardless of
rank and role, can claim "HKBN is MY company, not just the company."
Our passion to go above and beyond for our company, our industry, and our city is
strengthened by our core values, expressed through the acronym “T-R-E-E”:
Trustworthy – We are honest and genuine, keeping
promises without compromise
Responsive – We are visionary and receptive,
responding aptly and promptly
Entrepreneurial – We are innovative and unyielding,
striving for excellence
Engaging – We are devoted and considerate, attracting
others to follow suit
We believe that, guided by these values, our 2400
Talents are key to fulfilling our core purpose.
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IMPLEMENTATION
HKBN believes that Talent Engagement is the alignment of Talents to the Company’s vision and values, and equally how well the Company represents the personal views and beliefs of our Talents.
At HKBN, we have worked towards implementing a robust employee engagement
program which is believed as one of the company’s “strongest differentiators” in the
telecommunication industry. We frame all talent engagement initiatives under our core
purpose and four core values:
Trustworthy
When we talk about being trustworthy, we mean we are honest and genuine, keeping
true to our promises without compromise. We trust our people and prompt them to
trust the company. For example, Talents are not required to submit a doctor’s certificate
for one-day sick leave. We don’t keep attendance records. Frontline Talents do not need
to report for duty and return to the office after client visits. Talents may even choose to
work in a mobile office (work from anywhere without the need to be present in our
office) by just notifying their supervisors one day in advance when they must attend to
a personal or family matter.
We trust all our Talents and encourage them to take responsibility and ownership of their
work, no sign in/out is required and no doctor certificate for one day sick leave. To ensure
our Talents have LIFE-work priority, we allow them to come in 30 minutes earlier or later.
They may also not come to the office when they are studying for examinations, or are
engaged in voluntary work. What’s most important is all Talents are clear about their
goals and objectives. Starting from July 2015, we have extended our working hours to a
more flexible way, Talents can choose any timeslot between 8:30am-4:30pm to
10:00am-6:00pm with core business hours of 10:00am to 4:30pm, Talents also can apply
mobile office to accommodate their family needs.
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Responsive
Responsive is being visionary and receptive, responding aptly and promptly. In response
to our Talents’ needs – whether for reasons such as child care or the challenges of a daily
commute, we offer a wide range of flexible working arrangement. Talents may choose
to begin work from between 8:30a.m. to 10a.m. or even work from a mobile office to
accommodate their personal or family needs. During the World Cup, for example, we
allowed our Talents to take mornings off after a long night of watching the matches live.
While there is always a perception that flexible working arrangements will sacrifice
regular face-to-face collaborations or even lead to diminishing productivity, we tell our
Talents they know what they are supposed to do. As we haven’t seen any effect to our
productivity, our approach has been effective.
In order to make responsive feedback to our Talents, we encourage frank, direct and
transparent communication. Many channels are open for communication. Anonymous
opinions are accepted through our dedicated intranet forum, with replies made from
department heads or management posted as soon as possible. On the other hand, Talent
Engagement Surveys are conducted regularly to gauge sentiments, with suggestions
conveyed for management consideration. Town hall meetings for all Talents are held bi-
annually for top management to share strategic directions and initiatives, while
managerial meetings are held monthly, inviting all supervisory level Talents to
participate and share their latest updates and development.
A surprise live performance by Canto-pop star G.E.M.. during our town hall meeting.
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Entrepreneurial
Riding on the successful journey of our Co-ownership I Scheme in 2012, when over 80
middle to senior managers invested money to acquire a stake in the company, we’ve
rolled out Co-Ownership II this past summer to allow an even broader Talent base the
chance to invest in HKBN. Unlike the more commonly seen stock options for top
management, Co-Ownership at HKBN advocates investment from the pocket of a wide
spectrum of our Talents paired with equity-based compensation. Talents are incentivized
to share a sense of ownership and duty, and ultimately, strive for the best interest of our
company. To date, over 270 supervisor and above level Talents have now joined our Co-
Ownership II Plan, each investing between two to six months of salary towards shares in
HKBN. These Co-Owners align their interests with the company, and have a strong sense
of ownership, entrepreneurship and commitment towards HKBN’s success.
Most of our Talents enjoy a sense of ownership – proven true by their autonomy to share
ideas at any time. At HKBN, ideas can get implemented after a couple of emails. And
there are also plenty of opportunities for our Talents to advance their careers, as well as
learning opportunities and experiences they can’t get elsewhere.
When we had a good year, our top management, for example, hand delivered ice cream
to everyone as a way of thanking them, even those working on the streets. It was very
heartwarming as there are not many CEOs who would go to a work station and say,
“Thank you for your hard work”. Everyone was happy. It was a genuine gesture.
Senior management hand-delivers ice cream as a token of thanks after
another year of successful business results.
