TalentCorp: Making Sense Of HR In Today’s World And Beyond

Photo (above): Peter Cheese speaking to HR professionals at TalentCorp’s K&I series.

Knowledge and insights series

TalentCorp HR Network

TalentCorp is committed to build better and closer partnerships with employers to grow the HR community in Malaysia. Since the launch of the TalentCorp HR Network on Aug 15, 2014, TalentCorp has been working towards strengthening collaboration with employers and enhancing industry participation in talent development programmes. There are four key work streams aligned under TalentCorp’s initiatives – Diversity & Inclusiveness; Leadership Development; Graduate Employability; and HR Capability (see Figure 1).

In the space of HR Capability, TalentCorp collaborates with HR leaders and global HR bodies to promote the relevant upskilling programmes and adaptive human capital practices with the aim to build a pipeline of high calibre HR professionals who are business and solution centric in human capital management. This in turn, will better attract, develop and retain top talent for the country’s aspiration in becoming a high income, developed nation.

“K&I is a new platform created by TalentCorp for senior HR professionals to collaborate and network. The intent is to bring forth the new thinking and conversations on human capital development and the way we work. We had great responses so far, with speakers from Towers Watson, CIPD, Mercer and even MIT. Also, one of the topics that has been increasingly topical of late is the future of HR. This is something that TalentCorp wants to understand and play a role in the changing landscape of HR. The exciting times is just beginning.” – Johan Mahmood Merican, CEO, TalentCorp

List of speakers

1st series – Dec 4, 2014

• Lyn Goodear, CEO, Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI)
• Mary Chua, director of talent and rewards, Towers Watson
• Balan Krishnan, HR director, Altera

2nd series – Apr 3, 2015

• Ravin Jesuthasan, managing director and global practice leader, Towers Watson
• Karen Blal, regional director, CIPD
• May Leng Kwok, regional head, CIPD

3rd series – May 19, 2015

• Mario Ferraro, regional leader, global mobility, Mercer
• Prof Charles Fine, president, Asia Business School and Chrysler Leaders for Global Operations Professor of Management, MIT’s Sloan School of Management

4th series – Aug 13, 2015 at Penang

• Dr Kim Schofield, fellow AHRI
• Anil Shivadas, executive director, PwC Consulting Services

5th series – Aug 27, 2015

• Peter Cheese, CEO, CIPD
• Lee Yun-Han, senior manager, talent and organisation, Accenture

Transformative HR

Ravin Jesuthasan

The first Knowledge & Insights (K&I) session in 2015 featured Ravin Jesuthasan, managing director and global practice leader for Towers Watson Talent Management Practice. More than 70 HR professionals attended and participated in this session. Based on the book Transformative HR: How Great Companies Use Evidence-Based Change for Sustainable Advantage which Ravin co-authored, the session provided five principles to navigate HR decisions in tackling the growing complexities of the modern workforce.

The five principles are:

1. Logic-driven analytics
2. Segmentation
3. Risk leverage
4. Integration and synergy
5. Optimisation – i.e. high impact vs low impact programmes

Key takeaways of the K&I session:

1. There is a shift in HR from being a service provider to educating, enabling and equipping business leaders.
2. Effective analysis of workforce data provides answers to an organisation’s high-value questions, such as identifying traits and characteristics in successful employees working in business-critical roles.
3. Through segmenting the workforce, HR may differentiate sourcing and reward strategies. This shift contributes to business value through the attraction of new talent and retention of critical talent.

The future of HR

The latest K&I session was held in August 2015 on the topic of “The Future of HR”. TalentCorp invited Peter Cheese, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), to share his views on the future of work.

• Globalisation and Economic Change – Organisations are looking for job-ready people, and people who are aligned with organisations’ values. At the same time, employees want a greater voice in the workplace and a sense of meaning in the work they do. This leads to implications for people recruitment and development as HR re-thinks the workforce relationship.
• Technology and Digital – Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) are four technological platforms that drives business innovation and direction. It is imperative for business leaders to optimise these platforms for organisation success.
• Workforce and Demographics – HR is a key enabler in developing line managers. There needs to be a mindset shift from controlling employees through policies and rule to empowering employees to take charge of their working life through a set of principles.

To watch the K&I session by Cheese, click play below:

HR competencies

TalentCorp held its inaugural K&I session in Penang on Aug 13, 2015 hosted by Keysight Technologies. This series was catered to the northern region companies with more than 50 HR leaders and managers in attendance.

One of the keynote speakers invited was Dr Kim Schofield, a Fellow with the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) who presented “The new HR Competency Model” (see Figure 2). The Model of Excellence builds on three central questions: As HR practitioners, what am I expected to know? What am I expected to do as practising professional? What am I expected to be?

What the participants are saying

“Very useful. Latest trends. Bite size. Practical. Able to bring back and benefit our organisation. Different views – not just local, but regional too. Best practice. Networking – priceless. Share ideas. Researched. Real. Wake up call.” – Jenny Ooi, senior vice president, human resource, USG Boral Building Products Sdn Bhd

“The topics presented were very relevant to current organisation HR trends. TalentCorp takes the trouble to research on the challenges faced by organisations and also looks into the future as to what would be pertinent trends HR professionals should take note of.” – Monsy Siew, executive director, People, Performance & Culture, KPMG

“In today’s business landscape, often leaders are too busy trying to run the business and that includes HR leaders. The topics selected have been very much in line with the current trends. HR leaders are able to take on different perspectives and build on the internal knowledge within their respective organisations.” – Nadiah Tan Abdullah, HR director, Experian Global Development Centre

“What I appreciated most about these sessions was the insightful topics presented by the professionals which relates to the current HR trend in the market locally and globally. Looking forward for more insightful sessions!” – Nor Azliza Abdul Rahman, senior general manager, group human resource division, Felda Global Ventures Holding Bhd

“The forum of K&I is a great platform where all HR leaders have such opportunity to congregate for networking, sharing of knowledge, ideas, challenges and best practices. It actually creates the sense of belonging as a community of practice of human resources. I am pleased to be part of the community. HR leaders gathering such as the K&I will definitely bring HR community closer through networking, create a platform where HR leaders share their work experiences about current challenges, best practices, etc, and allow them to hear and learn from the speakers of their respective researched subject and current market trend.” – Teoh Ewe-Beng, senior HR director, Keysight Technologies (M) Sdn Bhd

For more information on TalentCorp HR Network initiatives, please click here. For more Company Profiles, click here. To advertise with Leaderonomics, email editor@leaderonomics.com