About Phoenix Television

Phoenix Television is a cross-media group with television programs, radio broadcast, internet media, and publishing. Relying on the vision of “Closing the distance between global Chinese people”, Phoenix Television is determined to build a dynamic, innovative and credible cross-regional Chinese media group. Since its official premiere on March 31, 1996, it has expanded to many TV channels, including Phoenix Chinese News and Entertainment, Phoenix InfoNews, Phoenix CNE, Phoenix North America, and Phoenix Movies. Phoenix television provides news and entertainment information services to more than 150 countries in Asia Pacific, Europe, America, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. As of February 2011, Phoenix Hong Kong Channel was established in Hong Kong.

With the rapid business development, Phoenix Television was listed on the Hong Kong Growth Enterprise Market in 2000 and was funded by China Mobile (Hong Kong) Group in 2006 to form a strategic alliance to jointly develop, promote and distribute portative content, products, services and new media application. It was officially listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2008 (HSI: 2008), continuing to create peaks in the media kingdom.

In order to build a media kingdom, a large technical team is required for technical support, outstanding frontline elites to produce high-quality programs, visionary leadership to lead the company to create the future. Many human resources teams work silently behind the scenes to manage the company’s personnel and salary matters. Vanice Wong, the current human resource director, reviewed every step of her career path at Phoenix Television. From the establishment to the execution of the human resources department, although it was difficult, it is something to talk about with great enthusiasm.

Unique positioning created by multiculturalism

Vanice described Phoenix Television as a multicultural platform with employees from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. There are similarities in speaking and writing. The cultural characteristics are also different, so the corporation differs from the local companies. However, these differences did not bring about conflicts. On the contrary, under the corporate culture of Phoenix Television, the virtues of mutual harmony, tolerance and appreciation for each other are sired, which makes Phoenix Television free from regional limitations and bravely create Chinese people own media. This characteristic drives Phoenix Television to use a balanced and neutral standpoint when analyzing current affairs and international situations in news programs production. The special topics and variety shows produced are also elegant and unconventional, which give the audience a refreshing choice.

The vision and mission of HR

With the continuous development of the corporation, the scale of the corporate and the number of employees are increasing. Vanice recalled that when she first took the post, there were more than 100 Hong Kong employees. Witnessing the increasing burden of the human resources department with its daily HR affairs and salary management, a comprehensive human resource management system has become an indispensable management tool for Phoenix Television, so she went out to find corresponding suppliers. 

Since there were not many suppliers that specialized in human resource management systems at the time, and the technology was still immature, it was challenging to find a suitable supplier. By chance, she came across Cityray. Vanice was deeply impressed by Cityray’s professionalism and customer-first attitude. For her at the time, Cityray attracted her attention like the bright light at the end of a tunnel. After many selections, Cityray was finally confirmed as Phoenix Television’s human resource system backer and officially launched the milestone of human resource systematization.

Phoenix Television and Cityray

Phoenix Television has been cooperating with Cityray for 13 years. When asked about the characteristics of Cityray that made Vanice finally choose Cityray, it turned out to be related to the multiculturalism of Phoenix Television. Since employees are from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, some of the employees’ information is only in Chinese, indicating that a system with Chinese support is the primary condition. 

For today’s society, it is natural for the system to support Chinese, but in the environment of the 20th century, few systems support traditional and simplified Chinese. Cityray’s human resource management system HRPLUS® is the first to provide traditional and simplified Chinese support, which can be displayed in the system interface and reports, coupled with its flexible salary equations design and user-defined reports, making the process of calculating salary and benefits more automated. 

Vanice added that what impressed her to Cityray was not only the superb functions of the system but also the professional and reliable service provided by the Cityray technicians. Vanice said: “As we have been corporating for so long, we have built a mature and friendly relationship.” Because of this, Vanice feels at ease to hand over the human resource management tasks of Phoenix Television to Cityray HRPLUS®.

In addition to providing traditional and simplified Chinese displays, HRPLUS® has also achieved rapid improvement in the work efficiency of salary calculation. Vanice said it is a major monthly challenge to complete the salary calculation process for more than one hundred employees within a limited time. Since HRPLUS® was officially put into service, all calculations had been preset in the system, by adjusting the items that change every month, the system would provide the results. 

Another major contribution is the work of issuing payrolls. It takes a lot of time to prepare payslips every time, and now the payslips can be sent to all employees through the electronic payslip function via email, instead of sending them one by one, which dispenses the former process. The digitization of the payslip reduces disposing of office paper waste and contributes to environmental protection.