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The common drive at HKBN was the search for “Legal Unfair Competitive Advantage,”
which resulted in a united sense of entrepreneurial “sink or swim”. Talent empowerment
and risk taking were encouraged at all levels across the organization. For example, HKBN
issued a corporate credit card with at least a HKD20,000 limit to Talents at the job level
of Officer or above, irrespective of their functions. They were told to use it as they
deemed fit for business needs. According to HKBN, this was a unique practice, as most
companies normally issued corporate credit cards only to sales employees with a need
for corporate entertainment. The message conveyed was that if officers saw a need, then
they could act using the money to rectify it. The credit card exposure was not a lot of
money but it gave a strong sense of empowerment. If Talents took a calculated risk
within the allowed risk exposure and lost, they would not be penalized; rather, they
would be rewarded.
At HKBN, ideas can come from anyone: some from management, some from employees.
We’ve even given out ideas and asked the company to vote for the one they preferred
most. But when it comes to benefits for our Talents, we ended up implementing every
single one that was proposed. We also benchmark from other companies, and adapt
them to fit our culture. These are some of the things our Talents treasure most.
Engaging
Engaging is about being devoted and considerate, attracting others to follow suit. We
prioritize LIFE-work life balance. We offer a two-hour early-off Friday once a month,
during which we have a no-meetings rule after 2 p.m. We don’t email during weekends.
We have half-day offs on the eves of major festivals, such as on Chinese Mid-Autumn
Festival, Chinese Winter Solstice, Christmas, New Year’s Day, and Lunar New Year. We
also offer one-day Family Care Leave to all Talents per year to encourage them to put
family and health before work.
HKBN offers life-long learning and career-driven learning and development
opportunities. Our “Next Station
University” is a program designed to
sponsor and help
Talents obtain an accredited university
degree. The company sponsors 80
percent of tuition. For the convenience
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of participating Talents, lectures are conducted at our office after work or during
weekends. In 2014, 30 Talents graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business
Management from the University of Wales.
Our “Be a Pioneer” management development program equips potential supervisors
with leadership competencies, preparing them for a possible promotion to the
management level. We also offer a Certified Professional Engineer (CPE) Certification
Program. Depending on their performance, CPEs are eligible for additional incentives
and promotion. All initiatives of the Learning & Development Department are designed
for the purpose of career development and skills upgrade. Through great effort, we
empower Talents to discover their strengths and step out of their comfort zones.
As we believe simply "training" our Talents doesn't go far enough, apart from the support
of continuous education, we arrange annual experiential trips to inspire our managerial
Talents with unique experiences. For over a decade now our annual experiential trips
have been themed journeys – “Better Life South Africa 2013”, “HappinUS - In Search of
Happiness 2012” etc., – framed around the following major objectives:
Widen life exposure. Life is much more than work and much more than Hong Kong.
These trips are designed to give us exposure beyond what we normally experience
at work, in our lives and even beyond “normal” travel with family and friends.
Cross-team networking. These annual trips make cross team building possible, and
bring huge benefits to team work, efficiency and morale for the whole company.
Not a reward trip. We maintained this trip in good or bad years, as it has become
part of HKBN’s culture. We firmly believe a strong management team will deliver
far more in revenue enhancement than the costs incurred.
Annual experiential trips bring
HKBN executives to visit
Kliptown Youth Program for
underprivileged children in
South Africa.
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IMPACT
We believe successful Talent Engagement programmes have contributed to encouraging
business results and strong growth for HKBN. More than anything, we believe an
engaged and happy Talent is more motivated to improve and deliver quality results.
Favorable Engagement Survey Result
By putting effort to ensure our Talents have a thorough understanding and about our
core purpose and values, which includes concerted promotion efforts via intranet,
posters, workshops and new-join orientation etc., our 2014’s Talent Engagement
Survey revealed that close to 80 percent of Talents support our core values, while 80
percent understand HKBN’s core purpose and core values. In 2015, our score in the
“Employee Engagement” area saw a slight 2 percent improvement compared with
2014.
Sound and Sustainable Business Growth
Our 2014 interim results showed service revenue grew 9.9 percent to HK$986 million
while EBITDA grew 16.4 percent to HK$404 million. Broadband subscriptions grew
2.6 percent as of February, with a 33 percent market share. Our residential
broadband average monthly churn rate is consistently below 1 percent per month.
Employer Branding
Although we do not measure how our Talent Engagement policies contribute to our
branding, we believe there is great value in building and nurturing a “Talent first”
culture. On a regular basis, we do get candidates who are aware of our focus on LIFE-
work priority. They are well-versed about our family care initiatives, Co-Ownership
scheme, management experiential trips and other benefits. Our outstanding culture
and stories are often share through a variety of media, which in turn have attracted
the right people to join our company.
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EFFORS FOR CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENTS
We believe our Talents are the most important factor to our overall success, To realize
our company’s core purpose, we aim to make HKBN a better place to work. With strong
management support, we are confident in driving new out-of-the-box engagement ideas
and program. In 15 years of operation, HKBN has worked towards implementing a robust
Talent Engagement Program which we believe is one of the company’s strongest
differentiators in the industry.
