Winning Secrets: Nexperia Malaysia's journey to becoming 'EX Champion of the Year' 2023

Muhammad Hilman Rao Bin Abdullah, HR Director, Nexperia Malaysia, on how the success of Nexperia's EX initiatives is measured by employee retention and employee engagement survey.

Nexperia Malaysia, a semiconductor company, has been operating for more than 30 years and employing more than 3,000 employees. Since its inception in 1992, it has been continuously expanding its operations and magnifying its manufacturing facilities to establish itself into an extensive assembly and test manufacturing site in Malaysia.

The team behind Nexperia Malaysia believes the company's vision, culture, and values will continue to empower everyone to be substantive in building a thriving global business — a belief that earned it wins across six categories, culminating in the Employee Experience Champion of the Year win, at the third edition of the Employee Experience Awards, Malaysia 2023:

• Overall Leadership Award
•  Gold:
  • Best HR Communication Strategy
  • Best Management Training Programme
  • Best Recruitment Referral System
• Silver:
  • Best Rewards and Recognition Programme
• Bronze:
  • Best Soft Skills Training Programme

In this interview, Muhammad Hilman Rao Bin Abdullah, HR Director, Nexperia Malaysia, sheds light on how the success of Nexperia's EX initiatives is measured by an employee retention and employee engagement survey, which provides valuable data and insights into the impact and effectiveness of these initiatives on employees, and provides a path forward to future priorities. 

Q How do you ensure your employee experience initiatives are aligned with your business objectives?

To be recognised as the 'Best company to work for in Asia' for three consecutive years is a clear indication of our dedication and strong commitments in driving a great workplace and giving a pleasant employee experience for our people.

In alignment with the company's vision to be a world leader of essential semiconductors with S$10bn in revenue by 2030, we will continue to prioritise the improvements and wellbeing of our people. With this in mind, we will strive to create an inclusive environment for our talents in planting positive employee experiences for all.

Q Can you provide examples of how the organisation has invested in the employee experience?

We are aggressively improvising effectiveness and creating an inclusive communication model throughout the organisation in order to promote a more open and transparent approach for our internal talent through the 'X.now' mobile app. This tool has been highly utilised by our internal stakeholders for announcements, engagement activities, feedback mechanism, as well as a channel for our people to contribute to the community.

This approach has been proven to be an undeniably resourceful communication app not only during the pandemic, but it has a high impact on our engagement and rewards and recognition as well.

Q What are some of the key challenges that you faced in implementing your EX initiatives, and how did you overcome them?

In the absence of real-time feedback, vague or filtered information and a lack of two-way communication were some of the common challenges that we experienced. As such, we leveraged and embarked on the use of technology tools and our approach to collect relevant feedback to enhance the employee experience. Besides investing in technology tools, the traditional approach of personalised engagement sessions through physical meetups continued. Feedback that is collected from our various initiatives such as townhalls or 'Brown bag' sessions were addressed and shared through the X.now mobile app.

This way, we encourage two-way communication among employees, which allows them to share their perspectives and thoughts. We create an atmosphere of trust and mutual understanding by fostering an environment where employees' voices are heard.

Q Do you have processes to measure the effectiveness of your EX initiatives, and what metrics do you use to evaluate success?

The success of our EX initiatives is measured by an employee retention and employee engagement survey. These metrics provide valuable data and insights into the impact and effectiveness of these initiatives on employees. Monitoring the data provides a clear indication of whether our employees are engaged and committed to remain with us.

The feedback on manufacturing processes, equipment, facilities, and safety matters highlighted by employees have increased drastically, which have helped to make incremental improvements through our KAIZEN projects.

Q Finally, what role do leaders and managers play in driving a beautiful employee experience, and how are they held accountable for the success of these initiatives?

Leaders and managers are highly supportive of driving a meaningful employee experience in Nexperia. The consistent support and buy-in helps the HR team to secure resources, drive cultural change and create a unified employee experience.

Leaders and managers champion a well-structured onboarding programme and interesting employee engagement programmes, and conduct regular check-ins with employees through readily available feedback channels.

They take ownership and accountability to create a meaning employee experience, and the metrics become part of their KPIs.

Read more interviews on why organisations have won trophies for their HR practices - head over to our Winning Secrets' section!

Photos: Provided by Nexperia