HRDF pushing employers to join more certification programmes

KUCHING: The Human Resource Development Fund ( HRDF) is calling on more employers to participate in their certification programmes through the use of their 1Malaysia Globally Recognised Industry and Professional Certification Programme (1MalaysiaGRIP).

The 1MalaysiaGRIP is a programme provisioned by the Government to the HRDF which aims to help employers’ in Malaysia – both HRDF and non-HRDF registered – to upskill the local workforce.

The programme was allocated a RM100 million fund by the government at its launch and is supplemented by the Pool Fund, which is a 35 per cent consolidation of all levy collected by HRDF levy paying companies.

During a convocation ceremony for 300 local 1MalaysiaGRIP graduates held at Hilton Kuching yesterday, Datuk CM Vignaesvaran Jeyandran, the chief executive of HRDF said before this, the fund had only one per cent of its entire fund being utilised for certification purposes.

“Now we have doubled up to two per cent and are continuously trying to educate employers on the benefits of up- skilling or re- skilling their employees and motivate them to fully utilise what 1MalaysiaGRIP has to offer for them,” he said during his speech yeaterday.

He went on to explain that the 1MalaysiaGRIP is one of the programmes brought up to serve the rakyat directly as it aims to train both HRDF levy and non-levy payers.

Vignaesvaran highlighted that the variety of certifications offered is a key point as with the looming of Industry 4.0, Internet of Things ( IoT), and smart factories, upskilling alone may not sufficient for employees to keep up with the changing environment.

“There is a term we are trying to implement now which will remove the need of reskilling or upskilling. We are trying to implement ‘multiskilling’ which means if you want to work in a new competitive environment, you need to be multiskilled.

“Gone are the days where you could say you could say you were a CNC machine operator and only need to do that. Scopes are widening and now you need a bit of IT, a bit of electrical engineering, and a bit of mechanical engineering knowledge to even get started in this,” he explained.

It seems that this vision may not be too far off as many a number of graduates present at the ceremony have taken advantage of the variety of courses and aimed to widen the scope of their work.

Joel Su, a Quality, Safety, Health and Environment (QSHE) officer at Hock Seng Lee Bhd, and one of the many graduates present at the event yesterday is a clear example of this.

“I participated in this programme because I wanted to increase the scope of my abilities and knowledge to better adapt to changes in my work environment,” he said, explaining his decision to enrol in the programme.