We also plan to continue sharing our best practices across different public platforms and
through corporate exchange program. HKBN welcomes other companies to adopt our
Talent Engagement ideas. Our goal is to inspire others to follow suit and make our Hong
Kong a better place to live. Last year, HKBN conducted more than 10 sharing sessions
and company visits. This year, by participating in the HR Innovation Award held by a
professional HR organisation, we hope to further showcase our employment
engagement practices with even more companies and HR practitioners.
To ensure there is continual improvement, we will continue to invite our Talents to be
the “Co-Owners” of the company and aim to take our initiatives to the next level. Looking
ahead, we will gradually expand focus to concentrate on engagement that is proactively
initiated by each Talent. With support from our senior management, Talents are
encouraged to propose new ways to engage and develop themselves, instead of just
awaiting the company’s input. Presently, our departments are individually encouraged
to design their own Talent Development Program in partnership with the company to
drive operational efficiency, teamwork and talent development.
Instilling genuine pride in a company is never easy. Real pride is not happy talk; it is pride
centered on purpose. Talents who LOVE what they do and the company to which they
belong demonstrate their support for the company in words, but most especially, in
actions. They do whatever is necessary to get the job done and done right. That is the
kind of pride HKBN strive to engender in coming 3 years.
We will continue to put a comprehensive effort on culture, work experience, external
perceptions, key talent drivers, management practices and leadership vision to build a
stronger employer brand and awareness.
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HR EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2015
Recruitment and Retention
HONGKONG BROADBAND NETWORK LIMITED
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COMPANY INTRODUCTION
Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited was established in 1999. We are the largest
provider of fibre hi-speed residential broadband service (symmetrical 100Mbps and
above) in Hong Kong with a market share of over 50%. We offer a diversified portfolio of
premium telecom services to both residential and enterprise markets, including
broadband and Wi-Fi access, communication, entertainment and Cloud solutions.
VISION AND GOAL
Hong Kong comes first in our name for good reason. Playing an integral part of Hong
Kong, we are proud of our city’s achievements. As a company at the forefront guided by
a core purpose to “Make our Hong Kong a Better Place to Live”, it’s our responsibility
to help pave the path forward and to lead by example.
We believe our Talents are essential to the success of our core value and therefore our
vision and goal of Talent Management is to “Make HKBN a Better Place to Work”. We
believe that having a Talent-oriented Co-Ownership culture is what sets us apart. Our
philosophy can best be seen in the way we invest to ensure our Talents are inspired and
supported in their continuous learning and development, and how we uphold LIFE-work
priority – by putting personal health first, then family, then work. Our target is to ensure
that all our 2, 400-plus employees whom the company called “Talents”, regardless of
rank and role, can claim "HKBN is MY company, not just the company."
Our passion to go above and beyond for our company, our industry, and our city is
strengthened by our core values, expressed through the acronym “T-R-E-E”:
Trustworthy – We are honest and genuine, keeping
promises without compromise
Responsive – We are visionary and receptive,
responding aptly and promptly
Entrepreneurial – We are innovative and unyielding,
striving for excellence
Engaging – We are devoted and considerate, attracting
others to follow suit
We believe that, guided by these values, our 2400
Talents are key to fulfilling our core purpose.
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IMPLEMENTATION
Recruitment Strategy
At HKBN, we do not have any ‘staff’…We have only ‘Talents’. HKBN has consistently put great
emphasis into attracting high-caliber Talents who are able to align with our core purpose and
core values. Under this principle, we are looking for Talents with the below core competencies:
Trust
– Do the right thing for customers and other stakeholders with compliance
Change Management
– Be positive and adjust effectively when experiencing changes, risk-taking
Innovation
– Exhibit open-mindedness and curiosity to purpose & accept new ideas
Ownership & Vision
– Take ownership for successfully accomplishing work objectives
Results Orientation
– Manage time and resources effectively to achieve quality result, performance-based
Customer Focus
– Build cooperative relationship with customers and stakeholders
Teamwork & Team Leadership
– Demonstrate respect, positive interaction with team
People Development
– Open to feedback and willing to drive personal development
A prime example of HKBN’s commitment to find the best “Talents” is our Graduate Technical
Trainee Program – Become Our Next CTO. Below we will demonstrate how we attract and
assess the right Talents to be our future leaders by adopting different assessment tools and
creative recruitment activities.
Graduate Technical Trainee Program – Become Our Next CTO
HKBN Goes To Extremes To Find Future Leaders. We pride ourselves
on being “KickAss” good at providing the best “Big Fat Dumb Pipes.”
But our talent strategy is anything but dumb, as it meticulously
recruits and develops KickAss people in order to stand out from its
much larger, deeper-pocketed multinational competitors.
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From a field of 1,185 program applicants, we hired seven Talents after eight rigorous
elimination rounds. The Graduates not only being evaluated via business case study, they
were actually tested on their personality and cultural fit through one day orienteering
challenge at ocean park. We had our own HKBN spy integrating to each team to closely
observe how they worked with each other.
