Malaysians see tougher times ahead in '24/7' workplace
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Malaysian employees expect their jobs to be more demanding with the increasing influence of digital technologies in the workplace and more bosses preferring to hire multi-skilled workers.
The latest survey by a global recruitment and human resource services firm showed that nine out of 10 Malaysian workers expected their jobs to be more challenging over the next five years.
According to the latest Randstad Workmonitor Report, greater workplace expectations were higher in Malaysia compared with respondents in Singapore (80 per cent), Hong Kong (73 per cent), Australia (73 per cent) and New Zealand (82 per cent).
The survey, based on 405 respondents, also found that 95 per cent of the Malaysian workers were willing to develop their skills to meet the changes.
Randstad Malaysia director Jasmin Kaur said employers have increased the emphasis on education, experience, social and digital skills.
“With organisations becoming leaner, employees are now expected to be not only high performing, but to be able to put on several hats,” she said.
Jasmin said the figures were reflective of Malaysia’s aim to become a high-income nation by 2020.
Malaysian Employers Federation’s (MEF) executive director Shamsuddin Bardan concurred with the report’s findings.
“Like it or not, this is the definite trend due to the demands of business,” he said, adding that even older employees had to adapt to the digital trend of being wired and contactable.
Jasmin said the survey also found that most of the respondents believed that their employers placed greater importance on digital skills than they did five years ago.
“With social media being a part of today’s business environment, being comfortable with using tools such as Twitter and LinkedIn could help an employee keep connected and abreast of what is happening in the industry.
“Different companies have different expectations of their workers. Employees who are client-facing may be expected to be on call outside of standard office hours to respond to clients as required,” she said.
Shamsuddin echoed similar views, saying that it was now a necessity for employees to be reachable anytime of the day, whether it was outside work hours or while they were on holiday.
However, he said employers recognised that there had to be a work-life balance for their staff. “Being contactable is not the same thing as working 24/7.”
He said employers also knew that happy employees were more productive.
