Discuss the THREE (3) main HR challenges currently faced by companies/hr practitioners in:

 Asia, including Malaysia

The HR challenge that is discussed in Asia will be focus on Malaysia. Malaysia is a developing country
currently and it is aim for being a developed country in year 2020. Throughout the years since
independence until now there are many challenges that Malaysia has being through and to be face in
the future in order to become a developed country. All bodies like government organization, Non
Government Organization (NGO) and companies are involve in overcoming the challenge. Human
resource in any bodies is the key issue for many developing as well as developed countries. Its
availability, whether skilled or unskilled is a determining factor for the inflow of foreign direct
investments (FDIs) to many developing nations. Human resource is also an important factor in
determining the competitiveness of individual companies as well as a requirement for developing
industrial clusters.

1. Managing Talent

To become a developed country, a developing and obtaining a good, skilled and expertise of
employee is very important. Recently a shortage of skilled people in engineering field has become a
challenge for the HR department. As an example in Penang, Malaysia; Penang is identified as the top
region for the electronics industry in Malaysia and is also commonly referred to as the Silicon Island, the
State still lacks the skills base that builds up a silicon island. This refers to design and research &
development (R&D) capabilities. As such, Penang is still very much a manufacturing and assembly hub
rather than a high-tech island. This issue is mainly attributed to the shortages of software engineers,
which are a skill area that is very crucial for the development of information and communication
technologies (ICT) and other high-tech industries and activities. In the years “1996-2000”, Malaysian
universities only produced about 5,360 graduates in physics, engineering and information technology
related courses. On the contrary, these skills are widely available in the newly emerging economies like
India and China that are competing very aggressively with Penang and Malaysia in general, for FDIs in
high-tech areas that are anticipated to contribute to further transfer of technology and know-how to the
local labor force. These two newly emerging economies are also producing more graduates in such skill
areas as well as providing a larger market base for the FDIs compared with Malaysia, which has a small
population base. As for Malaysia, the five key science & technology universities are expected to produce
only an additional 12,0004 graduates in these fields in the this years.

The manufacturing establishments are also facing shortages of engineers, especially those in the
fields of electronics, mechatronics and software. This is partly due to a mismatch between the supply
and demand of workers. There is a surplus of civil engineers, town planners as well as graduates of arts-
related and business administration degrees while the manufacturing establishments are facing
shortages of engineers. This indicates a lack of coordination between the institutes of high learning and
the industries. The institutes of higher learning are still producing in mass quantity graduates of business
and arts-related courses while the industries are asking for more graduates in engineering and technical
courses, at either degree, diploma or certificate levels. Furthermore, parents are still keen on
encouraging their children to complete their formal education up to the A-level and then to pursue their
tertiary education in business or arts-related courses in private colleges even though their children are
not academically inclined. The perception is that if their children hold white -collar jobs, it is better than
blue-collar ones. As such, there is a surplus of non-technical labor force while shortages also occur at the
technician levels. This surplus labor could very well be trained as technicians right after their secondary
education without the trouble of going through tertiary education in business and arts-related courses.
As technicians, they could be trained and upgraded as assistant engineers and eventually engineers. As a
result of the surplus of business and arts-related graduates and the scarcity of science & technology
(S&T) graduates, the issues of labor mismatch, shortages and unemployment are further aggravated.

2. Going Global

In order to grow, many companies are seeking business opportunities in global markets. In order to
do that, partnerships with foreign firms, business operation overseas are going in implementation.
When become global, the competitive rates are exponentially increased in any aspect especially in job
employment markets. This makes the role of the Human Resource evolve with the change in competitive
market environment. Human Resource Management must play a more strategic role and emphasis on
attracting and retaining talents in the success of an organization as their competitors may be outplaying
them in the strategic employment of their human resources. With the increase in competition, locally or
globally, organizations must become more adaptable, flexible, agile, and customer-focused to succeed.
Other big issue that will be face by the HR is the diversity of workplace.

According to Thomas (1992), dimensions of workplace diversity include, but are not limited to: age,
ethnicity, ancestry, gender, physical abilities/qualities, race, sexual orientation, educational background,
geographic location, income, marital status, military experience, religious beliefs, parental status, and
work experience. The future success of any organizations relies on the ability to manage a diverse body
of talent that can bring innovative ideas, perspectives and views to their work. The challenge and
problems faced of workplace diversity can be turned into a strategic organizational asset if an
organization is able to capitalize the variety of diverse talents. With the mixture of talents of diverse
cultural backgrounds, genders, ages and lifestyles, an organization can respond to business
opportunities more rapidly and creatively, especially in the global markets which must be one of the
important organizational goals to be achieve. More importantly, if the organizational environment does
not support diversity broadly, one risks losing talent to competitors.

