As the labour market tightens, organisations worldwide are strengthening their employer value propositions to appeal to young talents, writes SUZIEANA UDA NAGU in The New Straits Times this week.
She quoted British American Tobacco (Malaysia) Berhad (BAT) human resources director Cheryl Wong as saying: “In the spirit of diversity, BAT prefers hiring a mix of foreign and locally trained Malaysians. We believe that diversity brings better solutions, which translate into better business sense. People with different experience will bring something unique to the table.”
She comes across impressive local graduates among the shortlisted candidates. However, she admitted that they were getting harder to find. “We want well-rounded candidates who possess the leadership skills we look for, as well as good academic qualifications and effective communication skills. Being a multinational company, we do need people who communicate well in English,” says Wong.
She feels it is a shame when some local candidates show “impressive track record in academic and extra-curricular activties but cannot express themselves well.”
Wong is not the only employer faced with the challenge of finding suitable candidates. Despite the global recession and the weakest employment outlook in decades, employers worldwide are still finding it difficult to hire young people to fill positions which require critical skills such as leadership, teamwork and problem-solving.
The newspaper article quoted the United Nations as stating that “one of the top three socio-economic issues facing the planet is the lack of talent despite population increases,” underlining the worry that talent shortage is indeed a global concern.
In the United States, human resource experts predict a critical skills gap in organisations in the next five years. Possibly by 2014, there would be a 30 per cent decline in young workers entering the workforce and a 50 per cent growth in retirement of skilled knowledge workers. Their concern was that as the situation grew more serious, it could threaten “the engines of world economic growth and prosperity.” Governments globally are taking measures to mitigate the impending shortage such as improving educational and vocational training provisions, adopting strategic migration policies and encouraging experienced older workers to remain in employment.