CMED Group together with its Business Units held the annual party “CMED Day” on 11 January 2020, for their staffs to gather together for an eventful morning until evening.

The event was hosted in the early morning at Platinum Sports Center with an honorable presence of Ms. Jenny Chea, Deputy CEO of CMED Group. The morning session was started with team bonding activities for the staffs to engage with each other, followed by awarding to the winning teams.

Later in the evening, there was a gala dinner hosted at AEON Hall Sen Sok City with the presence of Mr. Chea Huy, CEO and Chairman, and Madam Chhor Cheng, Vice President of CMED Group. The gala dinner was started with a speech delivered by the top management, and followed by staff performances, along with CMED Star Award and activities which made the event a great success.

This annual staff party “CMED Day” is organized and held on a yearly basis by CMED Group, which is part of its activities and initiatives to stay in touch with the colleagues within the organization and its Business Units to show them care, appreciation and gratitude. Apart from this, it is a platform for the top management to deliver the company’s success, updated market trends, and new missions and strategies of the following year which been brought under our philosophy “Trust, Innovation and Contribution to Society”.

You only need to glance at Phnom Penh’s ever-changing skyline to see why one of the hottest topics of conversation in Cambodia is the condominium market. New construction sites are appearing each week, adding to doubt within the property market. Can property demand keep up with development? While many experts point to a greater reliance on foreign investment to battle low occupancy, Ms. Jenny Chea, Deputy CEO of the CMED Group, says there are many factors that will increase demand.

“Most people in the country don’t know whether this rapid growth in the property sector is sustainable,” Ms. Chea explains. “It’s not a normal market. It’s not a market where you have the information to calculate how much construction is needed. People will say the supply is too much but it’s not something you can pinpoint.”
Due to laws limiting foreign ownership, condominiums are one of the few methods for overseas investors to buy into the rapidly evolving Cambodian property market. Foreigners can own property if the apartments or office spaces are above the first floor, and recently constructed. While this is justifiably aimed to limit ownership of land, it also recognises the ownership of apartments, and this has provided an impetus for investment. But will this investment translate to greater occupancy?

“There will be many foreigners and expats that come in,” Ms. Chea says. “You can say now that even after the buildings are completed there are not many lights on at night. Apartments are sold with a one- or two-year guarantee of rental returns. But what happens after or year two years? That is the question.”

For now, property developers and companies like CMED Construction are primarily focused on sales. That must always be the first concern for a rapidly growing property market. If it’s the first measure of success, Ms. Chea believes low price points, along with rapidly increasing construction quality, is guaranteeing results for savvy developers.

“One of my projects in BKK1 has a Japanese developer, and 90% of apartments are sold,” she says. “70 to 80% of the units have been sold to Japanese buyers. So yes, I think compared to the property prices in Thailand or Singapore, Cambodia is very cheap. It’s a good opportunity to own a home.”

One factor many foreign experts ignore is the likelihood that social change will affect the buying habits of Cambodians. As a Cambodian-owned business with its sites aimed at the growing property market, CMED sees the country’s growth as a key factor in the future of the property market.

“The younger generation is beginning to grow,” Ms. Chea explains. “Cambodia is a very family orientated country. Many young people stay with their parents. In that way, it’s very different to other countries. But I think for the younger generation now, privacy is becoming more and more important to them. So eventually they will move out. That’s where numbers may increase. Until then we generally calculate one family to be five people. But as time goes on and we see a trend of people seeking privacy, the market will change.”

The CMED group has rapidly created a dynamic multicultural team, dedicated to applying the company philosophy and policies to CMED’s divisions and flagship brands. Growing its workforce from 40 to 200 full time employees in a just a few years has presented challenges to its Human Resources department.

“When we had a headcount of 40, we provided just the basic benefits,” Mr. Rocky Tan, CMED’s Head of Group HR explains. “To support rapid growth, obvious benefits like compensation had to increase in order to secure the best talent in a competitive job market. It’s been important to closely study specialised working environments to learn how to further improve working conditions, including the best processes, leading to more rapid results and therefore greater job satisfaction.”

To meet the demands of such a rapidly growing company, Mr. Tan’s team regularly studies the market and provides excellent internal training. Its management of personal training has reached a point where few external training programs can rival the quality of the organisation’s internal education initiatives.

“The management procedure is in place,” Mr. Tan says. “We set KPIs for our staff in line with the KPIs for the company. Personal development is measured with yearly reviews in order to ensure promising talent exceeding expectations is rewarded, and those needing more personal development are supported.”

As the company has grown, benefits have improved. This is attracting the best talent from the local pool of talent, and the international experts that continue to bring the most contemporary and, in some cases, ground-breaking processes and techniques to the company. As a result, the company’s status continues to grow.

“Retention is critical,” Mr. Tan says. “Thanks to the group, there are excellent opportunities for employees, including the prospect of crossing different divisions. This allows the business to provide excellent careers, foster loyalty, and retain talent as it is developing.”

