Study Shows 60% Of Malaysian Employers Might Struggle To Retain Talent

• Job movers will likely garner salary rises of 15% to 20%
• Employers create employee retention initiatives to cater to lifestyle needs

[Ed Note: An earlier headline gave the wrong % and cited employees instead of employers. The mistakes are regretted.]

The annual Salary Survey by Robert Walters revealed that 60% of employers in Malaysia might struggle to retain their top talent, as 48% of professionals are expecting salary increments in response to the rising cost of living.

Together with retention concerns, this has led to 95% of employers being concerned about the talent shortage in their respective fields, with a majority of them finding that the biggest challenge to source for talent is professionals’ high expectations of salary and benefits.

The situation is acute in industries that require technical and engineering qualifications, experience and skills.

Initiatives to Encourage Employees to Stay
To retain employees, the survey showed that 73% of organisations have actively implemented various retention programmes in the past year. The top three initiatives were improved learning and development (68%), increased well-being initiatives (65%) and hybrid work policy (58%) in response to employees’ changing needs.

“To retain top talent, employers will need to align with employees’ sentiments as 60% of the respondents are looking to change jobs this year. Companies should not overlook the importance of employees’ mental and physical wellbeing while also ensuring communication remains open and proactive throughout the year,” said Robert Walters Malaysia country head, Ai Rene Tan (pic above).

Organisations Continue to Prioritise Automation in 2023
“From a macro perspective, in 2023, organisations will continue to automate and modernise their business processes by adapting to new technologies. Automation will drive growth and hiring demand in shared services centres across functions such as HR, finance and IT will increase,” Ai Rene added.

The engineering and manufacturing sector will see favourable hiring activities with the resumption of manufacturing operations, propelling the need for strong talent across all functions to enable plant readiness. This is most notable in the Northern region, where manufacturing companies increased their footprints in 2022.

At the same time, the pandemic situation which accelerated technological transformation across many industries also exacerbated the shortage of skilled talent. This is especially evident in the technology and transformation, as well as engineering and manufacturing and HR sectors, where the demand for talent is high.

To bridge the skills mismatch resulting from the pandemic, 88% of organisations are reskilling existing employees to cope with new challenges at work. More than half of the organisations (54%) have rolled out internal reskilling programmes to help close the skills gap and enhance employees’ competitiveness within the industry.

2023 Salary Increment and Skill Sets in Demand
“Based on the overall findings of the Robert Walters Salary Survey 2023, job movers will likely garner salary rises of 15% to 20%. There may be increments of up to 30% for talent with niche skill sets. With inflationary trends set to continue in 2023, professionals are expected to have higher salary demands,” Ai Rene shared.

She added that hybrid skills will continue to be in high demand. Companies have observed the need to move beyond technical competencies and look for skills to effectively partner with their businesses, while professionals with strong stakeholder management, sharp business acumen and data analytical skills will be highly sought after.

The 24th Robert Walters Salary Survey
The eight key industries covered in the 24th iteration of Robert Walters Salary Survey in Malaysia are accounting and finance, banking and financial services, engineering and manufacturing, human resources, legal and corporate secretarial, sales and marketing, supply chain, procurement and logistics, and technology and transformation. 

Covering 31 countries, this global salary survey by Robert Walters also provides a comprehensive guide for both employers and employees to access trends and analysis for specific industries, tools and resources, as well as video updates on market conditions from a panel of industry specialists. 

In addition, the survey canvassed attitudes and views of existing work practices, providing an overview of the current job market, in-demand skill sets and salary expectations.