One-Stop HR Information Centre

Category: Senior Manager

1. Career Opportunity

2. Total Rewards

3. Quality of Life

4. People

5. Company Practices

6. Work

Category: Line Manager

1. Total Rewards

2. Work

3. People

4. Quality of Life

5. Career Opportunity

6. Company Practices

Category: Junior Executive

1. Total Rewards

2. Career Opportunity

3. People

4. Work

5. Company Practices

6. Quality of Life

*1 being the highest priority, while 5 being the lowest priority.

Source: Hewitt

Salary scale consists of range of salaries, which serves as a guideline for salary payout to different levels of employees.

The following are the steps of developing salary scale:

1. Establish Job Description

- A standard format of job description which include a description of the field of responsibilities as well as a listing of duties under one or more areas of responsibilities shall be developed.

2. Analysis of Job Categories

- Once Job Description is done, the next step is to analyse all the positions and try to categorise them into groups. It could be by level, e.g. non-executive, junior executive, senior executive, etc; or by job grading, e.g. E1-E2 for Senior Manager level, E3-E4 for Manager level, E5 for Middle Management level, etc.

3. Determine Salary Scale for Each Job Categories

- It could be done by performing salary benchmarking within the market, and work out the salary scale by setting the minimum, median, or maximum salaries.

4. Determine where an employee would fall within the salary scales. The following are some guides for this purpose:  

a. Minimum Salary - This is the entry level for the given portfolio, which means the person filfills the minimum requirements for the job.

b. Salary between Minimum and Median - The employee has the experience and knowledge to master most of the duties related to the job in an independent manner. The employees in this category are in the development phase because they are still learning their job.

c. Salary between Median and Maximum - The employee is highly experienced and their level of productivity exceeds the job requirements. The employees in this category are in maturity phase because they are mastering their job.

d. Maximum Salary - The employee is continuously producing results that are well above the requirements of the job. The employees in this category are in the leadership phase because they have demonstrated superior leadership skills and a strong commitment to the organisation. They could propably move into the next level of job category.

Building a strong employee relations within an organisation means to create an environment which delivers what people want today. It could be done at the corporate level, and individual employee level, especially as a HR practitioner.

These are the practices that could be executed by a corporate in order to improve employee relations:

1. Corporate Principle

Today employees are very opinionated about the moral and ethical issues in the business. Employees want to be comfortable with what their employer stand for. By having a set of guiding principles and following them, an organisation creates a framework that allows for principle-centered policies, procedures and decisions.

2. Employee Feedback

Employee feedback can be done through conducting employee opinion survey. Employee opinion survey enable employers to find out what their employees care about, what are they concerned about and what they think of their employer.

3. Employee Participation

Employees want to be productive and involved. Do not hide information and do not do things secretly. Employees like to be informed, know what they are doing, and how their jobs contribute to an organisation’s success.

4. Employee Recognition

Employees want to be appreciated and recognised for their jobs. It is important to have a fair reward policy for the employees, that link their performance with rewards.

5. Competitive Compensation

Employees want to be paid competitively, commensurate with their knowledge, skills and abilities. Conduct annual salary survey, establish fair, consistent pay practices and ensure the entire compensation package is competitive.

Somehow or other, if an organisation is not able to practise the above, as a HR practitioner, we may try to do our part, as follow:

1. Communication

Employees today want to be knowledgeable about the organisation’s effectiveness and activities. Lack of communication will lead to dissent, rumor and incorrect information all over the organisation. Communication pulls the employees together into the family of an organisation.

2. Support

Employees want to receive assistance in balancing their work and family needs. Understand how the employees live outside the business tell them how the employer care and recognise their needs for that balance.

3. Direct Contact

It has a more immediate impact on employee relations. Examples: Walk around the work area and talking to employees.

At the end of the day, people want to feel good about who they are, what they do and where they work. Employee relations is about to create such environment to make them feel good about all these.

In the past economic crisis, and even in the recent one, many organisations reacted to the challenges by reducing overhead expenses as the primary course of action. Yet, from the past experiences, a number of organisations could not sustain performance. This proven that reducing costs alone may be insufficient if companies intend to move beyond survival towards producing sustainable results.

On top of reducing overhead cost, the following are some ways that business leaders can make the best of the economic downturn to produce sustainable business results:

1. Cut off Loss-Making Business Activities

An economic downturn reveals which business units are profitable through a full economic cycle. Maintaining non-economically viable activities drains resources from the profitable ones, thereby diminishing potential to produce results. A financial downturn is a good time to assess the business model itself and revise the business plan.

2. Invest in People Motivation

Best practice organisations invest in the motivation of employees during difficult times. It has in fact been shown that motivation increases capability, especially the creativity required in solving complex business problems in times of crisis.

3. Build Long-Term Relationships with Customers

Customers’ needs are often neglected when companies turn inward and focus on conserving cost and other internal matters. Superior performing organisations, however, understand that customers require information, guidance and options. The relationships built with customers in this manner during an economic downturn are extremely valuable in sustaining business.

After all, the key issue is the attitude of leadership, whether the business leaders want to just simply brave through the economic crisis, or to make the best of the current economic situation by taking advantage of the opportunities inherent in every economic downturn.

source: ICC

An employee would not be entitled to any paid sick leave:

1. during her period of approved maternity leave;
2. during the period of he / she is receiving any compensation for disablement under the Workmen’s Compensation Act 1952 (WC);
3. during the period of he / she is receiving any periodical payments for temporary disablement under the Employee’s Social Security Act 1969 (SOCSO).

