Nurturing our Future Leaders

The world of business is evolving at an extraordinary rate – and the scale and pace of change in the power industry is unprecedented.

The impact of climate change and relentless waves of disruption from emerging technologies are reshaping the landscape of energy, while escalating economic and geopolitical turbulence make the sector extremely volatile.

In today’s highly competitive business environment, it is more important than ever for companies to support and empower their employees to learn, succeed and achieve their full potential, so that they are ready to navigate and adapt to change.

Against this backdrop, identifying the capabilities needed for future growth and executing talent development strategies will decide if companies are market leaders or laggards.

Skills needed now could soon be redundant. A World Economic Forum report I recently came across predicts nearly a quarter of jobs globally will be affected by technological advances and the shift to a greener future within five years.

Some of today’s workplace roles will be eliminated and fewer new roles created, leading to a net decrease of 14 million jobs, or 2% of current global employment, by 2027.

The most in-demand skills between 2023 and 2027 will include creative thinking, analytical thinking, technological literacy, curiosity, flexibility and resilience, the report finds. In other words, those are the areas forward-thinking companies should focus on as they devise strategies for talent development to ensure their employees are equipped for what lies ahead.

_{The top skills on the rise between 2023 and 2027.} 

Future-Ready Employees

Corporations in Hong Kong must urgently review their talent development as the city emerges from the pandemic and moves closer economically to our neighbours in the Greater Bay Area (GBA). This includes establishing comprehensive strategies to ensure Hong Kong has a strong pipeline of talent to not only meet our needs but also the needs of the wider market in Mainland China.

At CLP, we have expanded our presence in Mainland China, particularly the GBA, and offer business customers throughout the area a broad range of tailored, smart energy solutions to help them decarbonise and grow.

Hong Kong’s closer ties to the GBA offer huge opportunities as the clean energy transition gathers pace, so we are stepping up our investment in building a workforce capable of meeting the changing needs of customers and society. By doing this, we can attract and retain a diverse, multi-generational, and digitally adept workforce that is ready to anticipate and rise to the challenges of the future.

Fostering a Diverse, Inclusive Culture

The cornerstone of a workforce for the future is a strong corporate culture that empowers people to learn continuously and fulfils their aspirations to build a better and more sustainable world. Young people today want work to be more than just a means to earning a living. They also want the motivation of making a meaningful contribution to society.

The refreshed CLP’s Value Framework, driven by our overarching purpose to Power Brighter Tomorrows, reflects CLP’s commitment to nurturing a new generation of leaders tuned into the immense possibilities of digitalisation and decarbonisation. We aim to inspire our people to embrace continuous learning, unlearning and relearning as we accelerate our efforts to pursue excellence and build a future-proof organisation together.

Internally, we foster a strong learning culture supported by carefully designed online and in-person training courses, which cover a wide range of topics including technical, business and leadership skills, as well as digitalisation and Design Thinking sessions. These courses are tailored to suit our organisational needs and help employees develop new skills and realise their full potential.

Our goal is to instil a love of learning in our people and cultivate a commitment to sustainability and innovation. We give them the power to make choices so that they are more engaged and attentive, and ultimately perform better. I often tell my colleagues that to build a future-proof organisation, we all have to retain a keen sense of curiosity and adaptability that we all had when we were children.

_{CLP offers a diverse range of career opportunities to help its people unlock their full potential.}

The Journey from Graduation to the Boardroom

I must give a special mention to our two-year graduate trainee programme, from which I benefitted immensely when I joined CLP as part of a cohort of eager young engineering graduates back in 1988. Then as now, the programme gives graduates broad exposure to our business, allowing them to rotate through different units in different locations and gain comprehensive exposure to all aspects of the electricity supply chain. The graduate trainee programme showed me how leadership qualities can be nurtured and developed. Most importantly, it laid the foundation for a career that took me to different positions within the company. To anyone who is hungry for knowledge and have the confidence to embrace bigger responsibilities, this programme would definitely open up a whole new world of opportunity for you – as it did for me – as long as you are ready to step out of your comfort zone. 

