Dedicated to Impacting Lives

Recently, I caught up with Ryan Tan, Managing Director of Cornerstone Career Connections Pte Ltd and had an opportunity to interview him. During the interview he related how he had set up his company, the growing years and the motivations that kept driving him forward. It was a most interesting journey into the heart of a visionary entrepreneur, red-ribboned with a focused mind and banded with a golden ring of pure social conscience.

Ryan derives satisfaction from getting a good job placement for all categories of job seekers. Impacting lives, knowing that he can help change the life of someone by securing him/her a job; for example, as in the case of a foreign worker: “The foreign worker regards a job as precious, and one that can provide for the financial and emotional well being of the foreign worker and his family”, said Ryan. This is what doing the business is all about for Ryan and which gives him utmost satisfaction. This is one of the wheels of motivation that he drives on.

Being able to help people get better jobs that offer improved career paths, work environment or better remuneration, makes my heart sing – Ryan Tan

Ryan thrives on client satisfaction.  He strives to fulfill the needs of the candidate in a timely and efficient manner.  This has earned him their appreciation, trust, continuous support and business flow that have built his company up.   All these add up as more motivations for him to excel further, said Ryan.

His people-centric focus comes across in his management style too.  “I have an open door policy plus an MBO approach with all my colleagues.  Together we agree on our objectives and targets and decide on each one’s role and responsibilities in a clear fashion”, he said.  Ryan believes in empowerment and training for his colleagues and ensures a working environment where there is mutual respect for one another.  His colleagues see him as a leader who balances the realization of the corporate bottom line and also encourages them as a friend to not only work hard to attain those goals but also play hard and have fun at work.

 I take a customer-first attitude at all times, whether it is with my clients or my colleagues. – Ryan Tan

But all rosy as it may seem at the workplace, won’t there be client or staff problems to deal with, I ribbed Ryan.  What then is his approach to solving business, client or staff problems?  Without a fluster, Ryan said that problems are only problems if one considers them that way.  To him, each issue is only a solution-seeker and he views them as a means of forging consensus of each party concerned.  He calls this a creative pursuit.  He drew analogies to a football game; the issue is the ball and it is seeking the goal post i.e. a solution.  Before the ball can get into the goal post, it can get kicked all over, dribbled here and there and passed front and back and make it or not but it does not overlook the fact that team effort is needed from all angles.  Eventually the ball gets to its goal….when it does it took focus, effort, dedication, skills, strategies and determination of the team.  Problems are like that.  They require discussion, cooperation, and the concerted efforts of all parties to agree to find, explore and work on solutions.

Ryan added that when handling clients, he would discuss with them face-to-face and provide several solutions to help them resolve their issues.  As for his colleagues, he said taking the counseling route was more effective and if it involved a skills matter, then providing the necessary training to bring their capability and confidence up mattered, followed by encouraging them to plan goal settings in their daily activities.

With Ryan being a people-centric guy, I wondered when it comes to customer satisfaction where he draws the line especially in the case of a very or worse, overly demanding client.  He said that it all has to do with managing the expectations of the client from the outset.  He stressed that the company motto is “we make life easier for our customers” – however, his colleagues also are trained to ensure that they understand the commitment limits that they can make – he sets the parameters within which his colleagues exercise their own discretion and operate.  They also learn from him, by watching him handle clients.

 At the end of the day, if it is within my capacity to assist them to get a job done, I will do my best to get the resources or personally handle the job. – Ryan Tan

Ryan’s vision and growth target, in the next five years, are for his company to be the leading and preferred recruitment partner that specializes in executive search, technology sector, general staffing and foreign manpower recruitment.   At the same time he also views further growth through horizontal expansion of the HR business through providing supporting HR services as for example, payroll, training and HR administration.  With his management philosophy in place, principles of social responsibility, supported by a high ratio of customer satisfaction and retention, employee satisfaction and retention as well as good sales turnover, Ryan and Cornerstone Career Connections are gearing up to fulfill their vision.

By Vijay