Date: 15/3/2016
Offering property management services for Mei Foo Sun Chuen since 1965, Urban Group is one of the market leaders in the property and facility management industry. In addition to residential buildings, the Group provides comprehensive services to facilities like club houses, intelligent facilities, car parks, shopping malls and commercial buildings, together with the facilities and properties under the Government Property Agency and Housing Authority. Currently, the Group is employing over 4,700 staff.
Community Manager Caters for Customer’s Demand
Ms. Janna Cheng, Senior Group Manager - Human Capital illustrates that property managers of larger estates are like butlers who safeguard the property and facilitate the maintenance. They also take the roles as “Community Managers”. They have to arrange activities and provide information to cater the needs of the residents.
Ms. Cheng commented that there is uniqueness in managing school properties. “In housing estates, the managers would recognize all the faces, thus it is more direct to safeguard their properties. However, in universities, there involves third parties such as students and visitors. Without possessing student information, our managers have to guarantee their personal safety and uphold a safe environment, whilst coordinating different activities and arrangements of the university facilities.”
For this reason, all employees of the Group have their own expertise. Ms. Cheng further pointed out that there are colleagues with years of experience in estate management, while some others excel at facility management. The Group has arranged them to different positions according to their strengths, in order to raise their competitiveness and nurture their leadership.
A People-oriented and Responsible Employer
With the management philosophy of ‘People Focus and Treasure the Value of Human Capital’, Urban Group insists on work-life balance of its employees. There are different committees in Urban Group, offering suggestions on recreation, corporate social responsibilities, training and organizing various activities. For instance, the Staff Recreation Committee would collect suggestions from the employees, apply to the managerial level for the budget plan and organize recreational events such as tours, parent-child activities and learning courses in Thai boxing, yoga, leather craft, kendo, baking, etc. “Since the Committee knows well the needs of the staff, the events are highly popular. The demand for these events often exceeds the supply and thus the places are decided by drawing lots.”
Additionally, Urban Group cares about the family members of its employees. For instance, the Group will offer scholarships for their children who have achieved excellent results in public examinations. If they have children who are university students, they may apply for the internal summer internship programmes. Upon completion of their studies, they will be given the priorities when they apply for a position at Urban Group and its parent company, FSE Holdings Ltd.
Ms. Cheng further commented that in the property and facility management industry, the Group has low employee turnover rate. “We concern our colleagues and their career development. Many of them have worked for over ten or twenty years here. Even some left the Group before, quite a lot of them have returned to us.”
Urban Group
Urban Group is one of the leading property assets and facility services companies in Hong Kong. Currently, the Group manages 364 projects territory-wide and is serving more than 1 million people in Hong Kong. Its facilities management portfolio includes Hong Kong Science & Technology Park, EcoPark, Senior Staff Quarters of The University of Hong Kong, Victoria Shanghai Academy, 84 car parks under the Link Management and the facilities under the Government Property Agency of the HK SAR Government. The Group plays an active role in shouldering corporate social responsibility and its efforts in caring for the community have been well recognized over the years.
Back to Press Releases 2016