KPMG Playing to Strengths

Number crunching, or accountancy, has historically been seen as a male dominated profession full of dull, introverted and boring people but at KPMG’s Bangkok office, CEO Kaisri Nuengsigkapian is aiming to change perceptions with the introduction of the ‘People Passion Department’ and her role at the head of it as chief encouragement officer.

Kaisri Nuengsigkapian has seen many changes through her 26 year accountancy career, and many of the old stereotypes are beginning to fade away as finance plays an increasingly central role in today’s business. Now in her third term as CEO, Kaisri has responded to both the firm’s global strategy and the current economic conditions by ensuring KPMG Thailand and its staff are well-equipped to deal with future challenges: “When I finish my term I will have completed 11 years as CEO and sure, you want to leave a legacy, you want to be able to do something right for the people here.”

It is the next chapter in her role as CEO and she understands that her job has seen many phases. As CEO, she adds, “You have an agenda that you want to accomplish in 2-3 years time and every few years you have something new you need to think about. At certain periods of time you have different business issues to think about, whether it’s competitors or clients...right now every company faces the challenges of globalisation, very different from the challenges we faced in the past.”

Passion or Fashion

While it may seem unusual for an accountant to take such an interest in HR issues, as Kaisri has done with the establishment of a dedicated ‘People Passion Department’ that works within the HR section, this isn’t a passing fad for the CEO. “We started this project about 3-4 years ago from the point that we needed to internationalise the business, so we began sending people on secondments within KPMG’s global network of member firms. My initial focus was to send 20 people per year, so how could we do that? We needed to have an English programme in the company to show the people that Thai is not enough. You need to have at least two languages. That was the start.”

From this point, Kaisri took the lead: “If you want to embed people strategy and find new ways to create value through your people, the senior partner must commit to lead this strategy themselves.” This belief prompted Kaisri to read up on HR and become familiar with current trends, one of which was defining your strengths, using the popular ‘Strengths Finder’ series of books. And this is how she learned about her staff.

“When I asked what their strengths were, many replied that they are ‘good in relationships’. I asked them, ‘What does that mean?’ They told me they like to make friends so I asked them how many friends they made this week. It’s never many, so perhaps this isn’t their strength. After some time I realised they didn’t really know their strengths,” she concluded.

Kaisri then started her own journey and found how she could benefit from this personal HR strategy. “I started reading books that explained what my strengths were. When I saw my strengths I realised they described me perfectly. It said I was an achiever. An achiever needs to achieve something every day, whether it’s big or small, otherwise they won’t be happy. Then I started thinking about myself. I understood why so many of my friends ask why I do so many things.

“I decided to take it further. I discovered my top five strengths; maximiser, relator, achiever, strategist, responsibility. I analysed these strengths and tried to understand what it meant to my behaviour. Then I could see that weakness comes out of strength. For example, I’m a maximiser. Now that’s a positive word but the negative trait is I’m also a perfectionist. I don’t criticise but I always think about how I could do it better.”

Implementing Strategy

Understanding your abilities is all well and good, but feeding this to a team of around 1,100 people takes a little more doing, and could easily have been met with negativity. Understanding local conditions while championing global corporate values presents challenges, and this had to be overcome. As Kaisri explains: “I don’t know about other countries but Thais don’t like to speak directly, however this can mean people never know what the problems are until it’s too late.”

Managed poorly, this could have huge cultural implications with staff perhaps fearful of losing face. Kaisri decided to take it step by step: “I found five people, including my secretary, who are very straight forward and can talk to me directly. I asked them to review their strengths and report back to me. They were surprised at the results as they were very accurate.”

Kaisri was encouraged by the results and decided it was time to roll the project out. She continues, “I presented it to the board myself to ensure they understood. I gave my ideas on what we should do and what KPIs we should put forward - it’s a lot easier when I take it on myself as I have been CEO for some time so I have already built trust and I have past achievements. People understand that when I like to do something, I will achieve it. This is one of my strengths.

“We hired consultants as I had little time or specific knowledge of how to start such a project. I had the idea, the vision, but I probably couldn’t put it into practice properly and review and interview. The people passion team began with the consultant, who was an ex-KPMG HR director, so it wasn’t difficult for him to understand the firm. Then we reviewed it and as a maximiser I obviously amended it to my own version.”

Maximising People

To achieve global and local objectives Kaisri is clear on how she aims to involve all staff members. “Firstly, we aim to release potential. I believe, and I think now a lot of people in the firm believe, that we all have different strengths,” she says. This means that all staff should understand what others bring to the firm, as she continues, “The best thing is to understand yourself, know your potential, know what you are good at and bring out your potential to work within the team.”

Following this, when the company knows an employee’s potential, they build their career based on that potential, and this is done through coaching and creating an encouraging environment. This can be achieved simply, Kaisri believes: “An encouraging environment can be done easily by top management by walking around and talking to staff, even the simplest thing like remembering whose birthday it is from the announcements that day. You don’t need to do this every day, just once in a while helps encourage people.”

Creating a great working environment has obvious benefits, but as accountants the bottom line is always important, as Kaisri adds, “We also need to review attractive rewards based on contribution to the firm.”

Finally, finding the potential in people has little use if there aren’t appropriate development opportunities and at present KPMG has an in-house English language consultant from Wall St Institute, an executive coaching programme, on the job training for the CPA qualification, as well as preparation for overseas assignments. These assignments can last between three months and two years and are open for 10-15 people per year. The aim is for them to develop a global mindset through gaining an insight into other cultures, bring back best practice solutions to implement in Thailand, create stronger relationships with key strategic partners (such as in Japan, Singapore, etc), and all intended to “provide a better, faster service.”

Sending people overseas also helps retain staff, Kaisri says, as some staff leave after a few years to do a masters degree. This trend, according to Kaisri, comes from societal pressures and often unrealistic expectations from parents. “They don’t realise they are punishing their kids by making them do MBAs so quickly. I told them it’s only fashion. If I was to throw a stone at the Sathorn intersection, I’d hit someone with an MBA yet it is more valuable to have good overseas working experience. This organisation gives an opportunity to work outside Thailand.”

It’s for all these reasons Kaisri believes, “we called it the ‘People Passion Department’, because of my passion as an individual and the passion of the firm to make this a great place to work.”

Results Bound

Kaisri has been pleased with the outcome of this programme and feels it is really making a difference. She explains, “After staff took the tests I was surprised how open people were about their strengths, but by telling you their strengths they also realised what their weaknesses were too.” This has encouraged dialogue in the workplace and also better practice at work, “Each person’s boss is aware of their staff’s strengths so when a team is being picked you have a discussion with your manager. This information helps determine who should be on the team for each particular project. It’s not exclusively done using the results, but it does contribute.”

The impact of Kaisri’s actions are expected to be felt for a long time, as she concludes, “Investing in human capital is a long-term investment and it builds a competitive advantage for the firm. If results aren’t seen this year or next year we will see results in the long-term, and I see this as my responsibility to put in place.”