Time changes, witnessing the change in HR role

In the early days, HR mainly dealt with works, such as payroll and holidays management. The role of HR in the enterprise was primarily on the operational level. Vanice described HR’s role in Phoenix Television undergoes gradual and interactive changes. 

In the past, the management-level or business units only proposed to HR the requirements for talents they are looking for and let HR recruit. The role of HR is relatively passive. However, this kind of cooperation is inevitable from forming a gap between the expectations of business units and the screening of HR and creates difficulties in finding the right person. In fact, it is not easy to find talents for Phoenix Television’s program production because they must be familiar with the affairs of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and they must respond quickly, be spontaneous and creative. 

Since around 2006, the management level began to join the HR department to participate in formulating the human resource requirements and promote the role of HR to a more proactive level. Every year when planning a new program, HR will be involved to discuss with the management and understand what type of talents is needed, how to use the current ones or recruit outside to meet the needs of the new program. Since then, HR has not only been responsible for daily management and salary management but has also played a strategic role in the company. 

In addition, talent training and appraisal are also essential at the strategic level. HR needs to decide on ways to train new employees, review and retain talents, and provide incentives for employees. In response to the company’s development needs, assist in formulating the human resources policies and related procedures, make good use of talents and resources, and strive to achieve corporate goals. In order to thoroughly cultivate such plans, HR needs to simplify the current operations to reduce the time on dealing with daily operations, to devote energy to new strategic affairs, and HRPLUS® plays a significant role here.

Future vision

Discussing the vision for the future, Vanice said with ambition: “At the beginning, I was determined to establish a human resource management system to unify human resource and salary management, and has been achieved in Hong Kong. The next step is to have China in view.” Unifying the human resource management platform and centralizing the management of personnel information in China, Hong Kong, and even Taiwan is of great strategic significance to the operation and analysis of the enterprise. Cross-regional salary, benefits, medical and tax analysis, various employee statistics, and more provide real-time information for Phoenix Television’s business based in the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and formulate relevant policies in real-time adapting to the unpredictable business environment, in which escort business operations, and face the world confidently!

凤凰卫视与施特伟

凤凰卫视简介

凤凰卫视是集电视、电台广播、互联网、出版的跨媒体集团。凭借“拉近全球华人距离”为愿景，凤凰卫视锐意建立活力、创新及具公信力的跨地区华人传媒集团。自1996年3月31日正式首播，至今拓展多条电视频道，当中包括凤凰卫视中文台、凤凰卫视资讯台、凤凰卫视欧洲台、凤凰卫视美洲台、凤凰卫视电影台，在亚太、欧洲、美洲、拉丁美洲、中东及非洲超过150个国家提供新闻及娱乐资讯服务。及至2011年2月，凤凰卫视香港台在香港成立。

随着业务发展迅速，凤凰卫视於2000年在香港创业板上市，并2006年获中国移动（香港）集团注资，结连战略联盟关系，共同开发、推广和分销移动内容、产品、服务和新媒体应用。2008年正式於香港交易所主板上市(HSI: 2008)，继续创造媒体王国的高峰。

要打造媒体王国，需要庞大的技术团队作技术支援、出众的前线精英制作高质素的节目、眼光独到的领导层引领企业创出未来，亦不少得背后默默耕耘的人力资源团队，为企业处理人事及薪酬事务。现任人力资源总监黄晓雯 (Vanice Wong)回顾在凤凰卫视所走过的每一段路，从组建至执行人力资源部的工作，虽是艰辛，但仍是令人津津乐道。

多元文化，造就特殊定位

Vanice形容凤凰卫视是融合多元文化的平台，员工有来自中国、台湾及香港。彼此语言及文字错综也有雷同。文化特质亦有所区別，所以跟一般本地企业有所不同。不过这些差异并没有带来冲突，相反，在凤凰卫视的企业文化之下，却孕育著相互共融，彼此包容，互为欣赏的美德，使得凤凰卫视摆脱地区性的局限，勇於创出属于华人的媒体，面向世界。这种特质使得凤凰卫视在制作新闻类节目时以更持平、更中立的立场分析时事和国际形势，所制作的专题及综艺节目亦淡若高雅不俗套，诚然给观众耳目一新的选择。

