The Careers Unplugged series intends to help future applicants understand how they can grow their careers without sacrificing their best lives. We do this by interviewing team leaders, managers, and directors at Port Cities, an award-winning Odoo partner and one of the biggest Odoo partners in the world.
We ask them about the work culture at Port Cities and their advice for anyone interested in developing a career in their fields. We also discussed what it is like to work in their team at Port Cities.
In the first part of this series, we interview Zhee Fazrina, Sr. Group HR manager at Port Cities. She discusses, among many things, the soft skills a colleague in recruitment must possess and what successful hires must do in their first month at Port Cities.
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1. What advice would you give people preparing for an interview with Port Cities?
Zhee: You need to;
Research and get more information about Port Cities, our products and services.
Demonstrate your English skills.
Have self-confidence; be ready to tell us about yourself.
Learn everything you can about the job opportunity.
Identify your selling points for the job opportunity.
2. How would you describe Port Cities' company culture?
Zhee: At Port Cities, we work hard and have fun while we are at it. Our unique culture of ownership and responsibility drives business growth and encourages us to deliver high-quality services to meet our customers' needs and ensure their satisfaction. We support and collaborate, even with our diversity, to achieve the company objectives.
3. What do most successful new hires do in their first month in the company?
Zhee: They are amazingly-fast learners who can easily adapt to the new environment. They also understand what they have to do within their role.
4. What soft skills make a colleague successful within your HR team?
Zhee: To be successful in the HR team at Port Cities, you need to:
Have good communication and leadership skills; every team member should be able to work professionally.
Demonstrate high personal integrity.
Be detail-oriented and take ownership of tasks.
Time-management skills, especially being priority-based since we are handling the Group needs.
5. What does the Onboarding process at Port Cities look like?
Zhee: We provide new team members with a fun and focused onboarding experience.
We provide team members with a welcoming email and work accounts.
An orientation session to learn more information about the company, services, and products, and the team - including the team experiences and, most importantly, about the working tools.
A practice session so the new team members understand how to operate our daily working tools.
We introduce the new team members to our Port Cities Global team by sharing the new team members' self-introduction videos.
Once they are onboarded, we also focus on their overall onboarding experience by providing 30-60-90 day reviews to ensure each team member gets what they need [non/technical] and has clear objectives of their roles and responsibilities.
6. Can you share the career path at Port Cities?
Zhee: We categorise each team member based on their job level and provide them with the career path within the branch. We review the employee twice a year by Performance Review for all branches, creating the syllabus and career/job level definition, to help them clearly understand what they should achieve in the next period.
In The End
There you have it, our group senior HR manager’s take on the company’s culture and her advice on the general recruitment process, the career path at Port Cities and how to thrive when first joining Port Cities. See other interviews in the Careers Unplugged at series here.