One-Stop HR Information Centre

Some employers opt for outsourced HR solutions as they have little knowledge of HR administration or of the complexities of government compliance issues. Somemore, for some small businesses which are self-funded, they cannot afford to offer their employees competitive salaries or the same benefits that a larger employer can provide in finding top talent. In this case, outsourcing HR is often less-expensive than hiring an internal HR staff. For example, a payroll processing company will handle everything as it applies to payroll, including calculating employment taxes, and issuing pay checks. Utilizing any outsourced HR option can provide a variety of benefits, from cost savings to access to specialised expertise on taxes, payroll, workers’ compensation and more. However, without an understanding of the industry and what a company’s specific needs are, an employer may not get what he / she is paying for. Therefore, before deciding whether to outsource / what to outsource, the following steps need to be considered:

• Conduct a specific needs analysis, in order to determine type of HR service that needed, and whether a more comprehensive approach to HR is needed.
• Ensure that the vendor chosen can meet all needs and requirements that can not be done internally, by asking them specific questions on such individual needs. 
• Do reference check with the existing clients of selected vendor on their service and reputation.
• Commit one internal staff to manage the HR vendor relationship, by communicating with the vendor and hold the vendor accountability for any issues that may arise. Set expectation and time frame for the vendor.
• Ask for demonstration and proof that any past clients’ legal issues have   been correctly and efficiently handled.
• Have an escape clause, that allow the Company to withdraw from the outsourcing for unsatisfactory performance, for example, misses deadlines, avoids communication, causes losses, etc.

If properly planned, outsourced HR solutions can support the Company’s HR needs without the considerable overheads.

It is the Employers’ policy that all employees are entitled to a safe workplace. Employers believe that employees should be informed of their rights and responsibilities under the OSH Act. Employees must also be informed of their rights and duties under Employer’s Safety and Health program. Employers believe that properly informed and trained employees will be safe employees. Employers encourage to be involved in improving workplace safety. Good health and safety practices are the responsibility of each employee.

All employees must use proper health and safety practices. An employee’s specific responsibilities depend on his or her jobs, among the responsibilities are:

• Keep the work area neat and clean to help reduce slipping, tripping, and falling hazards.
• Ensure that office lighting is adequate. Have burned out light bulbs replaced and request additional lighting if necessary.
• Ensure those electrical cords and phone cords do not across walkways or otherwise pose a tripping hazard. If the outlet jacket of a cord is damaged, it may no longer be water-resistant. Exposed wires can shock workers who contact them. The cords should be replaced.
• Immediately report tripping hazards, such as defective tiles, boards, or carpets.
• Arrange office furniture in a way that allows unobstructed areas for movement.
• Follow proper storage procedures, as specified below:

• Store items in approved storage spaces.
• Do not stack boxes too high or too tightly. Do not store boxes, paper, and other materials on top of lockers or file cabinets.
• Store heavy items on lower shelves.
• Try to store materials inside cabinets, files and lockers.
• Do not store materials in passageways.
• Do not obstruct fire equipment, extinguishers, exits, and sprinkler heads.

Talent Management is a business process that enable your talent to achieve their full potential over the course of their employment. It is a process that aligns all your talent hiring, development, retention with your usual key people processes such as performance management, succession planning, learning and development into a strategic framework that enable your business to build competitive advantage and win in the marketplace. It is a long-term process.

Building a talent management system is not about having multiple talent management programs. There are four key elements which need equal attention and focus in order to ensure the system is successfully built. The key elements are:

• Leadership Engagement

HR department will always be seen as the one responsible in carrying out talent management process. However, talent management will only be successful if the leaders in an organisation embrace it and fully role-model it. Developing leaders begins at the top with their engagement in the process. Organisations which are serious about talent management will ensure every leaders spend time developing their direct reports, including the busiest CEO!

• Systems & Structures

Once there is commitment from the leaders, it is also important to ensure that the talent initiatives are incorporated into existing systems and structures in order to get full commitment from each and everyone else in the organisation. For example, it is compulsory for the staff to attend at least two job-related training before getting promotion.     

• Culture

People resist to change. They might comply with the systems and procedures, but do not get the process and objective right. Using the training example above, in order to get promoted, the staff attended two training programs. However, they are not aware that the purpose of the training is to prepare them to be competent in the next level of job, and to transfer the knowledge gained to the other peers. In short, in order to succeed in talent management, it is important to ensure that the talent initiatives become part of the culture of the organisation.

