The Human Resources Minister, Kula Segaran announced that the Ministry is working on an act for human resource practitioners aimed at accrediting and training HR professionals.

As of writing (12 June 2019), the plan is in the stage of gathering information from stakeholders.

Speaking at the Labour Law Conference 2019, the minister cited plans to bring the ILMIA Research Centre, which is run by the Ministry of Human Resources, to international standards in order to position it as “the single source for accreditations”.

For those who are already in HR, he explained: “We will make it as flexible as possible, we will make necessary exemptions for those that are already practising.”

The reason for this act stems from the fact that for HR practitioners appearing in the Industrial Court and the Labour Court, the emphasis must be on them being “properly trained, properly accredited”.

Some of the new initiatives he announced were also related to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, where the Ministry is looking at an act for the institute to facilitate trainers in the country in a professional manner.

These changes are in addition to the five amendments promised by the Ministry, among them are:

Employment Act
Trades Union Act
Industrial Relations Act
Minimum Standard of Housing and Amenities Act
Occupational Safety and Health Act

Kula Segaran said: “With all these changes, it is going to be challenging. Out of the five amendments, hopefully, we can get two or three (discussed) in the coming sitting,” referring to the next session of Parliament being held from 1 July 2019 – 18 July 2019.

He added: “We hope we can get the government approval, I’m on the last stage on the move to get paternity leave (three days), to reduce the number of working hours, and to increase the maternity leave from 60 days to 98 days.”

Solving problems related to labour

Minister Kula Segaran is aware of how long it has taken to solve some labour cases on matters such as termination, including some which he has litigated as a lawyer, thus he took up the issue of the Appeals Court.

“The whole idea is to speed up the process which will create a win-win situation for both employers and employees involved. Hopefully, the appellate can dispose of all cases within three months, and within a year everything would be completed.”

He said that he will hold at least two National Labour Advisory Council meetings every year, though he has already had five such meetings.

Another discussion topic is the labour court presiding officers. Right now, the practice is to have in-house presiding officers. “But in order to enhance the image of the labour court and its strength, I have proposed that we should have ad-hoc appointments from senior lawyers or retired judges to sit as presiding officers of the labour court.”

On the same topic, currently the quantum (amount of money required) to bring a case to the Labour Court is RM 2000 and below; but, the Ministry is proposing to make this unlimited, thus covering many more people under the labour amendment that it is planning to bring about, subject to capital approval.

Preparing for the Industrial Revolution 4.0

“IR 4.0 – whether we like it or not it is on our doorstep,” Minister Kula Segaran affirmed. As such, the Ministry is pushing technical institutes to focus more technical/vocational training than getting students to universities, which is more of pure academics and might not be so relevant in IR 4.0.

For this push, he mentioned the case of the profession of doctors who are caught in a predicament with some of them not having got jobs for up to two years.

Source: Human Resources Online

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