属于HR的宏图与使命

随着企业持续发展，规模日大，员工数量亦不断递增。Vanice忆述当她刚任职时，香港员工已超过一百人。有见人力资源部对处理日常人事事务及薪酬管理日益繁重，一套完善的人力资源管理系统成为凤凰卫视必备的管理工具，於是四出寻找供应商。由于当时专门提供人力资源管理系统供应商不多，技术方面仍尚未成熟，要寻得合适的供应商颇具难度。机缘巧合下，遇上Cityray。Cityray的专业及以顾客为先的态度让当时的Vanice留下深刻印象。对当时的她来说，Cityray就如城市的亮光般吸引了她的目光。经过多番遴选，最终敲定Cityray作为凤凰卫视的人力资源系统伙伴，正式开展人力资源系统化的里程。

凤凰卫视与Cityray

凤凰卫视与Cityray合作至今已有十三年的光景。问及Cityray具备什么的特质使得Vanice最终选用Cityray，原来与凤凰卫视的多元文化有关。由于企业中来自中国、台湾与香港的员工俱齐，而部份员工的资料只有中文，所以显示中文成为首要的条件。对现今社会来说，系统支持中文是理所当然，但在二十世纪的环境中，却鲜见支持中文繁简体的系统。Cityray人力资源管理系统HRPLUS®率先提供中文繁简体支援，能在系统介面与报表显示，加上其灵活的薪资方程式设计，及用户自定义报表，使计算薪酬福利的流程更自动化。Vanice补充，Cityray令她印象深刻的不只是系统的功能超卓，还有Cityray技术人员的专业与可靠的服务。Vanice说道：「大家伙拍了这么久，与Cityray的同事诚然已很熟络，且很有亲切感。」正因为此，让Vanice安心将凤凰卫视的人力资源管理任务交给Cityray HRPLUS®处理。

HRPLUS®除了提供繁简体显示外，在薪酬计算方面的工作效率亦获得快速提升。Vanice表示，要在有限的时间内完成一百多个员工的薪酬计算与处理，是每个月的一大挑战。自从HRPLUS®正式投入服务后，所有的计算已经预设在系统中，只需调整每月变动的项目，即可透过系统获得快速的运算。另一大贡献就是发放薪资单的工作。每次準备薪资单都很费时，现透过电邮电子薪资单功能即可将薪资单发送到各员工，无需逐一派送，大大省却以往工序。由于薪资单电子化，使得办公室纸张损耗减少，对环保亦有所贡献。

年代变迁，见证HR角色的转变

早期的HR主要处理发薪、假期等工作，HR在企业中的角色都是以操作层面为主。Vanice形容HR在凤凰卫视内的角色经历渐进互动的改变。以前管理层或业务单位只向HR提出他们需要具备哪些才能的人才，让HR进行招聘，HR的角色比较被动，然而，这种合作方式难免於企业单位的期望与HR的筛选有落差，未必容易找到合适人选。其实要为凤凰卫视物色节目制作的人才并不容易，因要对中港台的事务均熟悉，兼且反应要快，具自发性及创意。从约2006年开始，管理层开始加入HR部门共同参与人力需求方面的制定，提升HR的角色为较主动的层面。在每一年计划新节目时，都会让HR参与其中，与管理层商讨及了解需要何种类型的人才，如何使用现时的人才或在外招聘，以符合新节目的需要。从此，HR不单只负责日常人事及薪酬工作，在企业内担任战略性的角色。另外，人才培训与考核方面的工作也亦是战略层面所重视的。HR需要对如何对新入职员工培训、评审并挽留人才、为员工提供激励等作出部署。因应公司的发展需要，辅助制定人力资源政策及相关程序，使得人才与资源善用，争取达成企业目标。为要全面制定此等计划，HR需要将现行的操作简单化，使得处理日常操作的时间减少，从而将精力投放于新的策略事务上，HRPLUS®正正在这里发挥最大功用。

将来愿景

论及未来的愿景，Vanice踌躇满志的道：「当初矢志建立一套人力资源管理系统，统一人事与薪酬的管理，在香港已经达成了。下一步就是放眼中国。」统一人力资源管理平台，集中管理中国、香港，甚至台湾的人事信息，对企业的营运与分析有着重大的战略意义。跨地区的薪酬、福利、医疗和稅务分析、各项的员工统计等，为凤凰卫视立足两岸三地的业务提供即时的资讯，因时制宜，即时制定相关政策，以适应变幻莫测的营商环境，为企业营运护航，昂然面向世界！