MANILA, Philippines — Although most popular as a news and information provider worldwide, Thomson Reuters is a familiar name in several industries, with each industry recognizing a service, a brand, if not the corporate name as a household term in their specific area.

This is basically because this Fortune 500 company—employing more than 50,000 people and operating in over 100 countries—researches, filters and provides information for media groups, as well as organizations in financial, legal/law enforcement, health care, science, tax and accounting, worldwide.

Walking into any Thomas Reuters country office would reveal a staff that is a mix of experts from different cultures and nationalities, who are on top of a variety of concerns and specializations in today’s world, but with essentially a unified underlying common thread: the company core values.

Thomson Reuters in Manila

Highly apparent in their Manila office on McKinley Hill at Fort Bonifacio, Taguig, which houses the Markets Financial Information Services business groups to their markets from across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America, is a good cross section of typical Thomson Reuters employees, who obviously live by the company’s core values, which run through their veins (although they may appear as adrenaline or unadulterated fuel and passion for their work).

The offices have regional and global leaders and staff from Sales, Client Services and Support, the latter being the hub or center for English language support in the Asia Pacific Region, servicing clients from banks, financial institutions and universities.

All 2,500 employees of Manila operations have made the offices a Center of Excellence and a recognized venue of Highly Engaged Employees based on the Towers Watson Survey (growing from 88 percent rating in 2008 to a 93 percent rating in 2010).

“As a group, we’re continuously evolving to promote better integration and collaboration. We’re a global company, we provide opportunities for professionals in financial services, customer service and legal editorial operations, so we need certain types of people who are ready to be developed and to lead as global employees,” says HR Director and now also Senior Site Officer (country manager) Peter Buenaseda.

As HR Director, Buenaseda has successfully positioned and restructured the Manila HR organization to manage the site’s significant growth, more than doubling its staff since 2007. He is also the chief driver of the award-winning HR transformation program for Manila, recognized by the People Management Association of the Philippines as the 2010 People Program of the Year, and recently shortlisted for the 2011 Asia Human Capital Award in Singapore.

He explains how, from the initial qualification of the “right person”—meaning someone who shares values, who collaborates, and is curious—to being accepted as an employee, one immediately begins unraveling potential, continuously training and developing to become globally-competitive.

“It begins with the one- to 10-month specialized training, which is crucial to the success or failure in financial exchanges.

Their level of quality and responsibility may cost customers millions. Those who’ve qualified will discover that we are not stingy with training. This goes on with about 70 percent learning from actual projects, 20 percent education from situational experiences, and 10 percent from formal training.”

Throughout it all, “Performance Matters,” one of their core values, becomes the foundation of their efforts. What they get in return, apart from training and as results from the process, is becoming a real global employee who gets to actually work with their counterparts all over the world.

“We have global teams and members interact daily. We make use of technology like video conferencing for ease and efficiency of communications,” he says.

‘The best place for Generation Y’

Internally, an employee can move laterally (as opposed to the standard upward) within their unique latticework career progression program, going from one specialization to another or getting even higher and farther within their initial area of specialization.

Mark Tan personifies one such progression. From first joining Thomson Reuters as Clients Services Executive six years ago, he is now a Product Specialist—a Knowledge Live Manager, specifically, who is responsible for operations and strategy for the Knowledge Network group in Manila.

The group consists of more than 45 professional trainers covering three time zones to deliver high quality remote virtual training to clients across the globe. “It’s the best place for Generation Y,” he attests.

“We believe in letting the talent flow, and encourage our employees to move from one business unit to another,” Buenaseda adds. “They can also apply for a position anywhere in the world because our expansive operations bases span the globe.”

Thomson Reuters employees also get the benefit for signing up for temporary assignments abroad, for two years, for instance. “They have the option to stay there or to come back to fill a higher position in Manila, if they want,” shares Buenaseda.

They have a considerable number from their ranks who have gone on to flourish in other countries—Australia, New York, etc. They also have Global Heads who are based here, leading global operations from the Manila office.

Although deeply immersed in cultural diversity, the vibe in Thomas Reuters, as particularly seen in Mark Tan, in Head of Direct (Sales) Taiwanese Marcia Lin, Knowledge Network Manager Janice Lim from Australia, Global Support Manager for Asia-Pacific Filipino Jojo Veloso, and in Communications Manager Marla Alvarez of its Manila and Asia-Pacific regional offices, has helped find a way to thrive in the pace of today, maintaining a stronghold on values and employee benefit programs to ultimately deliver their mission and vision excellently.

It is just as obvious, though, that as much as each member of the organization has evolved to become the marketable and hirable professional, they all seem generally happy to stay within the continuously growing yet dependable and credible expert environments that Thomson Reuters has come to stand for.