Up the ranks: Loke Kean Mun moves to Genting Plantations as VP of HR and Administration

He shared with HRO: "I need to ensure cohesive people processes and frameworks are in place – from acquisition, development, performance management, and rewards to succession planning."

Versatile HR leader Loke Kean Mun has taken up a new position as Vice President of Human Resource & Administration for Genting Plantations, one of Malaysia's leading oil palm plantation companies.

In this role, based in Kuala Lumpur, he is excited to get the HR house in order, and find a balance between operational and strategic HR. He shared exclusively with Human Resources Online: "I need to ensure cohesive people processes and frameworks are in place – from acquisition, development, performance management, and rewards to succession planning."

He is looking forward to building a new team to look into all of these pillars. 

His immediate priority from day one has been to put learning into place for the company to groom employees based on its core values and leadership skills. "At the same time, every level will have a set of leadership development as part of their development," he adds. 

He noted that there are areas where Genting Plantations can play a better role, especially in employment branding for better attraction and collaboration with educational institutions.

Finally, he will also focus on the usage of data for insights for the company to move faster and more efficiently with HR digitalisation; thus, an HR transformation journey is on the cards.

Elaborating on the specific challenges for this sector, Loke shared: "Plantation industry is not a sexy industry. The attraction and retention of talent remain our key challenges, unlike other companies out there which have established their power branding.

"Therefore, we need to enlarge our recruitment pipeline and enhance our rewards and current policies to attract talent to join Genting Plantations. We can further study on what younger generations are looking for, especially work life balance, rewards, and career growth. For the time being, I am adjusting the talent fast-track programme and focusing on grooming talent internally."

Loke brings ample HR experience to this role, having most recently served as General Manager Human Resources at Top Glove. He has also tenured with Tan Chong Group in several HR leadership roles, the most recent being as Lead for the HR Centre of Excellence (CoE).  

Talking about what the future brings, Loke shared his HR wishes for 2023 with HRO:

• Consistent supply/approval of foreign workers to bridge the gap of workers' shortage in industries,
• People to get used to COVID-19. An understanding and acceptance of the need for humans to co-exist with such viruses,
• Obtaining buy-in and support from the top for all HR plans, and executing them accordingly.

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