KUALA LUMPUR: Employees play a crucial role in the survival and growth of a company.
This is the firm belief of Prasarana Malaysia Bhd (Prasarana), so much so that it allots 32 hours of training a year for every employee to improve their skills and knowledge.
Group president and chief executive officer Datuk Mohamed Hazlan Mohamed Hussain said employees were a crucial element in the Prasarana transformation programme, apart from enhancing processes and technology.
“People are our most valuable asset. At Prasarana, we place emphasis on human capital development and training as we strive to improve efficiency and productivity.
“This includes mandatory 32-hour training a year that must be fulfilled by each staff in our effort to improve their skills,” said Hazlan, who was appointed in September last year to get the financially-challenged company back on track.
He said in terms of career development, the group also carried out recruitment through internal job postings.
“We encourage our employees to think beyond their job scopes and come up with innovative ways to optimise resources and improve efficiency in daily processes.”
This included cost-saving measures, such as rainwater-harvesting to wash buses, which saw the company shaving RM50,000 off its monthly utility bills.
“Other achievements include shortening customer inquiry response time to seven minutes from 12 last year.
“Nevertheless, we should not rest on our laurels and must continue to seek ways to improve ourselves. We are also guided by the 5S (sort, set in order, shine, standardise and sustain) workplace management system to ensure efficiency and effectiveness.”
Hazlan stressed on the importance of building a company culture and nurturing a sense of belonging.
“Prasarana is made up of rail, bus and ferry services. The bus drivers, for instance, came from different companies that have different cultures. It is important that we instil values and remind them that we are now working as one.”
He said the company also encouraged staff to participate in leisure activities to not only keep fit, but also engage in healthy competition and promote interaction among colleagues.
Through the company’s engagement activities, employees were encouraged to take part in sports carnivals and recreational activities — Hari Raya celebration, making bubur lambuk during the fasting month, and playing in the Prasarana Malaysia Football League (PMFL).
“When we allow people to be happy at the workplace, we are basically enabling them to grow with the company.”
He said the company had adopted several approaches, including a retention strategy, which involved rewarding employees based on the year’s performance. It had implemented a management system for promotion and upgrading exercises, as well as the Prasarana Employee Appreciation and Recognition Awards (PEARL) to recognise outstanding staff.
Several programmes were introduced to safeguard the staff’s welfare, among them cancer and financial awareness, and disaster aid under Rapid Penang.
The company had also introduced awareness programmes on cost and wastage prevention.
“In addition, Prasarana has just completed its annual employee satisfaction survey and the results showed a score of five (93.4 per cent) as compared with the survey in 2017, which showed a 3.88 score,” he said.
Hazlan said he preferred to go to the ground to gather feedback from his employees.
“I make time to meet my staff, who are the company’s frontliners. They can raise issues or problems to me directly when the management can’t tell me otherwise.
“We also engage the employees’ union actively to listen to the challenges they face as well as to communicate the company’s direction and developments.”
He said he had always loved working in the operations line, with experience as PLUS Malaysia Bhd senior general manager and head of operations and Posmel chief operating officer, among others.