COVER STORY
EMPLOYER OF CHOICE 2016
EMPLOYERS OF CHOICE: OVERALL WINNERS 100-499 EMPLOYEES
Metro Drug Inc. Hotel Jen Orchardgateway Singapore
KornFerry Futurestep HRD CHATS with Jun Obtinalla, AVP – HR, Metro Drug Inc., winner of the gold award (100–499 employees). HRD: What does this award mean for the company? Jun Obtinalla: For MDI, it is recognition that we are on the right track in continuing to deliver the brand promise – ‘Partnering Made Easy’. With a culture that considers the importance of people working on the front line, we deliver on our commitment to be the premier distribution partner of both local and multinational pharmaceutical companies in the Philippines, as validated by this award. HRD: How would you describe the corporate culture at Metro Drug Inc.? JO: It’s a service-centric culture. MDI operates a customer-focused business, proactively and passionately serving internal and external customers and responding promptly to their needs. We constantly strive for excellence and to exceed customers’ expectations. In order to achieve this, we operate our business always with continuous improvement in mind. We do our best to be flexible and adaptable, willing to learn and change for the benefit of our stakeholders. HRD: What would you classify as your biggest people-related challenge? JO: Retaining our best talents is one of our biggest
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people-related challenges. Given the company’s reputation for developing internal talents, our people become an easy target of the competition. While we may not be the highest-paying company in the market, we have a number of employee engagement programs in place. By engaging people and giving them a deeper understanding of how important their contributions are, MDI translates this into more productivity from its workforce, and at the same time higher profitability, culminating ultimately in the high employee engagement scores, as well as good financial performance indicators. HRD: Is attracting talent to your organisation a challenge? How do you recruit the best and brightest? JO: Yes, talent attraction is a challenge. However, the company applies very practical approaches and initiatives to attract and retain the key talents we need. To wit: 1. Build and grow talents from within 2. Create and develop strong talent pools and pipelines from without 3. Targeted selection 4. Internal talent pool linked to career management We also create partnerships through brand building; internally, via the Employee Referral Program, and externally, through university tie-ups and the Management Trainee Program.
AVP – HR Jun Obtinalla with the Metro Drug Inc. HR team
“This award validates the role of HR as a strategic partner in cultivating a culture, where our people actively contribute to the collective success of the company, and their values and behaviours reflect how we treat our clients and customers” Jun Obtinalla, AVP – HR, Metro Drug Inc.
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25/08/2016 2:22:05 PM