This is especially true for multinational companies (MNCs) who have operations on a global scale and
employ people of different countries, ethical and cultural backgrounds. Thus, a HR manager needs to be
mindful and may employ a ‘Think Global, Act Local’ approach in most circumstances. The challenge of
workplace diversity is also prevalent amongst Singapore’s Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). With a
population of only four million people and the nation’s strive towards high technology and knowledge-
based economy; foreign talents are lured to share their expertise in these areas. Thus, many local HR
managers have to undergo cultural-based Human Resource Management training to further their
abilities to motivate a group of professional that are highly qualified but culturally diverse. Furthermore,
the HR professional must assure the local professionals that these foreign talents are not a threat to
their career advancement. In many ways, the effectiveness of workplace diversity management is
dependent on the skilful balancing act of the HR department.
Other issue that may rise when going global is the state of the country which the company is involves
like in Iraq. For example Royal Dutch Shell and Malaysian Oil and Gas Company PETRONAS were
successful in its bid to develop a 12 billion barrel oil field in Iraq. There has been little investment in
Iraq’s oil sector since the 1980s, and much of the infrastructure and industry remains in a state of
disrepair due to conflict with Iran and the subsequent conflict with a US led coalition in the 1990s, and
around year 2000 the invasion of Iraq which lead by US and its ally. These companies will face
constraints both in terms of pipelines and terminals to get oil out of the country but also the state of
utilities and roads facilities in Iraq.

3. Containing Cost

A good allocation of man power and skilled personal is very important in maintaining the quality
work of the company as well as containing the cost. This issue is really related to cost because when we
selected a wrong person for the job it will bring to the waste of money. Training is possible to make a
person skilled but it will add a cost for it, not just a cost it will also bring waste to time due to period of
readiness of the employee to work with skills which expected from the training, not to mention also the
hassles of preparing the training. This usually happens when hiring fresh graduates. The investment of
money, time and training to fix a mistake made when hiring or putting a person which not competent or
suitable with the job is quite massive.
That’s why mostly the fresh people are being given a simple task first which on par with their abilities
and freshness. Than the experience personals could lead him/her to higher levels of skills directly or
indirectly. In other way obtaining a personal with skills and experience will give a different issue as such,
the employee might demand more than the fresh graduates since of the skills and experience carried by
the personal.
Solution to the challenges:
1) Managing Talent
Since most of the problem for shortage of skilled people are related to the education system. The
HR department must be correlated with the higher educational bodies such as Engineering Collage or
Universities. This is to make sure that the graduated engineering employees are proportional to the job
demand in this country. This can be successfully establish when the government make a studies on the
job demand and recoded it, in order to give it to the qualified universities so that it will become a quota
of intake students and the expected graduated students. The HR department should also have a strong
relationship and policies with the universities so that the source of employees is always available. The
HR department as well as experienced engineers should do lots of interview in the interested
universities.

2) Going Global
In order to effectively manage workplace diversity, HR Manager needs to change mind set from
an old self centered view “our way is the best way” to a culturally relative perspective “let's take the
best of a variety of ways”. There are several best practices that a HR manager can adopt to overcome
this.
One of the best ways to handle workplace diversity issues is by implementing a Diversity
Mentoring Program. This could entail involving different departmental managers in a mentoring
program to coach and provide feedback to employees who are different from them. In order for the
program to run successfully, it is wise to provide practical training for these managers or seek help from
consultants and experts in this field. Usually, such a program will encourage organization’s members to
give their opinions and learn how to resolve conflicts due to their diversity. More importantly, the
purpose of a Diversity Mentoring Program seeks to encourage members to move beyond their own
cultural frame of reference to recognize and take full advantage of the productivity potential inherent in
a diverse population.

3) Cost Containing
Either way this problem could be solving by doing a very good assessment for the candidate
before hiring, interview is still the best choice but just that the personal that holds as interviewer is also
very important. The interviewer should be much related to the job which is being posted on [8]. By
doing this it will be most fair to the company and the candidates of the jobs. With the result of
assessment also it will be used to decides the best skilled personal which within the budget.

References:

 Human Resource: Issues & Challenges, Prospects For

Growth (By Anna Ong Cheng Imm)
 Human Resource Development Council, Penang, “A Study On Human Resource Trends in the
Manufacturing Sector in Penang”, Socio -economic & Environmental Research Institute (SERI),
January 2001
 http://www.liveoilprices.co.uk
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War
 http://www.profilesinternational.com/syc_intro.aspx