since 1976
since 1976
National carmaker PROTON has been recognised for its outstanding learning & development programme, sustainable human resources (HR) practices and best employer development program in both the prestigious Employee Experience Awards 2024 and People & Purpose Awards 2024 that took place in May and June this year. These four awards, received on two separate occasions, underscore PROTON’s commitment to nurturing talent and fostering a sustainable work culture, enabling the automotive firm to synergize efforts towards greater company advancement.
The Employee Experience Awards, organised by Human Resources Online Awards, identify employers who have taken tangible steps to reinvigorate the employee experience, acknowledged PROTON’s Human Capital Division (HCD) in two categories – Gold in Best First-Time Manager Programme and Gold in Best Learning and Development Programme. The first award emphasizes the impact of its comprehensive initiatives, ensuring new leader to thrive and contribute effectively while the latter equips its employees with valuable skills, knowledge, and opportunities for advancement.
Meanwhile, People & Purpose Awards 2024 by SEEK celebrates passionate and purpose-driven HR practitioners in Malaysia, recognised PROTON’s HCD in two categories-- Platinum in Best Sustainable HR Practices and Gold in Best Employer Development Program. The former lauds its practices to create a harmonious balance between business objectives and its employee well-being to drive organisational goals while the latter validates PROTON in-house training programs and career development initiatives for professional developments.
These achievements are credited to a robust HR system led by Amran bin Mohd Tomin when he took the helm as the Vice President of HCD in March 2016, setting the company on a transformative path towards profitability. Under his leadership, the HCD department formulated a human capital strategy and aligned it with business requirement, restructured the roles and functions and streamlined workflows to support various divisions, especially in sales, after sales and manufacturing.
Following its partnership with Geely, a new strategy was established based on new collaboration requirements, consisting of seven strategic thrusts that evolved to four shared values coined as TARI-- Teamwork, Achiever, Respect and Integrity. One of the significant changes was the creation of HR Business Partner to enhance business acumen between HR leaders and divisions such as manufacturing, sales, after sales and technical engineering support.
As the company steadily returning to the black, a second phase of HCD restructuring kicked in from year 2019 to 2020, aiming to bridge the gap between talent capabilities and company requirements to propel growth to the next level. Simultaneously, PROTON’s HR department has been strengthened to better manage talents, culture and organisational design, supported by a 10-year business plan aligning company goals with employees’ aspirations for a performance-oriented organisation.
ORO 2.0 carries on with rightsizing while seeking for profit-oriented activities
Guided by Organisational Resources Optimisation (ORO) in the past four years, PROTON has focused on rightsizing operations for cost optimisation, savings and avoiding redundancy throughout the years. ORO 2.0, which has been initiated this year, extends these activities by identifying non-core processes that could be outsourced as profit-oriented activities, without reducing manpower but rather merging roles where possible.
Despite these efforts, as the company switching to high gear, the need to recruit externally to complement with its existing skills become more apparent. In the past four to five years, PROTON has hired more than 3,000 people while experiencing an attrition of about 10 to 11% annually. Additionally, it aims for internal promotions to account for 10% to 20% of its workforce at any level.
To bolster its talent pipeline, the company launched the PROTON Young Talents (PYT) programme in 2018, targeting the recruitment of 100 young talents annually. After initial rotations through four core divisions, 30 to 50 talents are absorbed into permanent roles to support key business functions over the subsequent five years.