As an engineer by training, my postgraduate study in business administration subsidised by the company further strengthened my management and leadership skills equipping me with the tools to take up bigger responsibilities afterwards. 

As part of our holistic approach in talent development, we invest tremendous resources to support the professional growth of our people, a big part of which come from job rotation and well-structured leadership development programmes. I am a strong believer of the 70/20/10 Learning and Development model, which says that individuals obtain 70% of their knowledge from job-related experiences, while 20% of learning happens socially through colleagues and friends, with the remaining 10% comes from formal training experiences.

Developing capable leaders is a long-term investment that extends far beyond the initial training period. Through ongoing job rotation and cross-functional exposure, we can nurture well-rounded leaders who possess a comprehensive understanding of our business with a broad range of skills, ensuring CLP’s agility and adaptability in an ever-changing energy landscape. Taking myself as an example, I have had the opportunity to rotate among different areas including power system asset management, planning, design, operation and maintenance, power quality, and corporate and regulatory strategy, before I became Managing Director of CLP Power and Chief Executive Officer of CLP Holdings.

While there are many companies in Hong Kong like CLP which offer good career paths for engineering graduates, we need more engineering talent to fuel the growth of this sector. To inspire students and young people to consider careers in power engineering, we support the Government’s objectives of promoting science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) education and expanding vocational education to provide a deeper talent pool for the city’s sustainable growth.

CLP offers a wide range of recruitment and training programmes for young people seeking a career in the power industry. In addition, CLP Power Academy provides a variety of accredited programmes with academic and professional qualifications, including pioneering cross-boundary training courses jointly organised by CLP Power Academy, Vocational Training Councial and Guangzhou Industry and Trade Technician College to equip electrical workers who are keen on opportunities in the GBA. 

_{CLP offers an extensive selection of talent development programmes, training courses and professional qualifications to nurture talent for the evolving power industry.}

Levelling the Playing Field

We are also committed to fostering a culture of diversity, equality, and inclusion. I firmly believe a diverse team contributes to a workforce that is capable of greater innovation and long-term success. For many years, CLP’s workforce has been male dominated, and that is why we need to enhance diversity by recruiting more women employees, in particular women engineers. 

A 2023 McKinsey report finds that companies in the top quartile of gender diversity are 39% more likely to achieve financial outperformance versus companies in the bottom quartile, up from 15% in 2015. Our long-term aspirational group-wide targets are to more than double the ratio of women in leadership positions to 50% by 2030 from 22% in 2016 and raise the proportion of female engineers to 30% during the same period.

I am proud to share that the ratio of female engineers rose from 9% in 2016 to 13.3% in 2023, and that we are currently undertaking the process of refreshing our Group Diversity Strategy with an aim to complete it by 2024.

To promote gender equality, we are offering a mentoring programme for female engineering students and sponsorship to help girls from underprivileged backgrounds study science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects at school and join the next generation of engineers. All these initiatives show our determination to inspire and nurture the next generations of engineers, and to ensure talented men and women work side by side as equals as they shape the future of our industry.

_{The growing proportion of women in leadership and engineering positions highlight CLP's dedication to cultivating a culture of diversity.}

Discovering the DNA of Success

Nurturing talent is multi-layered and complex process that goes far beyond simply developing the job-specific skills employees require for the current or future roles. It is about creating a shared vision and equipping people with future-proof competencies, such as adaptability, resilience, agility, communication, and the ability to work in partnership with others. Embedding these competencies in our culture will ensure our sustainable success.

We have established a comprehensive, long-term strategy aimed at nurturing today’s graduates into the future leaders of our company. By fostering an inclusive workplace culture that values trust and collaboration, we empower our people with the necessary skills to drive our business toward sustained growth and success.

CLP has a workforce of more than 8,000 employees across the Asia-Pacific region and I want to ensure our people are equipped with the technical and digital capabilities they need to respond to rapid changes in the energy industry.

As decarbonisation and digitalisation reshape the electricity sector, we must work tirelessly to produce highly motivated and visionary industry leaders who will carry the energy transition forward in the critical years that lie ahead.

_{CLP is dedicated to equipping employees with the technical and digital capabilities to react to rapid changes in the energy industry.}