Cissy is HR Manager in Rouse’s Shanghai office, responsible for all areas of human resource management including recruitment, learning and development, and performance monitoring.
Most people will be familiar with the statement “the unexamined life is not worth living”, even if they don’t know that it was made, or has been attributed to, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. Exactly what Socrates meant by it has been the subject of endless discussion, but it can safely be assumed that an examined life would be one that involves contemplation and self-reflection – and hopefully results in increased awareness and understanding. The practice of contemplation and self-reflection is an essential part of who Cissy is, equally important in both her professional and her personal lives.
Professionally, she has really grown up in Rouse . When she joined in 2006, there were only around 30 staff in Shanghai office, now there are over 100. While she has grown up in Rouse, Rouse has been growing with her. Initially her work involved all sorts of administrative tasks, anything that needed to be done; now her role is almost exclusively HR management. It is work to which she is particularly well suited, but she says that, at Rouse, she has been given the opportunity to grow and develop in ways she would never have thought possible.
Early on, she hadn’t thought of Human Resources as a possible career – in fact, she didn’t have any clear idea of what she might do. On leaving school, however, she enrolled in a course of Tourism English at Shanghai Normal University’s Institute of Tourism. She enjoyed the course, but while most of her fellow-students were looking forward to working as tourist guides, she began to think that she was not really suited to that type of work. Although she relates very well to people, she realised she wouldn’t enjoy dealing constantly with groups of tourists.
As part of her course, she had spent several months as an intern with a large tourist organisation in Shanghai. While there, one of the managers had been impressed with her ability to work independently: organising everything from dealing with potential clients and developing travel plans to arranging bookings and dealing with the accounts. When he told her she seemed suited to that kind of work, she started thinking about other possible career paths and decided to look for an administrative position. That is when she saw an HR and Admin position being advertised by Rouse. Although she knew nothing about Human Resources, she decided to apply for the position.
After she had been at Rouse for several years, she was given her first big challenge: organising a Rouse staff gathering for more than 200 people in Thailand. She was still very junior and felt she had been given an enormous amount of responsibility, but she rose to the occasion and in the process learned a lot and gained invaluable experience. She is convinced that giving people opportunities of this sort is important for any organisation. She believes that faced with an appropriate challenge, you can do anything you set your mind to.
Gradually, as the Rouse office in Shanghai grew, so did her HR responsibilities and she began to realise that she needed some specific training. She enrolled in a post-graduate course at the University of Hong Kong and obtained a diploma course in Organisation and Human Resource Management.
If self-reflection and self-awareness have played an important role in all Cissy’s professional decisions, they have been just as important in her personal life.
She was brought up in Shanghai as an only child and when her father was transferred to Shenzhen for several years, she remained in Shanghai to live with her grandparents. She loved her time with them and says she is enormously grateful for having been brought up surrounded by a loving family. Now, she and her husband and their two children, 11 year old Andy and seven year old Emma, live with her parents. They have a flat of their own nearby, but prefer all living together – that way her parents can help look after the children and she and her husband can in turn provide support to her parents.
She is very aware of, and grateful for, the fact that neither her parents nor her grandparents put any pressure on her when she was growing up. They just wanted her to do her best and be happy. She wants her children to grow up in the same way, but is aware that times have changed: life is generally more competitive, and children’s lives changed dramatically with the advent of the internet, computer games and social media. She spends time reflecting on all this, and trying to find the best way to achieve an appropriate balance.
In summer and winter holidays, she likes to travel with her family, usually somewhere in China. For example, next week they will be going to Zhejiang province with friends who also have children, and that will be good for Andy and Emma. On weekends in Shanghai, they always try to make sure that, as well as time for study, the children have time for leisure activities such as a trip to the cinema or a museum, or playing sport or going camping.
Family is very important to Cissy, but at the same time she values her independence and tries to find a balance between family life and personal independence. She tries, and believes it is important, to have some time for herself, for both relaxation and contemplation. For relaxation, she goes to a Yoga class whenever she can. For contemplation and reflection, she likes to go to the temple and read Buddhist scriptures. By doing that, she hopes she will be developing wisdom - and that wisdom will inform all areas of her life.
Whatever Socrates might have meant by the ‘examined life’, Cissy’s life would surely qualify.