IT was already 7.30pm when Datuk Shahul Hameed Dawood (pic) finally concluded the day’s work at the office of the Human Resource Development Corp (HRD Corp) at Jalan Semantan. With most of the staff already done for the day, we could finally sit down for a chat.
He had just attended the first board meeting for this year and had presented the achievements of his team for 2021 to the directors.
“I believe we achieved much in a difficult 2021. Who would expect the Covid-19 pandemic to hit us so badly?” he asks.
When Shahul took over the top position of the agency in April 2020, his top priority was to make it a truly professional agency and to end the politics there.
The HRDF post has always been regarded as a political sink hole although it is an institution that merely provides training and Shahul found himself in an unsolicited spotlight.
But in an ironic way, the Covid-19 pandemic hit the globe including Malaysia and everything changed overnight.
“My entire plan had to be changed. The pandemic disrupted lives, and, in many instances, it destroyed lives, but many Malaysians lost their jobs. These were the concerns of HRDF and how we could help fellow Malaysians.
“I remembered the many long nights that my team and I laboured through to come up with plans and schemes to help re-skill Malaysians. It was a very difficult time as along the way, we had to shut down the office when my colleagues were infected with the virus.
“In fact, my family and I were also down with Covid but that didn’t stop me or my colleagues from talking to each other every day. It was work as usual via online, thanks to these modern tools,” he says, adding that oddly that put politics out of the way.
He says HRDF, which has been renamed HRD Corp, collaborated with 1,200 training providers to provide training to more than 80,000 Malaysians that were retrenched and unemployed.
“We also launched the HRD Corp Placement Centre, a one-stop virtual portal that provides employment and income-generating opportunities to Malaysians through job matching and placement, training, and development, as well as career coaching and counselling.
“Over 37,000 job opportunities have been created since we started, 4,227 job placements and 17,900 job seekers as of January 2022.”
Shahul says all the training would serve no purpose if jobs cannot be found for the participants. He says the Jana’preneur, an e-commerce platform, was also launched to hand hold trainees who have gone through entrepreneurship programmes or skilled programmes that require a platform for selling.
“We wanted the young to think of becoming their own boss and then start to create jobs in other ways, even if it was done on a small scale. It was aimed at changing mindset and business registrations were done free.
“We appreciate the support given by the Finance Ministry and in particular the Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri S Saravanan, who was always ready to give the support,” he says.
Shahul says grant level programmes also saw 588,000 training places accorded in 2021 which helped 348,000 employees to upskill and multi-skill, stressing that everyone, regardless of their positions and jobs, to upskill themselves.
“For example, we support programmes to help journalists to hone their skills to be more effective, to use social media platforms as a tool and also never forgetting the importance of ethical journalism.”
He says 2021 also saw the expansion of the PSMB Act, which is to provide for the imposition and collection of human resources development levy for the purpose of promoting the training and development of employee, apprentices, and administration of the fund.
“The expansion to the PSMB Act of 2001 will now include 18 sectors and 238 subsectors. This means all industries except NGOs and government organisations are under HRD Corp’s purview.
“The expansion solidified our position as the primary custodian of training and development for all Malaysians and enabled us to serve most, if not all employers and employees in the country.”
He says ahead of 2022, HRD Corp is planning for digitalisation in a big way which would include its own Super Apps, a Trainers Development Framework and many more initiatives. Shahul says HRD Corp would introduce new measures to ensure good governance and accountability, including ensuring training providers follow strict rules.
This is to ensure that a person or a group submit applications to conduct courses under the names of different companies although they are the same people or individuals.
“If you are a training provider and you have just set it up, the newly set up company would not be able to take part in any government grant for six months.
“Course fee would also now follow an allowable cost metric. Training providers would also not be allowed to subcontract training to others.
“Tough measures are needed to regulate the training industry. The challenges will be different in 2022 and we have to make ourselves relevant in the post-Covid 19 era.
“It will mean tweaking our programmes to make it more relevant to the changes as the country reboots and re-opens the economy. I am thankful to my team who believe in Malaysia and Malaysians.”
A higher benchmark, going beyond training, has been set up by Shahul and his team, by showing it cannot be business as usual in unusual times with continuing uncertainties.