ISSUE 161 49 One of the campaigns that they are working on is the campaign "Plant-Based Without Border". It is held in across different state and countries. The event was organized by Rich Media (a famous Malaysian media company) in collaboration with ECO Botanic, which brought together more than 50 famous vegetable brands from home and abroad to promote the event, including Nestle Harvest Gourmet, Sungift Taiwan and Swissmed (a registered American brand). The event is fully supported by the JAKIM Halal certification body in Malaysia. The purpose of the event is to share how to promote businesses during MCO, the trend of bringing business online, and the importance of Halal certification in plant-based business. Here’s some information from the event. During the broadcast, you will be brought to ECO Botanic in Iskandar Puteri Johor Malaysia. Giselle Chai, the director of Eco Botanic, share a sneak peek of ECO Galleria, the "British Style Plant-Based Street"! The live broadcast also invited the guest speaker, Dato Haji Khairul Shahril Bin Haji Hamzah to explain how to get Halal certification and what to pay attention to and what SMEs should know about Halal certification topics. He is graduated from the Department of Chemistry, National University, Japan, Ritsumeikan Pacific University, Master's degree in Economic Development, Malaysia JAKIM Halal Certification Body inspector, Indonesia MUI certified Halal inspector, and also a certification committee member of Malaysian Chemical Union, In addition, one of the trends that is getting a lot of attention right now is on how to make the best use of social media to promote your products. What are the best ways to get your brand and services on social media faster, stimulate sales and increase revenue? Ryan Lim was invited on the live broadcast to share the future trends of social media for businesses. He is the founder of CHAMP, the winner of 6 international corporate awards, the marketing director of several listed companies, the FB mentor of 100 leading companies, and the founder of Champion Alliance, an exchange platform for business elites from all walks of life, including: Guinness World Record holder, World Youth, Malaysian Youth, and outstanding entrepreneurs in various fields. The live broadcast also attracted more than 490 audiences for the first round. They will be having a few more rounds on this and looking forward to have you participate next! Richmedia Digital Enterprise www.facebook.com/ YummyVegetariansMalaysia www.facebook.com/ yummyvegetarians [email protected] 012-224 6718 Save AH HEAN to your contacts
advert. 50 ISSUE 161 KS Consulting PLT Building A Resilient Organisation: Upskilling and Reskilling T2A-13A-12, 3 TOWERS, NO. 296, JALAN AMPANG, 55000 KUALA LUMPUR. Contact No.: +6017 – 330 2519 www.ksgc.com.my Email: [email protected] FB: KS Training Provider T aking the airline industry as an example. The Covid-19 pandemic has had significant impact on airline companies due to travel restrictions and a slump in demand among travellers. Several airlines have declared bankruptcy, with some ceasing operations. However, there are airlines companies that pivot towards new avenues. Resilient organisations survive the crisis and turn crisis to a strategic advantage, train their employees to take on new roles for their new avenues. AirAsia Malaysia is an example of resilient organisation. To build a resilient organisation, human resource function must help enable organisation to rapidly upskill and reskill their employees. Upskilling vs. Reskilling Upskilling occurs when employees learn new skills or enhance current ones to adapt to changes within their current role to remain relevant and continue to deliver value. For example, when a sales representative learns how to use online conference tools to meet with customers virtually. As analytics, AI, robotics automates many existing jobs, reskilling involves equipping employees with new knowledge and skills so that they can contribute to other areas of the business. For example, equipping a warehouse operator with computer skills and data analytics skills so they can enter new roles as well as having continuous career development as the company undergoes industrial revolution. World Economic Forum projected more than 1 billion people globally would have to be reskilled by 2030 to meet the needs of jobs transformed by technologies. The pandemic has accelerated this demand, that leaders and organisation anticipate and adapt to new circumstances at a pace unprecedented in human history. Soon, many organisations will find they must rapidly develop a more agile workforce that is mentally and emotionally prepared to succeed in the transforming market.
ISSUE 161 51 Benefits of Upskilling and Reskilling – B.O.L.D Boost productivity, confidence, and job satisfaction. One of the factors to job satisfactions these days is whether organisation provide employee with career development plan. Continuous learning helps to keep employees productive and valued members of the organisation, boosting their self-confidence and job satisfaction. Open doors to new roles. One of the biggest benefits of upskilling and reskilling is that they each create opportunities for valued existing employees to take on new roles and functions. Your organisation benefits from cultivating talents within your own organisation. Lower employee costs over time. Reskilling and upskilling help to challenge employee’s mindset and break them out of their mundane routine, leading to improving employee retention. Moreover, the cost of hiring a new employee is higher than upskilling and retraining an employees as new employees takes longer time to familiar with the company’s offering and accept the working culture. Design a future-proof organisation. Training plans for upskilling and reskilling begin with an evaluation of industry skills gaps. Such forward thinking analysis builds resilience and prepare your organisation for the future. Start Preparing for The Future Today! Whether focused on upskilling or reskilling, organisations need to take action to equip their employees with new skills, build on existing skills sets as we emerge from the pandemic and march towards a better future. Learning new skills can open new doors, even ones you hadn't thought of. In upskilling your organization's employees (or even just yourself), it's important to note that the skills you should focus on are the right ones to help drive innovation and growth. Level up your learning by finding out more on what KS Training PLT (KST) has to offer. KST provides custom, turnkey solutions that help you create future-proof organisation. They specialised in Accounts, Finance, Tax, HR, Presentation, Writing, Sales and Customer Service training. Visit their website at www.ksgc.com.my to find out more on their training solutions.