• Program

It is not possible to copy a talent management program from one company to another. A talent management program must be aligned to the business goals and strategic direction, as well as the corporate values of an organisation.

In short, talent management needs to be embraced by all as mentioned above. It is an investment that really needs serious consideration for an organisation that want to be competitive in the 21st century.

HR must support the top management to effectively align the human capital resource to the organisation business plan and needs. Meanwhile, HR have to play the role of ensuring the human side of human capital management is not neglected. HR, therefore, has numerous roles to play, especially during a crisis, as follows:

As a Business Partner

HR must fully understand the organisation’s business direction and strategic business plan. HR must also be able to evaluate and justify every aspect of human capital management. HR must be able to establish HR measurements especially if an organisation is planning to conduct a rightsizing exercise, or in any other form of restructuring exercise. HR measurements provide an understanding of the impact of human capital contribution to the business, identify areas for improvement and develop corrective action plans. Example of HR measurements inclusive of total human capital value, employee productivity and performance level, employee engagement and satisfaction level, ROI of training and development, etc.

Bearer of Good or Bad News

It is critical for management to keep an open line of communication with the employees, in order to avoid the creation of rumours and workplace gossip which can potentially create a lot of fear and panic among the employees. The employees will want to know the actual situation of the organisation which they work with, the direction of the organisation, and how every decision making of the organisation affect them.

As a Counsellor

Everyone needs a shoulder to lean on or a good listener, and when it comes to employees, it’s HR. HR must acknowledge the employees’ feeling, and provide them with assurance. HR must understand that the one thing that every employee wants is honesty from the employer. HR must also regularly gauge and boost the employees’ motivation levels and morale.

source: i-HR

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.

A company’s organisational strategy is centered around the structure of its organisation chart. The organisation chart illustrate a graphical representation of various positions in a company, with the top position to be placed at the top of the organisation chart, followed by various layers of supporting positions arranged according to the positions’ level.

It is common for an organisation to work out their organisation planning based on organisation chart. However, one should not develop an organisation chart based on the employees the organisation currently have, instead, an organisation chart shall be developed based on the specific work roles and logical groupings of work in an organisation. An effective organisation chart shall enable a company to become less dependent on specific employees and more dependent on the structure of the developed chart. It also:

1. Communicates to the staff the business direction of the organisation;

2. Able to show new employees where they fit into the business;

3. Allow the company to evaluate its current employees and how they fit into the future of the company’s business;

4. Shows existing employees what options they have for career advancement.

Generally, HR Budget includes the following major items:

1. Overhead Cost
• Payroll, including
• Salary
• Overtime
• Allowances - Attendance, Meal or Others
• EPF, SOCSO
• HRDF
• Bonus
• Increment
• Recruitment Cost
2. Traning Cost
3. Welfare Cost, including
• Transporation
• Hostel
• Uniform
• Medical
• Group Insurance
• Allowances - Car, Petrol, etc  
• Family Day / Annual Dinner
• Sport Club

The budget will be based on the overall objective and business target of the organisation for the coming year. If there is no such specific objective or target, the budget could be based on the current year one, with 20-30% increase.

However, depending on the HR functions of different comapnies, HR Budget could include other items as well, for example, Administration cost, OSHA cost, etc.  

Various “golden” packages accorded to company executives as an incentive to stay (or leave) and as a reward for existing company executives. Whether they are justifiable rewards or extravagance is debatable but the law, as it goes, does not prohibit these incentives, provided of course the due process is observed.

A golden handshake is basically a reward for past services or a sweetener for an early departure, which can turn an executive’s departure into a lucrative move. It is meant to reward executives for their toil or in other instances, smoothen or hasten the path for exiting individuals. It is usually an ex-gratia payment or payment for loss of office made by an employer to an employee if the contract of employment is terminated.

Golden handshakes are almost synonymous with golden parachute. The golden parachute strategy is generally employed in the event of a takeover as takeovers or consolidations may bring about the need to recruit or retain executives due to a change in the organisation’s structure, especially when the consolidations result in redundancies in many executive positions. To remove these redundancies, a good attractive compensation package is offered to executives.

A golden handcuff seeks to “bind” or retain key employees in an organization. One common type of golden handcuff is employee stock option, where an employee is offered a stock in the company at a price that is usually at a substantial discount to its current market price.

A golden hello, on the other hand, is aimed at luring new employees into the organization by paying a sum that is the equivalent of several months of salary in lieu of notice he has to give to his current employer.

