Charles Brewer, Group Chief Executive Officer of Pos Malaysia Berhad, talked about how Malaysia’s workforce is changing and what businesses can do to adjust to these changes. He said it’s really important for companies to make sure that the skills of their employees match up with what the company wants to achieve in the next few years.
He said that AI, sustainability and digitalization are much more widespread in today’s generation compared to five to fifteen years ago.
“Trying to find people who have the passion, who have the right behaviors, the right cultural skills, and who have content around sustainability is really quite challenging.”
These are the big things, with a few details in his keynote session on “Strategic Workforce Planning: Navigating the Path to Future Success.”
Here are the kinds of people that he finds rare to find:
Individuals with both passion and practical experience
Charles explained that while there may be individuals who are passionate about topics like sustainability and digitalization, having hands-on experience in these areas is relatively rare.
It is because there aren’t many people who have actually worked in these fields before. This scarcity arises because these fields have only recently gained widespread recognition and importance in business and society.
Therefore, finding candidates who not only possess genuine enthusiasm but also have practical experience in implementing sustainability initiatives or digital projects can be challenging for organizations. Additionally, as these fields continue to evolve rapidly, the demand for experienced professionals often outstrips the available talent pool, further exacerbating the difficulty of finding suitable candidates.
Individuals with AI skills
In today’s time, things are changing differently. For him, it’s a similar story with newer things like Chat GPT. He stressed that there aren’t enough people who know how to work with AI, like Chat GPT, because it’s still relatively new and not many people have had the chance to learn about it or use it before.
One of organization’s key challenge
One big problem for organizations is figuring out how to give their team enough experience to do what the company plans to achieve. “How do we give the team the experience to be able to satisfy and deliver on our strategy?” he said.
Basically, it is finding out what organizations need to do to make sure their employees know how to do the things the company wants to do in the future. He wanted the team to feel the same satisfaction as they do when delivering the organization’s strategy.
“You can have great PowerPoints, great postcards, great t-shirts, great cups, and great posters. You can have amazing things like that that look fantastic, but if all your team members aren’t capable of executing that strategy, then most strategies are going to fail.”
By solving this problem, companies can make sure their teams are ready to help the company succeed in its goals.
What should businesses do?
He talked about how important it is for businesses to plan out their workforce strategies. It’s not just about having a good plan on paper, but also making sure your team can actually do what the plan says. Even the coolest strategy won’t work if your team can’t put it into action.
Furthermore, Brewer outlined their own approach to tackling this challenge:
- Setting clear strategies for the next one, three, and five years.
- Evaluating workforce perspectives, including culture, behavior, and skills.
- Assessing the organization’s current capabilities and identifying gaps to achieve their strategy.
In Brewer’s words, making sure your team can actually carry out the plan is what separates success from failure. It means making sure your team has the skills and experience to make those ideas happen.
As Malaysia’s work world keeps changing, Brewer’s advice is clear: businesses need to think smart about how they build their teams and make sure they’re ready to tackle whatever comes their way.
