Human Resource functions beyond the administration role and manages the employee lifecycle with the company. It is a function that strives to ensure the safety and wellbeing of its people and to create a positive employee experience.

With the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, AEM HR functions worldwide met with an unprecedented challenge to the safety and compliance of employees.

We began with a swift response to support our people. The global health crisis prompted new work arrangements. We transitioned various departments to work from home, ensured the highest level of safety and precaution for our manufacturing teams, which were considered “essential services”, housed team members who were unable to return home due to travel restrictions and developed a comprehensive business continuity plan.

We could make these transitions quickly with minimal disruption because agility is one of our strong core values.

As with most companies, we faced many challenges due to the COVID-19 outbreak. To overcome these challenges, we needed to create an open communication channel for our team members. This included online surveys to understand our team members’ needs, mental health and wellbeing, equipping managers with information on how to remain connected with their teams, adopting digital tools for team members to adapt with ease.

Even during a pandemic, we remained committed to investing in our people. As a technology leader, our talents play an important role in ensuring our company’s success. Throughout the year, we revisited welfare, insurance and benefit programmes for our people. We continued to invest in training, learning initiatives, and development programmes to expand our staff competencies. Besides technical skills, we also organised business, leadership, train-the-trainer, finance, operational management and enterprise resource planning training for our management and staff.

Aside from maintaining a low turnover rate, we continued to attract new talents globally with an increase of 22% in headcount. One of our key programmes was re-deploying workers from sectors such as aerospace engineering to be seconded to AEM. We also offered more than 20 places for fresh graduates under the SGUnited Traineeships Programme.

We will continue to refine our HR policies. We must be innovative in the policies we implement as we adapt to new working experiences. Our priority remains the same – to ensure that our people are productive, motivated and connected in the new normal.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chery Choo
Senior Manager, Human Resources