Final Stage of Assessment: Agenda of one-day “Adventure” at Ocean Park
Whole recruitment and assessment process for HKBN’s Graduate Technical Trainee
Program – Become Our Next CTO.
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Through the above comprehensive and stringent assessment process, we believe we are able
to identify the right Talents by 360-degree feedback from both panel judges from senior
executives and peers. For these trainees, we offered them a get set goal development
program which focused on goal driven fast track career planning, which helped them to thrive
in organization. We kept the whole experience as engaging as possible. We offered letter of
advice and feedback to unsuccessful candidate to keep the whole process is even more
engaging, we hoped the constructive feedback could help inspire them and give them
practical career advice.
With 24 months technical and management training journey, we will rotate each of them
through different parts of the business, starting on the front lines selling broadband from
street kiosks or on the phone. We aim to develop one of those seven future leaders to rise to
the position of HKBN Chief Technology Officer in the future. Undoubtedly, they would become
the most ideal candidate we are looking for to place the future vacancy.
Retention Strategy
“We offer a career rather than a job” is the view taken by HKBN regarding Talent Retention.
As we believe our Talents are essential to the success of our business, we adopt the followings
to retain our high-potential Talents:
(1) Commitment in Talent Development
At HKBN, there is a clear career development
roadmap for all Talents. Online and printed versions
of Career Development Roadmap, released in 2015,
are available for all levels up to Senior Manager grade
as a reference to identify core and leadership
competencies and related development courses or
platforms, according to one’s grade level. For Talents
of the associate director grade, who fall into our
succession planning development strategy,
development plans are mostly done on an individual
needs basis.
In dealing with the career development of our Talents,
each grade or role is handled through unique leadership
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or career improvement programmes. For managers to senior manager level Talents, we
offer management training courses designed around 5 leadership competences, and we
provide sponsorship on MBA or EMBA programs and longer terms for PowerBar (i.e. job
rotation, usually 6 to 12 months) to shape them into managers with a strong integrated
business expertise.
For high potential Talents, who are set to become members of management, we’ve tailor-
made our "Be a Pioneer" Management Development Program to instill the necessary
know-how and experiences for them to be outstanding managers. For Talents who are
currently leading a team and play a supervisory role, our "Be a People's Leader"
Supervisory Program was created to encourage a change of their mindset and for skills
enhancement. The learning modules and assignments are each derived to impart key
competencies required for the relevant leadership grade.
Competence-based development is the soul of our program, whose focus helps clearly
identify for participating Talents and their department heads what is expected of
them, providing a clear indicator of their learning outcomes, both strengths and
improvement areas.
Last but not least, we
offer a partnership
programme (“Next
Station University
Program”) with an
external academic
provider organized
for non-degree
holding Talents to
support their pursuit
of a BBA degree. Our programme not only helps widen individual Talent career
opportunities but also elevates the overall quality and capabilities of HKBN.
With no doubt, our commitment in Talent Development helps prepare future leaders for
the company, as well as retain high potential Talents. Overall it has served to support our
aggressive business expansion, improve transparency in management level promotion,
and “Make HKBN a Better Place to Work”.
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(2) LIFE-work Priority
Embracing a Talent-centric culture, HKBN upholds LIFE-work
priority, putting personal health and family before work. For
years, HKBN has rolled out a host of thoughtful initiatives such
as Family Care Leave, which provides an additional day of paid
leave to encourage Talents to spend quality time together with
family. Other noteworthy initiatives include company-wide
early-off Fridays once a month, half-day off on the day before
major festivals, Anniversary Leave on the month of a Talent’s
join date, buy-one-get-one-free Bonus leave, etc. Combined,
these initiatives provide our Talents with a total of 7.5 days of
additional holidays on top of their annual leave entitlements.
To increase the flexibility of work arrangements, we extended a Five-day work week and
Public Holidays to all Talent including frontline Talent, which our industry competitors still
only offer a day off per week and labour holidays. In response to the need to care for
children or the daily commute, we offer Flexible Working Hours, allowing Talents the
choice to begin work between 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Meanwhile, we have shortened our
working hour from 8 hours per day to 7 hours per day (35 hours per week), while the 10th
percentile of the number of hours worked per week (office) is 38 hours.
We believe the success of our LIFE-work priority initiative has contributed to engaging
and retaining happy Talents to deliver extraordinary results.
(3) Co-Ownership
Co-Ownership program is a powerful expression of the commitment and belief our Talents
have in HKBN. Unlike the more traditional approach of giving stock option to a very limited
group of senior executives, HKBN’s Co-Ownership is open to all supervisors and above
level Talents, spanning HKBN’s operations across Hong Kong and Guangzhou.
Under “Co-Ownership Plan II” introduced in mid-2015, we have over 270 Co-Owners,
representing a majority of our supervisors and above level Talents and over 10% of our
entire workforce. On their own volition, they invested their personal savings in the
amount of between two to six months of salary to acquire HKBN stock at full market price.
The shares are then matched with free shares at a certain ratio vested over three years.
