As digital transformation continues to accelerate across industries in Malaysia, both public and private sector firms are positioning themselves for greater agility and innovation. They are accelerating efforts to upskill and reskill their workforces, as well as leveraging data insights to identify skills gaps and opportunities in growing areas of the economy.
The case to enhance the skills mix of Malaysia’s corporate workforce s urgent. Data from LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network with over 930 million members – including over seven million in Malaysia – reveals that by 2025, there would likely be three new skills needed to perform any job in the country successfully.
“Amid an era of massive change, skills are taking centre stage, and businesses and professionals are forced to adapt and be more nimble than ever to succeed,” said Rohit Kalsy, Country Manager of Malaysia and Head of Emerging Markets, Southeast Asia at LinkedIn. “Since LinkedIn first set up our office in Malaysia in 2019 – and as we enter our fifth year in the country – we have partnered and continue to partner corporate Malaysia in diverse industries to build a future-proof workforce. Today, as companies embark on digital transformation, we are uniquely positioned to leverage our rich data insights as well as our library of the most in-demand skills to help them find and develop diverse talents to be agile and competitive.”
Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) said that it has witnessed a “significant shift” in the skills and roles needed in its organisation in recent years. According to its Chief Digital Technology Officer (CDTO), Muhammad Afhzal Abdul Rahman, the national statutory body under the purview of the Ministry of Finance has identified four key strategic growth areas to invest in, in order to navigate this fast-changing landscape, namely in hiring and developing talents in data security and cloud computing, fostering a customer-centric approach, and leveraging data and analytics to make informed strategic business decisions. The EPF has developed learning and development programmes to train talents in these areas.
“Over the past years, we’ve witnessed a significant shift in the skills and roles needed within the EPF and the larger finance sector. We recognise the importance of staying ahead of these changes and are committed to keeping our workforce future-fit as we navigate the shifting dynamics of the modern workplace. For example, we’ve developed internal training programmes to equip our talents with hard skills such as cybersecurity and cloud computing, to soft skills like agile methodologies and design thinking,” said Muhammad Afhzal.
“In this regard, LinkedIn Learning and Insights have been absolute game-changers for our talent strategy. It provides various online courses and resources that are useful to EPF employees so that they are ever ready to seize opportunities and excel in the fast-paced world we operate in.”
EPF is one of many organisations in Malaysia across various industries that are stepping up their efforts in workforce skilling, especially in an environment where emerging, disruptive technologies are set to permeate every facet of business. In Malaysia, the country’s digital economy is expected to contribute to 25.5% of the country’s gross domestic product by 2025 and create 500,000 jobs.
But even as new roles are being created, existing job roles are evolving, as financial services firm CIMB noted. The firm is investing in emerging growth areas such as in sustainability and are monitoring trends in the industry to capture such opportunities.
“We see new areas (of opportunities) such as sustainability grow exponentially. We are looking for ESG (environmental, social, governance) advocates to be part of the bank as we scale up and embed sustainability into our DNA. For our graduate training programmes, we are structuring them so that we can build digitally fluent, sustainability champions. Also, we see traditional roles in areas such as risk, compliance and audit evolving to increasingly incorporate aspects of tech and data,” said Gurdip Singh Sidhu, Group Chief People Officer and Group Chief Sustainability Officer at CIMB.
CIMB uses data analytics from LinkedIn Insights of jobs and skills trends. “Regardless of the changes that come our way, we are committed to developing our future workforce, today. We will look at using more data analytics, including with the support of LinkedIn, to guide our talent acquisition and development strategy,” said Gurdip Singh Sidhu.
Gamuda Berhad encourages their employees to take ownership of their personal development. Self-directed learning platforms such as LinkedIn Learning and in-house webinar (TechTalks) sessions are made available to employees in line with the company’s digitalisation transformation agenda and expansion as a regional player.
“We are seeing a lot of interest in cross-disciplinary learning. For example, our engineers are actively learning about business development and finance to sharpen their business acumen. This is essential as we want to develop more all-rounded talents, promote career growth and facilitate opportunities of internal mobility where feasible,” said Wong Lye Ling, Senior General Manager, Group Human Resources and Admin at Gamuda Berhad. “We have experienced project engineers who have made career shifts to digital transformation and even human resources roles, and are continuing to leverage LinkedIn Learning to navigate their new roles more successfully.”
“As our business continues to be more dynamic and regionalised, there is a need for on-demand upskilling and reskilling of our people – anytime, anywhere. This is the future of learning and development.”
