Chief HR Officer, Carmen Li Talks Company Culture: Growth Mindsets and the Kampung Spirit

From humble beginnings selling health and beauty products from a pushcart to running multiple physical stores and an advanced logistics hub, Henatenn has shown tremendous growth over the last 12 years.

Originally starting with just the two co-founders, Henatenn now has around 150 staff across Singapore and China who share their entrepreneurial spirit. 

With how much the organisation has grown, we catch up with Henatenn’s Chief Human Resources Officer, Carmen Li, to find out how life at Henatenn is like for new joiners.

The Company Culture: Authenticity, Kampung Spirit and Having a Growth Mindset

“Henatenn’s company culture has been evolving very quickly.”

“In the beginning, our company started with our two co-founders, Ben Lim and Eugene Tay.

Over the past 18 months alone, we have acquired a lot of different professionals to join the group. I would say that our company culture involves merging the old and the new.”

“What has been retained is the authenticity, the kampung spirit, and the mindset of growth.”

“Through the growth of our company, we discovered what our company values together:

The first one is about being entrepreneurial,

The second one is being innovative,

The third one is being a people developer,

The fourth one, which is very important, is about our collaboration together.”

Henatenn Holdings now consists of multiple businesses: Neferti, a Channel Distribution Partner for health and beauty products; Novela, a Premium Beauty Retailer; and DTB, a Market Expansion Solutioning Provider for beauty brand affiliate.

A Growth Mindset is About Continuously Learning As a Team:

“We are also a bunch of entrepreneurs coming together for the first time, and we’re walking this path together. Even if some of us have walked on this path for longer, each one of us is still learning to evolve ourselves.

There are a lot of mistakes that we make, whether collectively or individually but we’ll then come together to talk about it, and we will actually keep moving forward and striving forward. To me, that makes us a great army.”

While the Kampung Spirit is About Everyone Coming Together to Help One Another:

“Our ‘Kampung Spirit’ is a key highlight in our crowd. We have our annual Atrium Sales that everyone in the organisation looks forward to participating in and coming forward - be it at the cashier, moving stocks, staying back to tally our sales numbers, or even looking forward to seeing how much sales we have achieved.”

The 2024 Beauty Fiesta Atrium Sales Event occurred at the Singapore Expo. Our atrium sale is one of our cornerstone events that brings together employees, partners, and customers to celebrate beauty products and make our #KampungSpirit come alive. You can read more about it here or watch the video below:

We Look for Those Who Are Hungry to Learn and Grow While Welcoming Diversity:

“I always like to say coming to work is like inviting new people to join the party. 

In our recruitment strategy, we really hope to bring in a really diverse pot of talent.”

To add to the party analogy, she mentioned that it’s important to let people know the kind of party they are joining and to see if they feel like joining the dance together with the current partygoers. 

Specifically, Henatenn looks out for people with growth mindsets who can work well with the founders while also being open to people of diverse backgrounds. She added:

“We’re always open to hear newer ways of doing things. The best decisions come from the ground from people who are experts in what they do.”

Onboarding is a Serious Joint-effort

“Onboarding is such a pain point with most organisations with an ever-changing culture. 

We take the initial 6 months of everyone who comes into the party very seriously. Our HR team, to know when are the key moments when we should reach out to employees for the right dialogue. 

It is a joint effort across our corporate services team, IT team, and HR. We definitely include our employees to experience our retail at the atrium sales or even go to the warehouse and to observe technology being used behind the whole supply chain.” Carmen said.

Strong Feedback Forms the Foundation of Professional Growth Here:

Henatenn takes its professional development seriously. Carmen backs this up with these statistics:

“The founders and management committee absolutely believe that regional growth; 70% comes from actually doing the job and 20% is from coaching and mentoring and only 10% only comes from classroom learning.

We truly believe that professional development for individuals come from strong feedback from your mentor, your stakeholders as well as from the whole ecosystem. Kampong spirit is key.”

We Celebrate Our Successes Too:

“The crowd favorite is definitely the dinner and dance that we have every year, and it’s one of the events all the staff at different work locations come to celebrate.

It’s also important that we always celebrate the spirit of what we value. The spirit of excellence and collaboration as well as being entrepreneurial.”

Through these efforts, Henatenn is home to hundreds of entrepreneurial staff who learn together, grow together, and celebrate wins together. They work closely with each other and their founders, as shown in the Atrium Sales, while working on expanding Henatenn’s international footprint in countries like China and beyond.

Are you looking to join a motivated, fast-moving team with proven growth in Singapore and around the world? Look no further and join our team today!