Most Malaysian candidates are driving their own professional development agenda rather than looking to their employer to provide training, according to recruiting experts Hays.
In the latest Hays poll, a huge 69 per cent of Malaysian respondents take responsibility for developing their skills using a combination of self-learning and leveraging on-the job experience.
A further 26 per cent rely on their employer to provide training and development while only 5 per cent rely on formal courses to add to their skill set.
Tom Osborne, Regional Director of Hays in Malaysia, says the poll results are positive but he also has a warning for career-minded candidates about relying solely on informal methods of skills development.
“Unlike past generations, Malaysia’s workforce of today is far more proactive in keeping up with the changing demands for specific skills and knowledge related to their job and sector,” says Tom.
“There is much to be gained from making the most of mentors and stretch goals at work to take your skills to the next level. Online courses also make it that much easier to keep up with the skills and knowledge needed in your sector,” he says.
“My one note of warning about relying on informal learning would be for career-minded candidates to keep up with the formal qualifications trending in their sector. For some job roles, employers require specific tertiary qualifications and even post graduate qualifications so they won’t accept anything less,” Tom says.
The poll was conducted across five key Asian employment markets with self-learning and on-the-job experience ranking as the preferred method of skills building in all locations.
Mainland Chinese candidates were the most proactive with 78 per cent of respondents reporting using self-learning and on-the-job experience to build skills compared to 77 per cent both in Hong Kong and Singapore and 72 per cent in Japan.
Malaysia has the largest proportion of workers relying on their employers to provide training and development at 26 per cent compared to 20 per cent of respondents in Japan, 16 per cent in Singapore, 13 per cent in mainland China and 11 per cent in Hong Kong, according to the Hays poll.
Using formal courses to build skills was the least used option in all locations apart from Hong Kong (12 per cent) with 9 per cent of candidates in mainland China using this method compared to 8 per cent in Japan and 7 per cent in Singapore.
The poll was conducted online at www.hays.com.my between January and March 2017.
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About Hays
Hays plc (the "Group") is a leading global professional recruiting group. The Group is the expert at recruiting qualified, professional and skilled people worldwide, being the market leader in the UK and Asia Pacific and one of the market leaders in Continental Europe and Latin America. The Group operates across the private and public sectors, dealing in permanent positions, contract roles and temporary assignments. As at 30 June 2016 the Group employed 9,214 staff operating from 252 offices in 33 countries across 20 specialisms. For the year ended 30 June 2016:
– the Group reported net fees of £810.3 million and operating profit (pre-exceptional items) of £181 million;
– the Group placed around 67,000 candidates into permanent jobs and around 220,000 people into temporary assignments;
– 22% of Group net fees were generated in Asia Pacific, 45% in Continental Europe & RoW (CERoW) and 33% in the United Kingdom & Ireland;
– the temporary placement business represented 58% of net fees and the permanent placement business represented 42% of net fees;
– Hays operates in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Chile, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, the UK and the USA.