KUALA LUMPUR, March 28- Human resources handling and methodologies must be changed as the country has a younger workforce, the Generation Y (Gen Y), to adapt with evolving workforce needs. Malaysian Institute of Management president Tun Haniff Omar(Pic) said, it was important to ensure corporate organisations improved their performance and remained competitive to impact on the country’s success.
“The appearance of a new generation is the result of differing inputs that we put into our children, directly or through their educational systems and experiences, compared to those given to us by our parents, teachers and ou growing-up environment.
“With the advent of new technology, particularly the internet, the face of human resources has to be new, current and to date, in order to deal with the the phenomena,” he said in his keynote address at the official opening ceremony of the 14th National Human Resources Summit here today.
Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute chief executive director Tan Sri Michael Yeoh was also present at the summit attended by about 150 participants from government and private sectors. At a press conference later, Haniff said the appearance of a new generation and changes in technologies had contributed to the changes of the environment, either directly or by others.
“Since everything changes, we must know what changes are required in the level of the staff’s knowledge and provide them with the ability and where-with-alls to maintain their cutting-edge knowledge in their fields,” he said.
With the emergence of Gen Y employees who were intelligent, equipped with new knowledge and exposed to internet more, he said the human resources in every sector should use their own approach to deal with today’s peculiar situation.
Haniff said, teachers also played an important role to educate young knowledgeable generations by encouraging them to speak well in the English language, as it was a universal language.
Meanwhile, summit panelist Dr Lim Kim Hwa, who is Penang Institute Fellow, said they discussed, among others, the implications of minimun wage in Malaysia which could be improved more in order to lessen the negative impacts on society.
“It is true that system can encourage them to become more productive and successful, but the government should have proper framework which is more specific,” he said.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced the implementation of minimum wage for the private sector on April 30, and this was gazetted on July 16, whereby its rate will be reviewed every two years. Currently, the government set RM900 as the minimum wage for private sector workers in the peninsula and RM800 for Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan.
Apart from that, the one-day summit themed, ‘Changing with the Times – The New Face of Human Resources’, also provided some exposure to senior human resource professional to form strategic alliances and to be updated on new trends, as well as practices in human resources.
BERNAMA
