Driving The Nation’s Talent Agenda With The New Government Of Malaysia

As Malaysia moves forward on its journey towards becoming a more progressive nation, TalentCorp congratulates Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad on his appointment as Malaysia’s seventh Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah on her appointment as the Deputy Prime Minister and all the newly appointed cabinet ministers of Malaysia.

As the national agency that drives Malaysia’s talent strategy, TalentCorp remains committed to its effort of attracting, nurturing, and retaining the right expertise needed to meet the talent demands of today and the future. Alongside the new government of Malaysia, we will continue to heighten our efforts in building Malaysia’s talent pipeline; mobilising and connecting talent to opportunities; and diversifying our talent pool by influencing workplace policies. 

The manifesto by the government outlines various initiatives to ensure our workforce is ready for the demanding realities of the workforce of the future: greater employment opportunities are made available for Malaysians; continuous progression and participation of women in the workforce; and equal employment opportunities with a set minimum wage, among others. TalentCorp’s efforts are in alignment with these goals as our current talent strategy encompasses all the key areas outlined in our government’s manifesto.

Over the years, we have been intensifying our efforts around Malaysia’s talent and workforce to ensure we have a high potential human capital that continuously thrives in the work environment of the future and subsequently, contribute to the country’s economic development. This is in line with the Visioning Malaysia’s Future of Work: A Framework for Action report released last year, which among its five recommendations, calls for the engineering of a robust talent ecosystem and enhancing the skills and capacities of the workforce.

Some of TalentCorp’s key initiatives include:

Talent Analytics

• Nurturing Expert Talent (NEXT), a national talent data analytics platform that profiles and maps current and future talent supply, as well as identifies and forecasts national talent landscape and market needs through assessment of a talent’s career and personal values, interests and personal preferences. It aims to prepare the nation’s talent pool for the Future of Work. 
• Critical Occupations List (COL), an evidence-based list of occupations developed with the Institute of Labour Market Information and Analysis (ILMIA) to highlight the most sought-after and hard-to-fill occupations across numerous industries in Malaysia. 
  • TalentCorp, in collaboration with the World Bank and ILMIA, worked with more than 60 industry bodies, regulators and associations, and over 700 companies across various sectors to develop the COL. 
  • The latest and updated COL 2017/2018 has shortlisted 58 occupations across 18 sectors that are deemed critical and highly sought after. 

Talent Mobility

• MyASEAN Internship, a graduate mobility programme where high-achieving ASEAN youth get to intern with top employers in various ASEAN destinations. 
  • To date, over 170 students have interned with close to 30 renowned employers such as AirAsia, BDO, Maybank, PwC, ThaiBev, UEM, and many more. 
• MyAPEC YouthConnect, an opportunity for high performing youth to work at leading companies with business presence in the APEC region. 
  • To date, close to 250 youth have worked with more than 15 companies across four countries in the APEC region. 

Women

• Career Comeback Programme, a programme that attracts and retains women in the workforce, as part of the efforts to optimise women’s capacity and increase the country’s female labour force participation rate (FLFPR) to 59% by 2020. 
  • TalentCorp has worked with over 200 companies, such as Aegis, Flextronics, Keysight Technologies, Maybank and Mydin among others, in bringing more than 640 women back into the workforce. 
• Career Comeback Grant, provision of incentives and grants to employers who actively provides career opportunities to professional women returning to the workforce. 
  • To date, over 200 employers in Malaysia have benefited from this effort. 
• Work-Life Practices (WLP), where TalentCorp works with companies to introduce and implement flexible work arrangements to attract and retain talent, especially women. 

Global Talent

• Returning Expert Programme (REP), a programme for Malaysian professionals abroad to bring home their invaluable experience, skill sets, knowledge, and intercultural abilities they have gained from their time abroad. 
  • To date, over 3,000 Malaysians have returned home to help create a world-class workforce in our country, including renowned economist and a member of the Council of Eminent Persons, Prof Dr Jomo Kwame Sundaram. 
• Residence Pass-Talent (RP-T), a 10-year renewable pass for highly qualified expatriates to continue residing and working in Malaysia in order to provide greater diversity to the nation’s talent pool.
  • Over 90% of applicants of this programme have more 10 years of global working experience. 
  • Since 2011, 6,430 RP-T applications were approved with top profiles such as Sajith Sivanandan, managing director of Google Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines and New Emerging Markets, and Anna Braun, President of B.Braun Asia Pacific, among many others. 
  • The RP-T allowed for an estimated tax collection of RM291 million to date, and added value to sectors such as business services, oil, gas and energy, communication, content and infrastructure, education and financial services. 
• KNOWMADS, a network of skilled and experienced Malaysians abroad with the passion to contribute back to the country through knowledge sharing, technology transfer, advisory and consultancy, market access, business linkage, research think tanks and more.  
  • Introduced in mid-2017, there are currently more than 150 Malaysians on our KNOWMADS community platform from countries such as Australia, China, Singapore, UK and US.
• Scholarship Attraction and Retention (STAR), which allows government-funded scholars to serve their bonds in private sectors. 
  • Since 2011, there are more than 5,200 scholars serving their respective bonds with over 1,600 leading employers in Malaysia. 

Further to this, TalentCorp is also in the midst of carving out Malaysia’s Future of Work. The various initiatives built into this robust plan ensures that we nurture and upskill our talent in order for them to be more agile in the evolving work landscape.