Within its divisions, which in many cases have been operational for longer the group, many outstanding talents have risen to executive or senior positions. Under the CMED banner, with its management structure, strong philosophies and best practices, the potential to reward strong performance now extends to new exciting opportunities, as Mr. Tan explains.

“The company has had the pleasure of promoting a number of employees this year including two who have made it to senior management positions, and IT staff being given major project management duties. I’d estimate that 5-8% of employees have been promoted.”

Within the construction division it’s easy to see why promising graduates and veterans of the construction industry are eager to join the ranks of CMED. In a sector where the relationship between architects, developers and contractors can cause delays and inefficiencies, a company that can completely design and build major projects adds an extra incentive in the form of greater communication and the ability to meet and manage standards.

“Design and build is the company’s niche,” Mr. Tan says. “It’s about quality. No element of the project can fail to meet CMED requirements, even after the project is finished. More clients and developers are approaching CMED due to its ability to provide this solution. The company is one of the top construction companies in Cambodia, and one of the few companies that offers an end-to-end solution.”

While CMED Construction’s rapid rise is always an obvious talking point, Mr. Tan is quick to mention the group’s other successful divisions and brands. One of the group’s keys to success has been its ability create strong relationships between its many thriving businesses.

“The organisation’s divisions are all related to the construction or property sectors,” Mr. Tan says. “International partnerships, the retail division, and the important partnership with Hitachi Elevators all contribute to CMED projects, and in turn the projects help all divisions develop and succeed.”

Just as CMED’s leadership carefully selects projects for their strategic potential, Mr. Tan’s team applies the same ‘quality versus quantity’ approach to recruitment. The aim is to find talent that will share CMED’s ideals and ethos.

“In terms of building the brand, we have been able to associate the business and its name with trust and opportunity,” he explains. “CMED has grown beyond its initial needs as a business, to the point where we now place cultural fit and the potential for personal development above any other traits when recruiting talent.”

HR management expects CMED’s growth to continue in the next three years, especially given its ambitious roadmap and confirmed major projects on the horizon. The organisation expects to double its headcount in the next two years.

“On the organisation’s roadmap, five major projects will commence the next 12 months,” Mr. Tan says. “The challenge is to compete with international companies, but the organisation is already among the top local businesses in the sector. I can see it among the biggest companies in the country within just a few years.”

CMED’s Human Resources department is excited to see how the company evolves over the next two to three years as it attracts more interested parties seeking to create new partnerships and ambitious projects. Already the schedule for 2019 ensures it will be the organisation’s most active and challenging year, but with the help of the highest quality employees and contractors, they are confident most challenges will be met.

Among local companies in Cambodia, it would be difficult to find an organisation with more stringent policies and work practices than CMED Construction. From the careful selection of projects and partners, to administering its own strict safety regulations, CMED Construction is uncompromising when providing safety to workers, building occupants and the local community.
“Safety is more important than the work you’re trying to achieve,” CMED Deputy CEO Jenny Chea explains. “After all, it’s a life you’re talking about. You cannot put a price on that.”

In a country where some elements of workplace safety are not government regulated, the best construction companies have proactively taken measures to apply international standards to their operations. With the help of foreign and local experts, CMED Construction intends to lead the local market in safety precautions.

“In our construction division, we are 100% compliant,” Ms. Chea says. “Without the right safety equipment, you cannot be certified, and I think safety is one area where we can influence the whole construction sector. For us, that’s very important, so we have our EHS (Environmental Health and Safety) division. Everybody must have the right safety protection gear before they work.”

In the middle of a construction and property boom, it’s no surprise to hear that developers are pushing limits in order to maximise investment, but CMED’s Deputy CEO is no stranger to taking a tough stance when the company’s strict policies are questioned. Since founding one of the first architectural firms in Cambodia, Ms. Chea has often taken a hard line to ensure requirements are met.

“One client asked us to reduce the size of the fire exit stairs,” she says. “In an emergency, everybody would be running into that staircase to survive because it’s airtight and has automatic ventilators. From a developer point of view, it would give them extra meters squared. We would always try to maximize the developer’s dollars by maximizing the layout and the quality of the design, but the one principle that we hold onto is safety, so we would be forced to reject any request that compromised our standards.”
CMED’s Deputy CEO believes that as the Cambodian economy continues to grow, and wealth increases, Cambodians will progressively become more discerning buyers. Hopefully the market will lead the drive for greater quality. Until then, CMED Construction will set its own high standards, not only matching the best international practices, but also finding new innovative ways to ensure high levels of safety.

“I can say that we truly care about quality, our safety and our timelines,” Ms. Chea says. “We focus on very detailed things. For us, construction is not just a building. It’s the process. It’s the process of how you pour your concrete, how you build your wall. It can become very complex, but in order to have good quality, you must have good process.”