In the above cases whereby compensation is paid under WC and SOCSO, and the employee is not paid for such sick / hospitalisation leave, the sick leave / hospitalisation leave shall not be deducted from the employee’s entitlement.

Retrenchment benefits received by any employee are taxable under Malaysian income tax law. However, certain tax exemption is granted for such benefits received. Tax exemption granted is restricted to RM6,000 for each completed year of service with the same employer, or with companies in the same group. Under Mini Budget Year 2009, tax exemption has been increased to RM10,000 for each completed year of service.

Retrenchment benefits, however, is not subject to EPF and SOCSO contribution.

These questions do not ask people to describe their specific jobs and what they did, but to find out they way they think, what makes them who they are. Find out the purpose behind these questions.

1. "What is the next thing you have to learn?"

- To identify attitudes towards learning. To look at ability for self-assessment.

2. "Imagine it is six months after you have been in this job. You said to yourself, "I’m glad I took this job because…"

- To identify what is really important to them.

3. "What does the day look like on those mornings you get up and say to yourself, "I can hardly wait to go to work today because…"

- To identify what is important, and what motivates the person.

4. "The next morning you say to yourself, "I really don’t want to go to work because…"

- To identify the demotivators.

5. "If you were financially freedom and didn’t have to work, what would make you want to go to work? How about the work, the company, the people or anything else would be so appealing that money didn’t matter?"

- To find out values.

6. "In your career, describe your biggest success. What made it so?"

- To find out what they accomplished and why they thought it was great. To help assess their skills.

7. "In your career, what is the one thing if you had to do over again, you would do differently? Why? What would you do?"

- To determine if they learn from their mistakes. To determine if they can admit mistakes.

8. "Imagine your best boss, describe his/her best trait."

- To determine how they view their boss and what is important.

9. "Imagine your worst boss, describe his/her worst trait."

- To determine if they can balance between answering the question and putting a positive spin on it or fall into whining about how bad their situation was. Depending upon the answer, you may ask something about their preferred work environment.

10. "What is your greatest strength and why?"

- To know them better.

11. "What is your weakness?"

- To identify whether they do self-assessment and have self-knowledge of themselves.

The real challenge in retaining employees is maximizing their gifts while minimizing their blemishes. Here are some thoughts on addressing this challenge:

1. Create a "no fault" environment - We need to create an environment where people are not reluctant to experiment with new methods. If the new methods failed, at least we learn, grow, do not repeat them, and move on.
2. Individual stamps - Provide an end objective for a task or a project, but do not specify the exact steps that are required to meet the end. Let people put their individual stamp and creativity on the task or project.
3. Provide a common vision - Let everyone know what the larger goal is, and let them know how smaller assignments fit into larger picture. If we know why we are doing something, it is a lot easier to feel good about our diligent effort.
4. Few rules, but high standards - None of us wants to be managed, but we need accountability for our results. We need to create an environment with high goals that don’t block individual freedom.
5. Willingness to help - All great things happen through others. We work together as co-workers. We should help each other in times of need.

The following are some tips on overcoming your fear of business writing:

1. Be confidence - Just because you didn’t major in English doesn’t mean you can’t write effectively. If you are confident in your job and expertise, you shouldn’t afraid to show it. A confident tone will give your reader confidence in the information you are providing.
2. Keep it Simple - You could have the best idea in the world, but if there are too much extraneous words and unrelated information, no one will ever know it. Stick to the point and don’t belabor it.
3. Keep It Short - No one has the desire or time to read a five-page memo. Writing something that is too long is the best way to ensure that it never get read. Keep your document as short as possible without sacrificing its meaning.
4. Know Your Audience Before You Start Writing - Think about who will be reading your document. If you are in a technical position but your readers are not, avoid using jargon and overly technical terms. Do not try to impress your readers with big words or complicated concepts. They will be much more appreciative if you have not wasted their time.
5. Anticipate Questions - After you have written a draft of your document, reread it as if you were the person receiving it. What questions would you be most likely to ask? Go back and answer them in your rewrite. If your draft raises too many questions, return to commandment 2.

Behavioral interviewing is interviewing based on discovering how the interviewee acted in specific employment related situations. The logic is that how the interviewee behaved in the past will predict how he/she will behave in the future, whereby this interviewing technique believes that past performance does predict future performance.

In behavioral interview, an employer has decided what skills are needed in the potential employee and will ask questions to find out if the candidate has those skills. Instead of asking how the candidate would behave, they will ask how did he/she behave. The interviewer will want to know how a candidate handled a situation, instead of what he/she might do in the future. Behavioral interview questions will be more pointed, more probing and more specific.

In order to prepare for a potential behavioral interview, a candidate is advised to refresh his/her memory and consider some special situation he/she has dealt with or projects he/she has worked on. On top of this, review the job description from the job posting or advertisement, in order to get a sense of what skills and behavioral characteristics the employer is seeking.

There are no right or wrong answers for behavioral interviews. The interviewer is simply trying to understand how the candidate behaved in a given situation, to determine if there is a fit between the candidate’s skills and the position the company is seeking to fill. In general, the STAR technique is a good approach to response to behavioral interview questions: describe the Situation one was in or the Task one needed to accomplish; describe the Action he/she took, and the Result.