Derrick Yap

At the age of 28, Derrick Yap has accumulated a fair bit of business experience. During every holiday since he was in secondary school, his father, Tony Yap, founder and CEO of PBA, would bring him to business meeting.

On Sundays, when both father and son played golf and had dinner together, Yap Senior shared his business experiences with his son and explained the rationale behind certain actions he made. Graduating from NUS at the age of 23, Derrick immediately joined PBA Industries Singapore and was asked to improve the operational systems of PBA. On his third year, Yap was asked to manage and head PBA Malaysia.

Contrary to perceptions that often veil the potentials of young leaders, Yap proved everyone wrong on his very first overseas assignment. PBA Malaysia's headcount and turnover doubled in the first year under Yap's management. Having set the system in place for PBA Malyasia, he returned to work on PBA Industries Singapore.

But was it smooth sailing all the way, especially managing employees that were once his father's colleagues and friends? How difficult was it for a Gen Y manager to lead a team of mature workers? Initially, Yap admits, it felt a "little stifling" as it was hard to convince his fellow colleagues.
...
Further defending his rationale, Yap adds, "Gen Y leaders have to work doubly hard and be infinitely more sensitive to garner the support of colleagues. I devoted my time and effort to structure the work in a way that we'd maximise each employee's strengths and minimise the need to utilise their weaker points."

Initial hiccups at people management

Balancing the needs of the young employees against the mature and experienced managers was the biggest hurdle that Yap faced when he assumed his role, he recalls. "The younger employees always wanted to move at a much faster pace. More often than not, they were too reckless. The mature employees, on the other hand, were not so receptive to change and were often frustrated with the need for tweaks in the old systems." Also, the push from the young employees to go more into IT and the slower adoption rate (which cancels the benefit) of IT from the mature employees came forth as an issue. Further, mature employees, Yap found, were reluctant to coach and hand over tasks to the younger employees, and "the fragile ego of the younger employees" did not help much either. In addition was the high demand of the young employees and the need to comparatively increase the compensation of the mature managers.

To cope, Yap put the younger employees in the front line, while the mature employees stood guard at the goal post.
...
Most people would assume that Gen Y leaders are born with a silver spoon in their mouth and stereotype them to be rich brats who were born into power rather than ever having earnt it, says Yap. If ignored, this attitude would affect staff morale as they would feel that the company is run like a dynasty, and their efforts and achievements would not be noticed, he points out.
...
Further, Yap tells us that it is PBA's policy never to recruit a manager.
...
Yap volunteered for a position as a GM in Malaysia as the local GM had to return to his hometown for personal reasons and abruptly left PBA. "I viewed this as an opportunity for me to implement many of the ideas I had that would've been viewed as radical in Singapore. Malaysia was a subsidiary, and a smaller set up. Hence change could be implemented sooner and results would also show earlier." When Yap went to Malaysia, he unknowingly put himself in a "sandwiched position" he says.
...
DERRICK YAP, regional general manager, PBA Industries

Graduating from NUS at the age of 23, Derrick Yap immediately joined PBA Industries Singapore. His first posting was in the sales team. On his third year, he was tasked to manage and head PBA Malaysia. He returned to work on PBA Industries Singapore a year later. Yap is currently in his fifth year with PBA and is working on PBA Systems, the linear motor manufacturing department of PBA.