Raising The Bar Of The HR Profession In Malaysia

(Above: MoU exchange between TalentCorp and training providers of HR Certification Programmes in the presence of representatives from the Human Resources Development Fund and HR institutions, witnessed by Datuk Seri Idris Jala.)

HR certification programmes

Given Malaysia’s pursuit to achieve developed economy status by 2020, it is unsurprising that the Government has made it one of its goals to strengthen the country’s workplace practices and talent management initiatives in order to attract, develop and retain the top talent required to move the economy forward.

The importance of enhancing and strengthening the HR capability of Corporate Malaysia arose from the growing need to upskill the capabilities of HR practitioners, which is in line with the human capital development strategic reform initiative of the New Economic Model.

“In PETRONAS we always believe that the competency and the capability of our people is key and this includes the HR team.”
– Raiha Azni Abd Rahman, senior vice president, group human resource management, PETRONAS

“Human capital has been a priority to the UEM Group; every year we spend 5% of our total staff cost to train and develop our people. In our human resource masterplan, we lay out the five pillars which includes developing their technical as well as their professional capabilities.”
– Rasidah Kasim, head, group human capital, UEM Group Bhd

Currently, less than 1,500 HR practitioners in Malaysia have professional HR certification, which is very low compared to other professions where certifications are highly recognised, such as accounting, with approximately 30,000 qualified accountants in Malaysia.

To address this, Talent Corporation Malaysia (TalentCorp) last week exchanged MOUs (memorandum of understanding) with four local training providers of recognised HR Certification programmes to build the future pipeline of certified HR professionals in Malaysia.

Under the MOUs, TalentCorp will co-fund 50% of the programme fees (with the balance provided by the employer) to encourage more HR practitioners in Malaysia to gain professional certifications.

To date, a number of leading employers have already signed up for the HR Certification programmes including Berjaya Corporation, BMW Malaysia, Celcom, Deutsche Bank, DRB-HICOM, Ekuiti Nasional Berhad (Ekuinas), Motorola Solutions Malaysia, Pfizer, SapuraKencana Petroleum, Sime Darby and SME Bank.

For more information on the HR Certification programmes, please visit www.talentcorp.com.my

“We aim to support the certification of up to 800 HR professionals over the next two years to catalyse raising the bar for Malaysia’s HR profession. Employers should invest in developing their HR practitioners to ensure that our human capital management is benchmarked to international best practices and in the hands of professionally certified practitioners. This is in line with the New Economic Model strategic reform initiative to strengthen HR standards and certification initiative, which is spearheaded by the Human Resources Development Fund.” – Johan Mahmood Merican, CEO of TalentCorp

“HR management and development is both science and art. The ‘art’ is the experience part where we have to deal with things maturely. Getting a certification is the ‘science’ where the learning process helps us to be more confident and to continue our journey.”
– Nora Abd Manaf, group chief human capital officer, Maybank Group

“A good certification programme can help a HR practitioner to continue to build the knowledge to be at the table.”
– Derick Khoo Chin Eu, senior general manager, human capital, Tan Chong Group

“Once you get certified, you know that you have met certain standards in your level of professionalism.”
– Mohd Rizal Mohd Razali, chartered MCIPD, senior consultant, Hay Group

“The future of HR is bright. HR is becoming integral to a company’s success as business partners. HR adds value to the bottom line by retaining, engaging and developing talents.”
– Lim Chee Gay, HR & GA director, Samsung Malaysia Electronics (SME) Sdn. Bhd.

“For HR to be strategic business partners, we should try to put ourselves in our CEO’s shoes and think like him/her so that we can put in place the right people strategies to grow the business.”
– Hamidah Naziadin, group chief people officer of CIMB

“I see our role as a strategic internal coach to our line managers, to support and enable them to lead and manage people.”
– Lai Tak Ming, director, group human resources and administration, Gamuda Bhd