TalentCorp: Life At Work Awards 2015

Celebrating work-life practices

The workplace in Malaysia is progressively changing to meet the differing needs of our diverse and multi-generational workforce.

Through the Life At Work Awards, TalentCorp encourages employers to step forward and share their workplace practices to promote work-life integration and to advance women in the workforce.

We feature some highlights from the award submissions to encourage more employers to adopt some of these good practices.

Key highlights of participating companies

Piloted Flexible Work Arrangements with the HR team to introduce the policy organisation-wide in June 2015. Start and end time of working hours can vary between 7am and 9am or between 4pm and 6pm.
Expanded part-time work to a wider group beyond the support functions, tapping on flexWorkLife.my portal to advertise vacant positions.
Maternity leave extended for a further 30 days immediately following the 60 calendar days, and Carer’s Leave to care for family members.

Set-up a support and knowledge-sharing platform for women employees called “Lipsticks and Laptops” to retain women and to encourage them to scale greater heights whilst juggling both their career and family commitments.
Employees have flexible working hours and are provided the option to work from home for a maximum of two days a week (with option to extend).
Maternity leave extended an additional one month with half pay, trimester parking, nursing room with refrigerator and steriliser.

Developed an internship programme for Women in Aviation sector, which will also monitor success factors for women in engineering/quality role in aviation.
Employee Assistance Programme provides GE employees and their spouse/ dependents with access to support ranging from psychologies, finance experts, medical experts, wellness coach, etc.
“Who Do You Know” programme raised the employee referral rewards for female candidates to increase the number of women in the organisation.

More than 50% of heads of department are women, with strong representation in key roles including the first female partner as head of advisory and first female partner as chief information officer and head of information technology advisory of KPMG Malaysia, who was appointed as head of ASPAC Cyber Security.
Officially formalised Flexible Work Arrangements in February 2015, which includes reduced and part-time work arrangements depending on specific needs, such as seven-hour days, six-hour days, half-day, four days, three days and 2.5 days per week.
One week closure annually, which is paid time off firm-wide to enable their staff to rejuvenate, as part of the “Inspire Confidence and Empower Change” initiative.

Flexible work arrangements has contributed to a positive increase between 2% and 4% in the areas of employee engagement, culture and work and development, bringing it to a strong 75% engagement score.
Employees can request to work from home for up to two days a month.
Time-off of two hours granted on ad-hoc basis to allow employees to attend to personal needs.

Discounted prices offered to employers in selected childcare centres.
Prioritised women in recruitment and succession planning for engineering and executive roles.
Female employees in managerial positions are put through specific leadership programmes including female leadership forums, language programmes and internal coaching.

100% of female workforce have flexible working hours, including working from any location.
Partners with TalentCorp to design a Career Transition Workshop for women returning from career breaks.
More than 60% of the employees and 57% of top management team are female.

Implemented staggered hours with the option to commence office hours at 8am, 8:30am and 9am.
Designation carpark for expecting mothers and plans to set up a childcare centre.
Female CEO with 50% female direct reports.

Employees encouraged to take up to three days of paid leave a year to volunteer for community and environmental programmes.
Focused programmes for women including International Women’s Day and Women’s Network.
Total maternity leave extended from 60 to 90 days.
Focused programmes to increase representation of people with disability (PWD) in the workplace from four to 21 since 2014. Initiatives included provisions of disabled-friendly infrastructure, orientation session for staff to engage with PWD, setting up a disability network (N-ABLE), organising career fairs for PWD and piloting internship programmes for students with disability.

Virtual office initiative at PETRONAS ICT enables more than 250 employees to work away from the office at any convenient location.
Enhancement of Mother’s Room focusing on design and facility improvements to 37 Mother’s Rooms to make them more comfortable and functional.
Introduced the PETRONAS Returnee Programme, which provides the option to rehire talents who left to attend to family matters.
Option of applying for an additional 30 consecutive dates of maternity leave on half pay.

Talent Review discussions take into consideration the diverse mix of high potentials with the Talent Acquisition team adhering to a guideline to shortlist at least 40% female candidates.
The Women’s Business Council (WBC) launched a “Women to Watch” platform to recognise and raise the visibility of high-achieving female employees and reinforce the importance of gender diversity at all levels.

Maternity Protection Policy (to be fully implemented by 2018) provides female employees the minimum maternity benefits, which include the right to return to the same job or equivalent after maternity leave, flexible work arrangements and the option to take reasonable breaks to breastfeed.
Childcare subsidies of up to RM2,400 per year on childcare services under the Flexibenefit Programme.

LAWA organisers