advert. 52 ISSUE 161 Plaza Premium Group Adapt, Survive and Re-Emerge from Pandemic www.plazapremiumgroup.com Global Sales & Booking Enquiries: [email protected] Customer Service Enquiries: customer.relations@ plaza-network.com - Sharing by Ms Kimberly Wong (Regional General Manager – Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia) Q1: What are the most challenging paths for Plaza Premium Group throughout since the outbreak of Covid-19? As a veteran in hospitality services for more than 25 years, I’ve been through and overcame several crisis, ie: financial crisis 1997 and 2008. These are nothing compared to the great hit of Covid-19. In fact, we are still experiencing the damage from it – be it physically or mentally. It is a painful lesson to learn from this crisis and as the leader for the region under Plaza Premium Group, I take the ownership of sailing this together with the Group. 1. Financial performance for business units • Only 1 business unit is in constant operation throughout (Plaza Premium First KLIA). Flight Club Grab’n’Go operates in certain months depending on the passenger load. • Lots of uncertainties on business recovery • Local team strived hard to maximise revenue with the remaining 1 / 2 BUs in operation. Hence, lots of initiatives on ancillary revenue were created.
ISSUE 161 53 2. Employees’ work efficiency and morality • Morality remained low due to the stress on business performance. All of us were having tough time to regain back the confident of travel trend for the region. As a leader, this is no doubt hitting the most on my team members. • Communication breakdown on operation matters. We are in lounge service, so most of the time, we need to deal with matters on the ground. The restriction of meeting each other has made if difficult to carry out work for operations. • Team members were not used to virtual communications. Managing those who are unable to telework. This is, in fact, a learning curve to all. We start to use all forms of digital communicationsfrom Zoom meetings, WhatsApp to Microsoft Teams in daily communications. However, the changes of daily communications were not well receptive in the beginning. They still prefer faceto-face communications but now, everyone is an expert in telework. • Shifting communications to meet remote needs. As we were being assigned to work-from-home during the first few phases of Movement Control Order by Malaysian Government, we are working with the most effective way on communications to meet the remote needs – be it locally or overseas. This is the challenge we had as we have to handle three countries under the region – Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia. Q2: As the Regional General Manager, how do you overcome these challenges? 1.Creation of new product lines under ancillary revenue, apart from lounge business stream. • Focus on ancillary revenue • Explore extensively on central kitchen production ie: pastries, bakeries which can be sent to commercial partners outside of airport 2. Initiative on food creations by culinary team: • Inaugural launch of mooncakes in 2020. Planned and executed within 1 month. Revenue was encouraging and this was continued for 2021. • In-flight meals / pastries / bakeries / packed meals on trolley / signature items (PPG pineapple Tarts and Chilli Oil) 3. Diversification on business module • Mobile food delivery to offices within 10km radius from airport (KLIA). We bring the lounge food services to the offices.
advert. 54 ISSUE 161 • Food products to feature on eCommerce sites (Lazada, Shopee, eShoplive) for maximum exposure on homemade products • Manage the Cainiao (Alibaba hub in KLIA) cafeteria and convenient store which are located at KLIA Cargo area. 4. Staff Engagement • Educate team members to be familiar with virtual communications. • To constantly show compassion on staff’s welfare and well-being. Mental health initiatives with workshop / talks organised by HR to strengthen employee health and wellness. • Constant communications with all team members, especially those on leave. To keep up to date on the business movement / trend in airport during Pandemic. • Support the team members on kinds contribution by company. Necessary food items, ie: rice, flour, etc were distributed to those who are in need to support the family members. As the Covid-19 is still affecting all on global scale, I personally am looking at the travel trend recovery to be slow in 2021 /2022. However, with the vaccination which is in place, this has more or less regain back the travellers’ confident in international travel. As a leader, I need to be resilient in managing the expectation from top and adaptation with local team members. There are still lots of uncertainties (business trend / political) hence am working hard with the team to ensure minimal operational changes. Conquer negativities in our mind. Be opportunist and grab the right opportunity with timely decisions! - Kimberly Wong
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