Traditional CEO’s Dilemma

- Balancing shareholder demands with achieving longevity ir sustainability.

- Focussing on the design and development of systems and processes while paying some attention to the "people" in the organisation.

Today CEO’s Dilemma

- Providing an environment that espouses individual freedom while ensuring the financial and non-financial targets of the organisation are met.

- The people in the organisation control the systems and processes and not have the people controlled by the systems.

Challenging Traditional Management Theory

- There was a system to control behavior in order to increase productivity: A hierarchy of authority, impersonal rules that defines duties, standardised procedures, promotion based on achievement, and specialised labour.

- The command and control environment was designed to motify or control behaviour and not to build trust between individual through the formation of sustanaible relationships.

- Bureaucracy was capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency and the most rationally known means of exercising authority over human beings.

- The driving force of the organisation was efficiency, increasing output and the wealth of the owners.

- Employees were not to be trusted and required stringent controls to ensure their behavior were focussed on increased productivity.

The “new” approaches to management

- System and procedures are required to support the orgranisation, no longer drive the organisation.

- The organisation should be considered as an open system and not a series of discrete parts. Relationships are established between people when there is a sharing of values, attitudes and beliefs, and cannot be mandated by strict adherence to systems and processes.

- Environment is designed to build trust and to maintain the appropriate performance measures which are acceptable to its staffs.

- The core competence of the organisation lies in the knowledge and skills of its people.

- The organisation must be values driven. The individuals in the organisation are committed to the purpose of the organisation, when the organisation is driven by common values and shared beliefs.

- Trust is based on shared values and value systems lie at the heart of human behaviour, that cannot be controlled through systems and processes, the traditional operating standard for many organisations.

The Challenges

The Development of Emotions and Relationship — Self-discovery process: the employees are made aware of their own strengths and limitations, of how they react in certain situations and understand why they experience particular emotional reactions in particular situations. Emotions dictate the individual’s ability to form relationships.

Inspiration — The need to create a focus for the realisation of individual dreams.

Environment and New Knowledge Creation — The creation of new knowledge in an environment where individuals are committed to the organisation and a high level of trust and integrity pervade the organisation.

Balanced Scorecards tell the knowledge, skills and systems that the employees will need (learning and growth) to innovate and build the right strategic capabilities and efficiencies (internal processes) that deliver specific vale to the market (customer) which will eventually lead to higher shareholder value (financial).

3 Generations of Balanced Scorecard:

The 1st Generation of balanced scorecard was developed in early 1990s by Drs Robert Kaplan and David Norton as reporting tools in order to help the executives to understand the true health of an organization by focusing on key areas that needed attention, instead of relying on traditional measures of performance based on a centuries-old accounting model.

The 2nd generation of balanced scorecard drew a linkage between strategic management and performance measurement through a strategy map. The organisation was viewed from four perspectives:  

Financial perspective: how the organisation will deliver values to its shareholders.

Customer perspective: how the organisation will deliver values to its clients.

Internal Business Process perspective: defines the key internal processes at which the organization must excel in order to deliver on its customer value preposition.

Learning & Growth perspective: looks at employee training and cultural attitudes related to both individual and corporate self-improvement.

Each perspective was related to each other by developing metrics, collecting and analyzing data.  

The 3rd generation of balanced scorecard was a framework for implementing and managing organisational strategy. It is a measure-based management which provides quantitative inputs to forecasting methods and models for decision support systems. It pulls everything together, so-called cause and effect relationship. It drives transformational change through the execution of its strategy. 
Process of Balanced Scorecard

- Start from the company vision and strategies

- Define the critical success factors

- Conduct measures that assist target-setting and performance measurement in areas critical to the strategies

- Deployment: push the entire into other parts of the organisation

Vision Barrier

The ability of the organisation to translate its vision and strategy to its employees, and the ability of the employees to understand the strategies of the organization. It can be overcome by evaluating current organisation structures, lines of reporting, and policies and procedures; re-alignment of business units; and re-defining the roles of different support units.

People Barrier

Most people have objectives that are not linked to the strategy of the organization. In order to overcome this barrier, the team shall have the ear of the leadership and can readily escalate issues to executives for resolution. At the same time, the executives continue to communicate their support for, and involvement in, the balanced scorecard initiative.

Resource Barrier

Time, energy and money are not allocated to those things that are critical to the organisation. For example, budgets are not linked to strategy, resulting in wasted resources.

Management Barrier

Management spends too little time on strategy and too much time on short-term tactical decision-making.