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Co-Ownership aligns the rewards and risks of our Talents with shareholders’, and serves
as our LUCA (Legal Unfair Competitive Advantage) for sustained long term
outperformance. “Co-Ownership Plan I” was first established in 2012 as an outcome of
the management buyout of HKBN, attracting participation from over 80 middle to senior
managers who invested their own money to collectively acquire a stake in our company
before IPO.
To every Co-Owner, this is a powerful vote of confidence in our company’s future and
potential. We believe Co-Ownership is one of the most unique and effective ways for us
to retain our Talents.
(4) Performance-based Incentive
In order to encourage Talents to leverage their potential and challenge themselves, a
flexible commission and incentive system has been implemented. It aims to encourage
Talents to jointly achieve business objectives and sales targets specifically set by the
respective departments and the Company. The amount and calculation of different
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commission and incentives will depend on each scheme set out for individual
departments or individual roles.
Through introducing such performance-based incentive schemes, which may cover all
functions and levels of Talent, we believe both autonomy and recognition can be offered
to Talents for meeting pre-established goals, in return, increase the Talents’ motivation to
stay in the Company to strike for better result and long-turn objectives.
IMPACT
Improved Engagement Survey Result in Retention area
Our 2015’s Talent Engagement Survey revealed that our overall retention performance was
improved. For those Talents who indicated they would work for the company for more than
5 years, there are 4% increase compared with 2013 score. While for those Talents who
indicated they would leave the company within 2 years, there are 4% decrease compared
with 2013 score.
Lower Talent Turnover Rate
Since 2013, our Talent turnover rate dropped for the third consecutive year. Our total
turnover rate declined by 25 percent while frontline turnover rate declined further by 33
percent in 2015.
Do-More-With-Less in terms of “Less” Manpower & “Growing” Business Results
Feb 2005 Feb 2015 Difference
No. of Talents 3500 2350 -33%
Sep 14 - Feb 05
(HK$’000)
Sep 14 - Feb 15
(HK$’000)
Difference
Talents Cost HK$125,388 HK$198,989 +59%
Revenue HK$575,897 HK$1,126,111 +96%
EBITA HK$82,705 HK$482,240 +483%
The above trend shows that our Happy Talents bring Happy Shareholders, in the past ten
years, by business results. During this period, our total number of Talents dropped by 33%
while our Talent costs increased by 59%, in the meantime, our business grew with revenue
almost doubling and an almost 5-fold increase in EBITA.
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More Proactive Friendly Referral
By the effective engagement and retention strategy, we got proactive referrals from our
Talents for most recent senior hires, for example, our Chief Technology Officer, Legal Counsel,
Associate Director – Product Development, Head of Corporate Sales etc. It not only helps the
company to save the huge cost on professional head-hunting service, but also helps to
enhance the engagement level among Talents.
EFFORTS FOR CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENTS While HKBN remains a distinctly Talent-oriented company, with the changing economic
climate its long been necessary to maintain a lean structure and maximize efficiency of
resources. The company had to give up some office space in Hong Kong and Guangzhou due
to rental pressures. At the same time, costs for Guangzhou’s operations have been increasing
in the double percentages, due to RMB appreciation and high inflation levels. HKBN saw two
ways to do more business—either by cutting costs or by growing revenues faster than costs.
Going forward with the latter option, we know that we could grow company revenues only
by ensuring that we have the best Talents in our workforce.
We set three goals for the company: 1. Deliver disruptive value to customers to win them
over from the industry incumbents. 2. Create awesome value for our shareholders. 3.
Participate handsomely via Co-Ownership investment. We will continue to ponder over our
Talent management framework that would address attraction and retention issues to help us
achieve these goals.
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HR EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2015
Excellence in CSR Practices
HONGKONG BROADBAND NETWORK LIMITED
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COMPANY INTRODUCTION
Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited was established in 1999. We are the largest provider
of fibre hi-speed residential broadband service (symmetrical 100Mbps and above) in Hong
Kong with a market share of over 50%. We offer a diversified portfolio of premium telecom
services to both residential and enterprise markets, including broadband and Wi-Fi access,
communication, entertainment and Cloud solutions.
VISION AND GOAL “To go beyond pure philanthropy and become a driver of sustainability in the
greater Hong Kong community”
As a responsible corporate citizen, Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited (“HKBN”) is
committed to uphold our core purpose to “Make Our Hong Kong a Better Place to Live”
through Corporate Social Investment (CSI). We strongly believe that through investments,
we can create much wider, more extensive and more sustainable value and social impact than
from just merely donating. At HKBN, the concept of sustainability and its bearing over our
Talents, our community and our planet occupies a big part of our everyday thinking, so much
so that it stands at the core of our business strategy. We consider it our responsibility to be a
change maker for the local community, whereby our actions can help pave the path forward
for a better Hong Kong.
Formed in 2014, our Corporate Social Investment Team comprises 4 HKBN Talents who serve
to formulate the Company’s CSI strategies, as well as help realize our many community
initiatives and collaborations aimed at creating long-term social value and sustainability.
