Pavilion Hotel Kuala Lumpur | Hybrid
2nd, 3RD AND 4th November 2022
The TecHR Leaders Summit was held on 2nd-4th November in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The event brought together true pioneers of human resource development, early adopters and start-ups eager to discover the future workforce, workplace 3.0 and exchange best practices and knowledge.
During this summit Emnes Events had a chance interviewing experts from Petra Cucina, Shell Malaysia, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), Lumileds, Zalora and the HR talent®.
Chief Executive & Snr. Vice President – Lifestyle, F&B – Petra Cucina
Emnes Events: How diversity and inclusion helped the organization during Covid lockdown practices to foster advanced diversity and inclusion in the workplace?
Roberto Guiati: It was very much a learning process, during lockdown we were not as busy as we normally would be in running day to day restaurant operations, that gave us time to interact with our employees on a personal level.
During MCO (lockdown) we retained all of our staff and never let go of any of them. We managed to spend a lot of time with them and got to know them better and that helped us instil the culture of the company that made them feel that the company doesn’t look at employees through any lenses of background, religion, education level or heritage. We value every employee for what they are and the value that they bring to the company. We believe that they can grow to the corporate ladder by doing what they know best and constantly improving themselves on a daily basis.
I believe that businesses are the only entity that can actually dismantle racism or single-minded people. No other entity can do it, neither politicians or religion. Businesses can achieve D&I by leveraging and giving the opportunity to any person with any background. If a person/employee grows then the company also grows. Therefore, It is in the company’s interest to improve the level of inclusivity.
Emnes Events: How can Diversity, Equity and Inclusion help organizations to achieve a sustainable growth post Covid era?
Shazmi Ali: For me DEI will help the organization to improve its performance, get diversified with different ideas and work on those ideas to make sure they can be more successful. That is important. If your customers are going to be diversified then you should be diversified as well.
Vice President HR, Shell
Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC)
Emnes Events: How to implement tech-free ideas and innovation to embrace digital culture through behaviour?
Shamsul Majid (Sam Majid): I suppose one way that I see a lot of organizations are getting ideas is to have a simple ideas box. It can be something physical that people just use posted notes and put it into a box and by the end of the week just make sure to read those ideas, and share them in a weekly email to ensure everyone that their ideas have been collected and read.
We actually implemented that few years ago and it gave a lot of channels to our staff to give feedback on what they see as something important that maybe management did not see. The same thing can be done virtually via website or portal. However, it’s the management who needs to “open the door” to encourage things to happen. Not just putting a box there and expecting people to use.
Management must be in a position to encourage sharing of knowledge and feedback. There is no such thing as negative feedback. That is the key.
Management must show that they take those ideas seriously, that they have been heard and there will be action taken on some of those suggestions.
Emnes Events: What are the underappreciated benefits of automation? Can you please name some of hidden benefits and values that automation brings to workplace? And how to balance between automation and human touch?
Shankar Nagalingam: I think most importantly automation eliminates human error. When I talk about human error, HR is always known to provide reports etc. Most of it is very manual process. Right now, when you reduce human error the outcome of it is we become more productive, accurate and efficient. Accuracy is very critical. When we do that, we are able to instantly provide data and insights to the business so that they will use this to be able to make quick decisions because the room is very competitive. Fast decisions are critical.
When you introduce automation into an organization what will happen is; we will also need to look at how we manage retention efforts, engagement and growth of employees. It is important to have IT skills to understand the IT capability as well as the HR acumen skills so that we are able to make sure that the process is not being disrupted in organization’s major reporting and so on.
Vice President, HR, Lumileds
Director, People Centers Of Expertise, Zalora
Emnes Events: How to introduce and implement a culture of transparency when using data-driven tools?
Sulaxmi Prasad: I think the very purpose of data-driven tools is to drive transparency. It is how you present data, what you present and to whom – these are all factors of transparency. For example, if you are talking about engagement serving, how we measure engagement, the tool that we are using, what were the different factors that drove the engagement and how was the performance this year compared to last year – these are all examples of having very transparent conversations. How you got to this transparency is these data-driven tools. It is all interrelated and it starts with transparency and intact. Using that data judiciously you will be able to find those pockets of data that will drive value or that people will relate to.
There is no point of going into unnecessary details. For example, transparency doesn’t mean that you share the raw data, it means transparency through a coherent line and through ideas and dimensions that the audience will relate to. What an employee wants to see and what his/her manager wants to see could be different. For a manager, it’s being able to take something from there to drive value for his/her employees to enhance engagement. For an employee, it is an understanding of where we are as an organization and how to contribute.
Emnes Events: How the Gig Economy is Reshaping the Landscape of Work? And how is HR meeting those challenges?
Mostaffa Azzam: In a nutshell, the gig (project-based) economy is a free market system in which companies collaborate with freelancers, independent contractors, project-based workers, contingent workers and part-time employees. These companies can be small businesses or larger organizations. Companies engaging in this type of independent work economy stand to save costs as employee training and employee benefits go down drastically. In this model, gig workers have a lot to gain as well. They get to choose their own work hours, maintain a work/life balance and improve their productivity. The gig economy is literally redefining jobs in the knowledge economy and calling into question the very existence of professional service firms: Why would you need to hire a marketing analytics firm for a project when you could have unrestricted access to a group of experts, connected by a digital platform with global reach, who could all be working together for you? HR, however, is coming under increased pressure to rise to the challenges of the gig economy, now and for the foreseeable future. To meet this challenge, HR should focus on individual job tasks, rather than jobs as a whole; build open, dynamic corporate structures rather than traditional closed ones; develop agile workforce planning capabilities that account for gigsters and the future of work; develop total rewards strategies that reward gigsters as an essential part of the workforce; develop flexible employment relationships that suit the needs of the new workforce; become familiar with the digital gig platforms available.
Executive Director, the HR talent®, SHRM Global Facilitator & Consultant, Award-Winning Speaker & Writer
The market constantly comes up with a new solution to tackle almost any challenge that Human Recourses could possibly face. However, it is crucial to recognize that people are the true value of any company foundation.
Emnes Events would like to thank each of our speaker, attendee, sponsor and partner who took part in the TecHR Leaders Summit 2022. Conference attendees often refer to our events as a great terrific perk, because of great facilitation and relatable conversation. We hope you gained valuable knowledge, built new connections and on top of that got inspired. We are looking forward seeing you in next year!
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