People Leader: Getting the best

Gretchen Zech, senior vice-president of global human resources at Arrow Electronics, says the company is casting wide in the search for talents.

As the popular saying goes, “variety is the spice of life”, a concept that technology solutions provider Arrow Electronic believes plays a key role in keeping employees engaged with their work and invested in developing their careers.

Arrow’s business activities, including its regional headquarters in Hong Kong, span more than 450 locations, serving 90 countries and it has an electronic components product line that ranges from cars to coffee makers. One of the defining employer propositions Arrow is able to offer is a diverse spread of opportunities for employees to change jobs and even career direction.

People management philosophy

Gretchen Zech, Arrow’s senior vice-president of global human resources, says that, with the changing nature of work, primarily driven by technology, which often creates challenges and opportunities in equal measure, the company’s people management philosophy focuses on elevating talent capabilities. This is not only designed to match organisational strategies, but also to anticipate future developments. Zech says that, as a talent-powered organisation, Arrow operates in a world of “five years out”, where developing new technologies, materials ideas and electronics straddles the domains of possibility and practicality.

“We live in a world where technology is continuously changing everything, which means we have to architect career choices and opportunities for employees so they can be prepared and benefit from these changes,” Zech says.

Given these new realities, there is a pressing need to generate a pipeline of future talent equipped with a flexible mind set and a willingness to invest in their own careers. She adds that, for employers, an important objective is to constantly evolve a culture where employees feel connected with the organisation through purposeful work that makes a meaningful contribution to society.

“Offering a competitive salary is just the ‘table stakes’’; it’s the alignment of employee and employer values and providing opportunities that engage minds and motives which really forms the ‘stickiness’ that make people want to stay with an organisation,” Zech says.

While offering career opportunities that appeal to the millennial generation is a concern for many recruiting managers, Zech says character traits such as curiosity, a tendency to be innovative and goal-oriented are the attributes that employers welcome.

“Recruiting employees who are fearless about changes and able to thrive on self-disruption and self-innovation is good for the company and good for the individual,” notes Zech, who concedes that recruiting high-potential talent is a challenge, with employers operating in different industry sectors all competing for the same talent.

Inclusion and diversity

While universities are fertile recruitment grounds, Zech says Arrow looks for high-potential talent wherever it can. “The best talent knows no gender, borders or nationality,” says Zech, who stresses that Arrow is a strong advocate of inclusion and diversity in the workplace. “The more diverse we are, the smarter we are as an organisation and the better we are able to serve our market.”

Zech also says she is pleased to see a gradual increase in the number of women embarking on a career in engineering and technology, which is part of a wide trend as women make choices to enter professions in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

To nurture and grow more Hong Kong talent, Arrow’s Open Lab, located in the Hong Kong Science Park, offers data sharing, testing modules, hands-on training and workshops as well as design engineering advice and technical support to start-up enterprises, particularly those working on products that fall into the Internet of Things (IoT) segment.

Zech says the idea is to help fledgling business to speed up product design and prototyping for free, using Arrow equipment that is out of the reach of the average start-up.

With the number of IoT-connected devices expected to reach 30 billion by 2020, according to International Data Corporation, Arrow sees value in helping start-ups that could become the next global success story.

This article originally appeared in the Classified Post, 26 May issue.

Tag: People Management Inclusion Diversity Recruitment Strategy