The team is headed by our Director – Talent Engagement & Corporate Social Investment, Ivy
Lau, who looks to create a special kind of synergy that fuses our various Talent engagement
programs with our CSI initiatives.
Rather uniquely, we emphasize on getting our Talents involved in the community. In the past,
for example, we have often made a difference by lending our Talents’ own expertise,
knowledge and resources to help a wide range of needy sectors, helping them achieve long-
term improvements through our volunteer work. Additionally, we have also dedicated a
large percentage of our CSI resources towards collaborations with social enterprises. By our
estimation, there can be huge potential from stepping up collaborations between the
business sector and social enterprises – whereby greater value and an even bigger impact on
our communities can be created – and we are proudly at the forefront of this.
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IMPLEMENTATION
Multi-dimensional Collaborations with Social Enterprises
HKBN is one of the few local companies that has focused its CSI resources on collaborations
with social enterprises, as we realize the needs of them go beyond just monetary donations.
It is our strategy to empower and enable social enterprises to thrive through a sustainable
approach to doing business. Our multi-dimensional collaborations with social enterprises is
best understood through MOVE – Marketing Social Mission; Outsourcing Business Processes;
Voluntary Coaching; and Ethical Consumption.
Marketing Social Mission
- Our efforts alone are not enough. That’s why HKBN is determined to provoke
greater awareness and encourage others to follow:
We promote the work of collaborating social enterprises in as many
occasions and channels as possible, which include but are not limited to
our regular electronic direct mailers to business partners by Corporate
Communications Department and executive sharing at business events
and forums.
In the past year, we have partnered with a popular fast food restaurant to
help social enterprises broadcast their video clips at over 100 locations,
offering another channel for social enterprises to promote their services
and mission to public audiences.
Outsourcing Business Processes
- Our CSI approach is best expressed through our uncompromising efforts to
integrate social enterprise collaboration into our business operations:
Since February 2014, HKBN provides a customer service call centre that is
also augmented by a 1083 telephone customer enquiry service operated
by iEnterprise, a social enterprise which employs about 15 physically
disabled individuals. Working closely in this partnership, our Customer
Service Department is actively engaged to help formulate operational
details, set up the monitoring system and involve in employee interviews
to ensure the highest standards of quality are always maintained. HKBN
has also offered free computers, broadband services and internet
browsing software which substantially lowered iEnterprise’ setup cost of
the call center. Our Talent & Organization Development Department have
spent over 30 hours with the disabled employees to train and equip them
with the necessary customer service skillsets and telephone etiquette to
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handle incoming enquiries. We also offered flexible working hours for the
disabled employees which best fit their physical needs.
HKBN’s in-house canteen, Broadband Delight, is run by a social enterprise
that does the majority of its sourcing responsibly and provides
employment opportunities for the underprivileged. It also works closely
with HKBN to directly engage our Talents about ethical consumption of
products.
Voluntary Coaching
- Among the first of its kind in Hong Kong, our “Knowledge Volunteers for the
Community” program, has to date recruited a total of around 40 volunteers
from HKBN’s top and middle management to share their expertise and impart
practical business and marketing know-how to help social enterprises achieve
their objectives in a successful and sustainable manner.
- Our volunteers offered their unbridled support through the course of each six
to 12 month phase. Via regular exchanges, our volunteers contributed half a
work day every month and their free time to personally understand the
challenges faced by each social enterprise and in turn propose
recommendations.
Ethical Consumption
- As a co-organiser of The Ethical Consumption Month in 2013 and 2014
respectively, we are continually engaged in encouraging people to change
consumer buying habits, including our Talents and key stakeholders.
On the corporate level, we espouse social enterprise services for our
corporate celebrations, the purchase of corporate festive gifts and even
for team building activities and interest classes. As an accountable
business, we are an equal opportunity partner when choosing vendors.
Our selection principles are based on guidelines specified by our
procurement policy.
For individual Talents, our efforts to encourage the practice of ethical
consumption goes as far as hosting inside office fair trade bazaars. We set
up our own in-house self-help kiosks to sell fair trade foodstuffs, and we
offer extra subsidies to our Talents should they choose to hold their festive
team gatherings at a social enterprise operated venue. In 2014, a tailor-
made 10-month “Ethical Consumption Guru Competition” was organised
to encourage Talents to spend and chronicle their spending activities with
social enterprises. “SE Consumption e-Guides” were also sent to Talents
as a handy resource.
Besides internal promotions, we have sought to influence our
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stakeholders and customers to do likewise. To this end, our Marketing
Department initiated a customer-retention campaign, where a total of
HK$700,000 social enterprise coupons from the Hong Kong Council of
Social Services (HKCSS) were distributed in 2014 and 2015 as gifts to those
who have renewed their service contracts. Through this campaign, we
successfully spread the message about ethical consumption to over 3,500
HKBN customers.
