LANXESS Certified as Top Employer in China for Fourth Consecutive Year

German specialty chemicals company LANXESS has today been awarded Top Employer China 2021. This marks the fourth consecutive year the company has been certified by the prestigious Top Employers Institute.

“It is a great honor for LANXESS to be again recognized as a Top Employer in China,” Ming Cheng Chien, President of the LANXESS Asia Pacific Region, said. “People are our most important asset. I am very proud of our team. While the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic confronted us all with substantial challenges, our team reacted quickly, developing innovative solutions to keep our staff safe and mitigate the impact on LANXESS.”

Innovative solutions in the special period

Amid the outbreak, LANXESS in China strove to resume normal operations as early as possible. “At the same time, we gave priority to the health of our people,” Wells Chou, Head of Human Resources Asia-Pacific, said. “We promoted innovative working methods, encouraged everyone to share best practices and explore creative working modes in this special period. I am glad to say that we received very positive feedback.”

First of all, LANXESS launched a flexible working policy encouraging some employees to work from home and hold meetings through online means such as video conferencing. Meanwhile, strict control measures were taken at all production sites and offices, including disinfection, registration and body temperature measurement. Epidemic prevention guidelines, policies and information were timely updated and communicated.

In addition, the Human Resources team recognized the changes and challenges faced by employees in their daily life and work. As a result, the company invited an external psychology expert to communicate and share with them on how to manage emotional disturbance caused by the epidemic, and how to strengthen psychological construction and growth in challenging times.

To better help employees address the crisis and lead their teams, Human Resources also held webinars on remote team leading and peer consultation. During the webinars, the participants shared their specific cases and experiences, exchanged views on current management challenges, and learned how to motivate the teams to grow better as remote leaders.

Digital human resources platform

Moreover, LANXESS increased its digital human resource solutions and platforms, accelerating its digital transformation. For example, one of the most popular in-house training successfully took place in a semi-virtual format as one of the facilitators based in Germany was unable to travel to China.

Marking an important milestone, LANXESS also added new modules to the existing HR platform that provides central human resources information and processes in a cloud-based system. The system has substantially improved the company’s central service quality and optimized its global workflow, making the company more modern and competitive.

The Top Employer China certification is independently run by the Top Employers Institute headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Every year, this organization invites companies with mature human resources functions meeting certain standards to apply for certification. The Institute adopts independent evaluation methods and research systems to conduct scientific and objective research and identification of companies from nine dimensions including Talent Strategy, Workforce Planning, On-boarding, Learning & Development, Performance Management, Leadership Development, Career & Succession Management, Compensation & Benefits, and Culture.