Management and finance

The strength and success of any large enterprise overseeing significant assets depends on having the right people and ensuring they have a diversity of skills and capabilities.

With a total workforce of more than 4,900 employees, Swire Properties is a good example of such an organisation and, not surprisingly, it goes to great lengths in seeing that staff have a strong academic background and that specific professional skills are continuously upgraded.

“We recruit people with different qualifications, from fresh graduates to seasoned professionals, who aspire to a career in the property field,” says Philippe de Gentile-Williams, director of human resources. He adds that the company places a high value on teamwork and a sense of community and looks for these qualities in prospective employees.

Some jobs require specific qualifications, for example trainee engineers should have a degree in electrical, mechanical, building services or an otherwise relevant engineering discipline. Candidates for roles as trainee building surveyors would similarly need a directly related degree.

To maintain a pipeline of talent, the company provides a wide range of training and career development opportunities. Besides on-the-job experience, these include internal rotations, mentoring and overseas secondments. Last year, for instance, the training and development team also organised more than 1,300 courses covering everything from customer service and management techniques to operations, languages and leadership.

In the asset management sector, where the recently launched Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect programme is expected to create some new positions, employers tend to favour applicants with a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) qualification over those with an MBA or other designation.