Caring by Sharing
Balancing responsible business with commercial success, we take customer affordability of
our basic broadband service as a corporate social responsibility. With a price ceiling for our
basic 100Mbps residential broadband service set at 1% of Hong Kong’s median monthly
household income, we’ve made the benefits of world-class Internet service easily accessible.
We never settles in normality in community investment and this applies to our initial public
listing in March 2015. Instead of the fairly standard approach of incurring HK$1 million for
picking a preferred “lucky” SEHK stock code, we injected the money into ChickenSoup
Foundation, decided via consensus by our Talents. The donation is used to hire experienced
personnel in managing the day-to-day operations of four new service centres, benefitting
over 700 grassroots children in terms of education, health and inspiration. Over the next three
years, it is estimated this social investment may bring almost 30 times in social benefit returns
for the community.
A sharing culture is at the heart of every HKBN Talents. We pledged to make a difference in
the community by lending our own expertise, knowledge and resources to help a wide range
of needy sectors in achieving long-term impacts through volunteer services. Highlights of our
CSI services in 2014 and 2015 includes:
HKBN PC Doctors A team of 35 members from our broadband engineers fully
utilized their own expertise and pledged to become HKBN
PC Doctors to diagnose and fix computers free of charge for
the benefit of underprivileged families. Spending one day
a week on home visits spanning Hong Kong since May
2015, our PC Doctors target their support for at least 200-
250 families in the approaching one year. To-date, our team
has served 92 families through 258 volunteering hours.
"Fly High with Us" Since 2011, HKBN has been an active participant of "Fly
High with Us", a long-term mentorship program organised
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by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups. Pledging a
three-year commitment, 23 of our Talents served as
mentors sharing their wisdom and experiences to help 29
underprivileged teenagers find their own way in life.
School-Company-
Parent Program (SCP
Program) 2014-2015
Three HKBN Talents have joined the mind-changing SCP
Program as “company ambassadors” to share their work
experience to 40 Form 3 to Form 6 students through
organizing six interactive workshops. Our Talents have
successfully sown the seeds today by enhancing students’
career and life planning capabilities to face future
challenges ahead. HKBN and the school have received the
“Best Performance of School-Company partnership”
award.
Blood Donation We partner with Hong Kong Red Cross to organize Blood
Donation Days biannually at our office. Over 200 of our
Talents have participated and blood donation has already
become one of HKBN’s culture.
Loving Earth…Living Green
As an industry leader, HKBN firmly embeds sustainability into our business operations in
making our Hong Kong a greener place to live. We set our carbon reduction targets and
proactively monitor and minimize our environmental impact through an array of energy
saving and carbon reduction measures, and engage our Talents and stakeholders walking
towards a sustainable future.
Energy Saving
We are committed to improve energy efficiencies in existing operations and continuously
invest in energy saving technologies, systems and facilities.
Install chiller with higher efficiency to reduce our office air-conditioning system’s energy
consumption
Popularize the use of “CLOUD” technology to minimize electricity load of our in-house
servers
Remove unnecessary light tubes in the office and set interior lighting standard (between
300 to 500 LUX) for common area
Lighting and air-conditioning zoning in office to facilitate Talents to switch off
unnecessary lights and air-conditionings when not in use
Install water flow controllers at toilets and pantries to reduce water consumption
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Waste Reduction
We seek to minimize waste in our operations and business activities by adopting the “4R”
concept and go electronic.
Introduced the innovative “Centralized Recycle Bins Campaign” in May 2015, which
removes all personal waste bins from all Talents in favour of a centralized recycling
system for paper, plastics and cans. This initiative is proposed by one of our IT Talents
with an aim to encourage other fellow Talents to start a green life. Big difference can
be seen in just a month’s time - a 260% increase in paper recycled, 100% more aluminum
cans reclaimed, 200% rise in plastic bottles salvaged and a 20% reduction of garbage.
“Print Anywhere Solution” – Talents need to scan name badge to get their print job done
at any printers, allowing second thought before printing and avoid unnecessary paper
wastage
Implement e-workflow system to reduce paper usage
Set up “single-sided paper collection point” at convenient locations to facilitate Talents
in reusing the papers for printing
Toner cartridges and name card plastic boxes recycling
Talent Engagement
A cross-departmental Talent committee is set up to brainstorm further green
improvement plans and collect feedbacks from Talents on various green measures
Near 20 green educational and Talent engagement activities were organized since 2014,
including rubbish bins upcycling workshop, barter trade day, low carbon diet lunch
seminar, farm-to-table farming experiential outings and a series of interactive online
green quizzes
We share green tips and our environmental performances with Talents regularly through
our e-newsletter
Talents can enjoy a discount if using their own containers to buy food and drinks at
Talent’s canteen
Stakeholder Engagement
We take the initiative to engage our stakeholders to put joint efforts in environmental
protection through adoption of advanced technologies like utilizing tablets to confirm sales
contracts and invite business partners to co-organize green campaigns.
