Sony Hong Kong believes in open communication, caring about the needs of its employees and encouraging continuous improvement. These key features are driven by its corporate philosophy - 'dreams, emotions and innovations'. Apart from listening to the voices of its customers, the electronics company understands that the voices of employees are equally important and takes action tailored to their needs. 'We carry out a survey every two years where employees are encouraged to provide comments on aspects such as working environment and internal communication so that we will be able to fine-tune policies to suit their needs,' said Athena Ngai, senior human resources manager at Sony Corporation of Hong Kong. Adopting the Japanese culture or spirit known as Kaizen, which means improvement, Sony implemented a series of training workshops and invested resources to improve the operational efficiency of their internal services. 'We have achieved satisfactory benefits by practising the Kaizen spirit,' Ms Ngai said. 'We are able to save money on our budget, while the quality of our services has also improved as we encourage communication and continuous improvement among departments and employees.' The company does not only focus on its business but is dedicated to care about its employees' lives, professionally and personally. 'We provide all-round care to everyone by putting in a lot of resources to improve the working spirit of employees and help them engage in their work,' Ms Ngai said. 'We focus on the total well-being of employees, and we offer health-related programmes and recreational activities to help them strike a balance between work and life.' The company's corporate social responsibility covers five main areas: community, environment, employee, product responsibility and corporate compliance. In 2007, the corporate volunteer programme was launched and the official volunteering team of the company was formed. On the other hand, employees must perform corporate social responsibility through their everyday business practice by following the company's compliance policies on such issues as code of conduct, personal information management, risk management, environment, safety and health, anti-money laundering and information security. Sony Hong Kong's corporate culture is entwined with its human resources policies and objectives. Human resources personnel provide all-round support and comes up with plans to groom employees into future leaders. Their core roles include business partnering, talent management, ensuring continuous improvement and acting as a culture trustee. 'The observation, feedback and involvement of supervisors, managers and general managers are a good channel for us to listen to and understand the voices of the employees,' Ms Ngai said. The company aims to improve staff integrity, enrich their understanding of the corporate culture and cultivate them to contribute to and achieve the company's goals. The company offers different programmes in its 'grow plan' - grooming and retaining outstanding workers - which was developed in 2007 as a continued effort in talent management and development, and to help employees understand the corporate culture. The plan includes a 27-month management associate programme for entry-level employees and training for existing employees, including talent development programmes, overseas exchange programmes that allow individuals to enrich their experience, internal job rotation programmes and leadership programmes tailored for senior managers. As a people-oriented company, Sony Hong Kong also encourages feedback from employees through carrying out evaluations after each training programme. It also holds seminars to discuss the needs of employees. 'About 90 per cent of participants feel that the training has given them motivation to use new skills that they learned in the programme and that they will recommend the course to other colleagues,' Ms Ngai said. 'We focus on retaining employees with potential and helping them to develop. Therefore, we are committed to catering to the development needs of all employees at different stages of their career.' Founded in 1946 by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita, Sony started off as a telecommunications research institute. The company's name was created by combining the words 'sonus' and 'sonny', with the name representing a small group of young people who have energy and passion towards unlimited creations and innovative ideas. Caring company Sony Hong Kong developed a 'grow plan' in 2007 to enhance talent management and development The company has adopted the Kaizen spirit which aims to improve Sony's operational efficiency 'Good citizen' programme encourages staff to participate in community services'