Alvin Tanthio, People & Culture Development Sr. GM and Division Head at PT Paramount Enterprise International, talks to The Ortus Club about his transition from managing airport power systems to leading human capital for a multi-sector giant. Alvin argues that treating people as a system allows for more optimal solutions in terms of timing, budget, and quality. He emphasises that even the most successful leaders must move beyond data points to seek the wisdom found in high-level peer dialogue. This ensures that technology serves as a tool for empathy, not a replacement for it.
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Executive Summary: Key Takeaways
- Systems Thinking in HR: Transitioning from electrical engineering to human capital allows leaders to view organisational challenges as interconnected systems requiring clear contingency plans.
- The Moments That Matter: Employee experience is built on a foundation of specific milestones, from the first day to retirement, requiring a holistic approach to well-being and recognition.
- The Triple E Framework: Scaling culture across diverse sectors like healthcare and hospitality is achieved through a simplified design thinking model: Empathise, Explore, and Execute.
- Wisdom Over Information: In an AI-saturated world, the critical differentiator for leaders is the wisdom to understand the “why” and the downsides behind technological implementation.
- Sentiment over Surveys: To keep the human in human capital, leaders must use machine learning for sentiment analysis of free-text data, validated by direct focus group discussions.
Alvin Tanthio’s career began with the high-stakes complexity of electrical engineering, managing power systems for West Java and several of Indonesia’s major airports. Driven by a passion for seeing people grow, he successfully pivoted into human capital, bringing an engineer’s rigour to the “soft” world of People & Culture. At Paramount Enterprise, Alvin manages a diverse workforce spanning hospitality, real estate, and healthcare. He is a leader who believes that while digitalisation is the solution for scale, empathy remains the core engine of the system. For Alvin, leadership is a constant experiment in balancing systemic efficiency with the “moments that matter” to every individual employee.
How does an Engineering background influence Human Capital?
Alvin explains how managing complex power systems provided the perfect framework for solving people challenges.
“In electrical engineering, you manage complex data and situations, and you have to have a contingency plan. I still use that same framework to solve challenges in the human capital space. I see everything as a system. You see how things interact and what the most optimal solution is in terms of timing, budget, and quality.
When you transition into the digital space, you see that digitalisation is the solution for large-scale workforces. It allows us to tweak things to make it more convenient to analyse the situation and empathise with employees. Without technology, listening to the workforce would take much more time and resources.”
What are the “Moments That Matter” in the employee journey?
Identifying the common ground across all industries, Alvin highlights the importance of well-being beyond simple compensation.
“Employee experience is about specific moments: the first day, the performing phase, the development phase, and up to retirement. The common foundation across industries is identifying these moments and determining the ‘total rewards’ the company can provide.
It goes beyond mandatory compensation and benefits. It is about well-being, physical, financial, social, and mental health. People want to know if they are promotable and how the organisation’s needs connect to their own. These similar principles are the common ground that human capital has to address across any industry.”
How do you scale culture across Hospitals and Hotels?
Alvin introduces the “Triple E” framework as a simplified design thinking tool to unify diverse client-facing teams.
“In hospitals and hospitality, we cannot make everything just about online booking; we have to understand the situation of the customer. To ensure a similar standard, we introduced a simplified design thinking framework called the Triple E: Empathise, Explore, and Execute. Empathise is for understanding the customer’s situation deeply. Explore is for ideating and seeing new possibilities for service. And execute to ensure every action has a ‘contribution proof’ in mind. By having this simple framework, employees across many businesses have a similar way of thinking. When discussions get fierce, we remind everyone of this common ground.”
Why is wisdom being overlooked in the next generation?
In an era where information is a commodity, Alvin argues that the human ability to see the bigger picture is becoming rare.
“Today, people can learn anything from anywhere, but something people often overlook is wisdom itself. If I have this technology, what is the wisdom behind using it, and what are the downsides? Wisdom is about how we communicate across generations and seeing the bigger picture. We cannot just be too literal. Empathy is also needed. We can have the technology and the data, but we interact with humans, so empathy is something we need alongside technical thinking and wisdom.”
How can AI help rediscover the human in data?
Alvin discusses the use of machine learning to move past numerical survey results into true sentiment analysis.
“We often see organisations check employee experience through numbers, but they miss the meaning behind them. In human capital, we need to utilise machine learning to perform sentiment analysis. We can use AI to understand what employees say in free text. In the old days, we had to read it one by one; now, we can see the needs behind the numbers. To check accuracy, we should have focus group discussions. We show them the survey results and ask, ‘Is this accurate?’ We are dealing with humans, so our approach should be to experiment every day and ask employees for their ideas.”
What is the biggest misconception about the future of work?
Alvin challenges the idea that technology alone is a finished job and addresses the nuance of remote versus office work.
“The future of work is not just about placement or working from home. It is about how we can have seamless communication and collaboration. A common misconception from the employee side is that working from anywhere is always the best; but people crave in-person connection. From the employer side, the misconception is thinking that if they have invested in technology, the job is done. Technology is only a tool. You have to make people get used to it and explain how it will be beneficial for them. It always comes back to the roots of what the true needs of the team are.”
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Across Alvin’s insights on “systems thinking,” the Triple E framework, and the role of wisdom in leadership, one pattern is clear: these challenges aren’t solved in isolation. They require a peer-level perspective and the kind of high-trust dialogue that transcends numerical data.
His vision of “Human Capital as a System” reflects a broader reality: today’s P&C leaders cannot rely on software alone to build a unified culture. The most effective executives, especially those managing diverse portfolios from healthcare to hospitality, actively seek out peer dialogue as a strategic necessity to refine their sentiment analysis and organisational wisdom.
At The Ortus Club, we host curated executive roundtables that bring together senior leaders facing these exact challenges. Step away from the literal data and engage in the kind of open, high-value conversations that put the human back into the system.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How does an Engineering Mindset apply to HR?
A: It involves viewing the workforce as an interconnected system where changes in one area (budget, timing, policy) affect the whole, requiring contingency plans and optimal solutions for growth.
Q: What is the “Triple E” framework?
A: A simplified design thinking model used at Paramount Enterprise: Empathise (understand the stakeholder), Explore (ideate solutions), and Execute (deliver with measurable proof).
Q: What is Sentiment Analysis in Human Capital?
A: The use of AI and machine learning to process written employee feedback (free text) to identify emotional trends, morale shifts, and specific needs that numerical surveys often miss.
Q: Why is wisdom considered a non-technical skill?
A: Because while AI can provide data and information, wisdom is the human ability to judge the long-term impact, ethical considerations, and interpersonal nuances of using that information.
Q: How do you scale culture across different industries?
A: By establishing a common ground through unified frameworks (like Triple E) and a shared vision that prioritises human connection, regardless of whether the setting is a hospital or a hotel.
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