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IMPACT
Multi-dimensional Collaborations with Social Enterprises
- In outsourcing our 1083 service to iEnterprise, we have seen increased confidence, job
satisfaction and productivity of these disabled employees - a great boost to their
wellbeing and morale while simultaneously generating social impact through poverty
alleviation. Around 26,000 calls a month are handled by the outsourced employees, who
greatly augment the productivity of our Customer Service Team and allow our own
Talents to be engaged in more challenging duties. Benefiting from the flexible working
hour arrangement, most disabled outsourced employees have stayed in this
employment longer than the normal average, some of them even have stayed for 18
months which is a great advantage for their career development. This operation model
is proved to be sustainable as iEnterprise’s surplus on capital before tax reaches 15%
with just a HK$40,000 startup capital. Quite notably, this partnership has helped
enhance HKBN’s pubic image with our call centre earning the 2014 Gold Award for The
Best Call Center in Corporate Social Responsibility presented by the HK Call Centre
Association. The honor has recognized the big success of this pioneering model, which
help motivate more industry peers to follow suit.
- Since 2014, our Knowledge Volunteer program has so far recruited over 40 Talents
contributing over 500 service hours, helping 12 social enterprises to manage their
business. Encompassing two phases, we have been delighted by how our volunteers
have created value for our social enterprise collaborator:
“Hong Kong Recycles” said the following: “They helped us devise a member-get-
member scheme to increase our penetration rate and lower logistical costs, as well
as different ways to incentivize our sales employees. All these have contributed to
a 22% increment in sales revenue, while enabling us to serve 300% more districts
and increase our service fee by 30%.”
Our Knowledge Volunteer programme has been a multifaceted success as each
participating Talents are given an opportunity to “run” a business along with the social
enterprises which is a rare and valuable experience along their career path. This
programme has indeed become a personal development platform for our Talents to
widen their horizons and see the society around them from a different perspective.
- Since 2014, HKBN contributed over HK$1.6 million in ethical consumption, which
comprised over 30% of the yearly total ethical consumption amount as recorded by
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Fullness Social Enterprises Society Limited. For the HK$700,000 social enterprise
coupons we purchased, we helped generate over HK$1million in turnover for various
social enterprises by way of returning and word of mouth business from our customers
(based on HKCSS’ assumption that every HK$100 coupons can bring HK$150 spending at
social enterprises), not to mention the educational impact introduced for 3,500 families
under this marketing campaign.
Caring by Sharing
133 HKBN volunteers have all together contributed 1,197 volunteer hours in serving the local
community between January 2014 and June 2015, benefiting 388 underprivileged individuals
and families as well as 12 social enterprises. We received the Bronze Award under the
Volunteer Category of the 5th Hong Kong Outstanding Corporate Citizenship Award, organized
by the Hong Kong Productivity Council in recognition of our outstanding efforts in volunteer
services.
We are proud to see our CSI efforts inspire our business partners to do likewise. UBS, our IPO
partner awarded us with a unique gift of 10 UBS investment banker days to allocate as HKBN
saw fit for the purpose of CSI to celebrate our IPO. This resulted in a cross-company
partnership to create an interactive workshop for 20 secondary school students to explore
problem-solving skills in a business environment. Each participant was given the chance to
engage in a series of challenges that highlight what life is like inside a high-octane work
environment. The workshop has become a regular HKBN CSI initiative to engage more
business partners to work together and inspire our youths.
Loving Earth…Living Green
Our green efforts have not left unnoticed and we are proud to have earned ample recognition
from prominent local and international organizations in 2014 and 2015:
WWF Hong Kong – Low Carbon Operation Programme – Gold Label
Hong Kong Awards for Environmental Excellence – Certificate of Merit - Media and
Communication Sector
Wastewi$e Hong Kong Awards for Environmental Excellence – Class of Good Wastewi$e
Label
Environmental Campaign Committee – Carbon Reduction Certificate in 2014
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EFFORTS FOR CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENTS
Looking ahead, HKBN will continue to stand out from the CSR industry norm of NGO
partnership and strive to be a role model for how corporations in Hong Kong can effectively
combine CSI elements as a part of their business operations and utilize their own resources
as well as their Talent’s support to work with and empower social enterprises in achieving
their double bottom line objectives.
As a showcase of how our CSI approach has compelled our Talents to do the right thing, the
“HKBN Talent CSI Fund” was officially launched in July 2015. With the HK$5 million funding
100% contributed from the pockets of HKBN Talents, the Fund will be used towards creative
projects initiated by our own Talents with the express purpose of making Hong Kong a better
place to live. Through this Fund, we will share our resources with the local community
through our Talents’ self-initiated volunteer projects and further boost volunteerism within
the HKBN family. A formal Steering Committee, made up of HKBN Talents on a voluntary
basis, has also been established to ensure the approval, monitoring and evaluation of the
Fund’s usage is done in a fair and proper manner.
It is also our target to further improve our green performance, the company has committed
to expand our green practices from office to hub sites and has appointed an independent
energy consultant to conduct a full examination on the company’s energy usage and strive to
substantially improve energy efficiency especially on electricity usage from now onwards.
