On a bustling Thursday morning, SMBA members and non-members gathered at the MYXpats Centre at Mutiara Damansara for a presentation by Talent Corp regarding various expatriate and immigration matters. Before the talk commenced, attendees from ABB, Zurich Insurance, DKSH, Rosch, SR Technics, Datalynx and other companies gathered outside the conference room for some coffee and refreshments to network with one another.
At 9.30am, SMBA Board Member – Ms Pauline Goh of Invest KL got the ball rolling by giving a warm welcome speech where she thanked Talent Corp for hosting the event, as well as those present for attending the talk. She then invited Mr Patrick Klotz, Director and CEO of Datalynx to present a brief introduction of his company. Mr Klotz introduced Datalynx as a Swiss IT Services and Solutions company that started out in the pharmaceutical field. They mainly manage matters such as quality management, computer system validation, computer compliance to FDA regulations and more. Datalynx expanded their business to countries including Portugal, Brazil, United States and came to Malaysia approximately one and a half years ago. Mr Klotz announced that they have since changed from being a services company to building products and provide big data analytics services to various other companies.
The floor was then passed on to the main speaker of the day, Mr Siva Kumeren A. Narayanan, Executive Director and Head of Foreign Talent Unit of MYXpats. Mr Siva began by giving the attendees an overview to the main trusts being facilitated by Talent Corp. He said that the first trust comprised of optimising Malaysian talent within the country, from fresh graduates to working women who are looking for jobs. The second trust revolves around facilitating global talent where Talent Corp facilitates expatriates who are already in the country and create retention strategy for highly talented individuals for a long-term period. This includes facilitating Malaysians who are abroad and would like to come back to work in their home country.
On the other hand, the last trust is about building networks of top talent where Talent Corp tries to coordinate with individuals by networking with expatriates who have worked and left the country, but would still like to be connected to the country of job opportunities. In a nutshell, Talent Corp, which was founded in 2010, aims to find employment challenges faced by locals and expatriates and help facilitate them by providing opportunities.
Ms Farah Suhaimi, Manager of Talent Corporation then explained that the attendees and their organisations would be able to leverage on their various programmes while scouting for new talent. She then briefly present the results from a survey that Talent Corp had released on why companies preferred hiring foreign talent, and how Talent Corp could fix the talent gap.
She also announced various types of programmes that Talent Corp facilitated including the MY ASEAN Internship, MY APEC Youth Connect and Career Comeback Programme. Each of these programmes was catered to graduates or women who have left the workforce and want to come back. She also discussed the criteria required for each programme and how the attendees would be able to hire candidates of their choice by liaising with Talent Corp. Ms Farah also spoke about the Returning Expat Programme, which encourages Malaysian professionals who are currently overseas to return and work at their home country. She explained that this programme was offered to talents with high management positions, who would be able to claim benefits such as tax rebates and permanent residence.
Mr Siva further explained how Talent Corp worked closely with the immigration department and Ministry of Home Affairs to reengineer expatriate hiring policies. The attendees were informed that by registering their company to Talent Corp’s database, they would be able to apply for expatriate applications. He also mentioned one of their longest running programmes, the Residence Pass Talent (RPT), was instilled to retain top expatriate talent processing. One of the benefits for this programme is that applicants will be able to live and work in Malaysia for 10 years, while travelling in and out of the country.
While hiring expatriate employees has its challenges, Mr Siva said that their partnership with the immigration department made the process as thorough as possible. He briefly went through the step-by-step of the application process with the attendees and mentioned that more information about the criteria and application process could be found on esd.imi.gov.my/portal/ or Talent Corp’s front desk.
The session ended with the presentation of a token of appreciation to Mr Siva by Ms Pauline Goh, on behalf of SMBA. This was followed by a short tour around the centre by Mr Tan Keat Meng, Communication and Outreach Manager of Talent Corporation. Mr Tan brought the attendees to Talent Corp’s lounge area where many counters were set up to enhance the expatriate division system and create efficiency. He explained that most people came to the counters to settle their payment and passport matters. Attendees were also told that the iKad for expatriates would be issued at the centre, as well of renewal or replacement of the cards. Mr Tan proceeded to answer questions from the attendees regarding the centre and their establishment. Attendees then gathered for a group photo and continued to network over light refreshments that was served.
