Majority of Malaysian firms are not living up to staff expectations

Organisations in Malaysia crucially need to transform to enable employees to be more productive and competitive in today’s modern workplace.

That was the key finding from Microsoft's recent New World of Work study, which polled respondents across Asia Pacific, including 200 large - enterprise employees in Malaysia.

Respondents in the study rated themselves in the three key principles of people, place and technology.

In Malaysia, only 40 out of 100 respondents rated themselves highly in embracing those three new principles, placing the country ninth amongst the 12 markets involved in the study.

The report identified several gaps which were holding organisations back from fulfilling the needs of today's workforce.

For instance, 77% of respondents stated they are required to work outside office hours.

However, 67% of these respondents said their firms do not have remote work policies in place to meet such demands.

“Over the last decade, globalisation and technological innovations have made today’s workplace increasingly modern and mobile – bringing the world closer and changing the way people live and work. This study helps us better understand how work and life has changed for Malaysian employees – to determine how well supported they are from their workplaces, or from a technological standpoint, in being enabled to succeed,” said Michal Golebiewski, chief marketing & operations officer, Microsoft Malaysia.

“While technology plays a key role to enable ‘work from anywhere’ scenarios and higher productivity, there are other aspects such as organisational culture, policies, infrastructure, enabling collaboration or the ability to break down barriers to innovation which are becoming increasingly important for an organization to be competitive, especially when many are undergoing digital transformation of their businesses today,” he added.

In addition, while 64% of those polled are working outside the office for more than 20% of the time, 52% are unaware of and do not use file-sharing services.

5% of respondents said they needed to be in the office to access special equipment or tools that are only available in the office.

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