How DHL Express Singapore Delivers More Than Just Parcels – It Delivers Trust
Clare Sim
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How does a transportation company consistently rank in Singapore’s Best Workplaces™ List for 8 years, and be #1 over 5 consecutive years? That’s the question on our minds as we speak with Managing Director Christopher Ong for this feature.
DHL Express’ engagement results edged up from 96% in 2023 to 97% in 2024, an imperceptible shift that’s no mean feat, after years of consistent culture excellence.
‘The delivery guy’ takes on a new meaning in DHL Express. They don’t just deliver packages – they provide a great customer experience, and DHL Express’ customers are noticing. In DHL Express, employee engagement is directly linked to profitability and customer satisfaction.
Singapore’s profitability has grown substantially over the last 5 years – a result of increasing employee engagement. “As our engagement scores improve, our profitability follows. The correlation is clear globally and in Singapore – we could see the numbers,” Christopher says. Engagement wasn’t always as high – it was 60% in 2009 during a company crisis. Over the years, leaders at DHL Express worked at driving engagement, making sure the people felt taken care of and could trust them.
Christopher explains that employee engagement reinforces customer loyalty, which creates higher revenue and profits: “One customer had called in about a shipment that didn’t belong to DHL. When the customer service advisor realised that, instead of saying ‘Sorry, this is not our responsibility’, she said, ‘The shipment is with this provider, so you can go to this website, and this will help you contact the customer service.’ She went the extra mile to do what is necessary to delight the customer, a DHL customer. That’s why they keep coming back. That shows the power of engagement.”
He adds, “I’ve seen many customers say ‘I rated you 10 out of 10 because your courier was smiling, positive, patient, and happy to provide information.’ Our people recognise the importance of engaging with the customer.” Every month, leaders at DHL Express recognise all couriers who receive ‘perfect ten’ customer ratings, especially those who receive multiple perfect tens – and there are plenty.
It’s crucial to act on survey feedback, Christopher emphasises. When employees see that their feedback leads to something happening, it builds trust.
“We go through the ‘you said we did’ exercise every year with our colleagues: You said this, this is what we did. When the survey results come out and we see that we need to do something, we take action,” Christopher says, “that allows us to continue building trust.”
One example of how DHL Express took action is around fairness. “When results showed employee concerns in certain areas, we took the bull by the horns and addressed it by equipping our leaders, making sure we are a lot more transparent in our communications. We use the survey as a strategic tool to get the pulse of our people’s sentiments, whether we’re moving in the right direction. It reinforces our strategy,” Christopher explains.
A staggering 96% of employees in DHL say that their leaders respond to feedback, exceeding the average of Singapore’s best workplaces and almost doubling that of the typical Singapore workplace surveyed in the latest 2024 Global Workforce Survey1.
Despite being #1, Christopher says the key is not to focus on ranking, but rather on making sure leaders live out the values of the company and that their employees feel it. Ranking naturally follows. Great Place To Work® data2 supports this, showing a strong link between employee experience and their confidence in the leadership team.
“We have leaders at every level who walk the talk. They value their colleagues, deliver results without compromising respect, show care, and are interested in our people and their development in the organisation. It needs to start at the top, because that sets the tone,” Christopher emphasises.
Most leadership training in DHL Express is facilitated by senior leaders, not HR specialists. As Managing Director, he sets time aside twice a year to facilitate the Certified International Manager programme, a 3-day leadership training programme for people managers. “It makes a difference when a senior leader is telling you the company’s values versus the HR trainer. As facilitators, we’re expected to be role models. If not, nobody’s going to listen. They can see that what we say matches what we do. That’s what changes the culture.”
Besides having leaders impart company values, Christopher says the values need to be simple so that they can be easily understood by all employees. DHL Express employees need only remember this: Deliver results without compromising respect.
The result? All levels in the organisation, from individual contributors to executive leaders, have relatively consistent experiences across all five dimensions of the Trust Model, a rare phenomenon shown below. In most other organisations, engagement levels tend to be high for executive leaders and low for frontline employees.
Ranking #1 is the fruit of what DHL Express sowed in its earlier years, but it isn’t resting on its laurels. “We don’t know everything. We need to learn. Constant improvement is a mindset we embrace here. Our employees’ needs evolve; every time we do the survey, we see what changes,” Christopher says. Once trust is built, culture is established.
Our customer survey results show that the strongest plus point for DHL is our people, every month.
– Christopher Ong, Managing Director
Discover what employees value about working at your company and how you can boost retention rates and increase productivity and performance with Great Place To Work CertificationTM.
