96
Human Resources
and that their needs were addressed in a good way.” Mr Martin is happy with his staff’s
performance in this respect. He says his company has also been investing heavily in training, and that this promotes crea- tivity because it teaches employees how to deal with unexpected situations. Mr Martin gives a diplomatic an-
swer when asked whether Macau work- ers are less creative than their counter- parts elsewhere. “Some people feel more naturally comfortable in a service envi- ronment, some people more comfortable working in teams. Everybody needs to adjust. That’s why we provide the train- ing,” he says. Wendy Yu, the vice-president of
human resources of MGM Macau, says creativity is important for developing a competitive edge in a cosmopolitan city. Asked if workers here are creative enough, she says: “People can be crea- tive when they need to be, and all people have their creative side.” Ms Yu stresses the role of the em-
ployer in stimulating creativity. She says open internal communication is impor- tant.
The vice-president for human re-
sources of Wynn Macau, Zuleika Mok, would not be drawn on whether workers here lack creativity. She prefers to point out that in view of the need to acceler- ate the development of talent, in 2008 her company established an academy to nurture employees with leadership po- tential.
Employers do not grumble about a
lack of creative workers – at least, not of cially. In a written reply to Macau Business, the Labour Affairs Bureau says most of
the complaints it gets
from employers are about manpower shortages.
terprises actually have the most to gain from having creative and innovative employees. One example in Macau is SmallWorld. The company was established in 2007,
THINK SMALL C
pioneering the marketing of thrilling experiences such as driving a Formula One car or diving with Great White sharks. The idea was unsuccessful, so the company was sold and began concentrating on corporate event planning. However, creativity remained part of its ethos. “We are always trying to create new packages,” says general manager Adriana
Cabral. “In an event planning company, you have to convince the customer through the price and creativity. That is what distinguishes you from the competition.” The company’s biggest obstacle is bureaucracy, she says, especially for outdoor
events. “We have to ask permission with at least two months in advance. We’ve already given up ideas because they involved a lot of bureaucracy,” Ms Cabral says. She adds that it is dif cult to get suppliers to understand new concepts. They are
quite ef cient as long as orders are very speci c, but an invitation to suppliers to come up with suggestions can easily lead to misunderstandings, Ms Cabral says.
reativity in the workplace is often regarded as something that only big corporations need to think about. Experts say this view is wrong, and that small and medium en-
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JANUARY 2012
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