Respondents foresee that knowledge workers will make up two-thirds of the total workforce in five years’ time. — Reuters picSINGAPORE, Oct 17 — Malaysia’s future workplaces will be dominated by skilled knowledge workers, helping the country to reach the high-income status by 2020, the Randstad World of Work Report 2012/13 released here today stated.

This year’s report gathered feedback and opinions of more than 553 people (including 303 business leaders) in Malaysia.

The research is part of Randstad’s annual Asia Pacific study of more than 9,800 people to understand and address the human capital challenges shaping workplaces today and into the future.

The report found that in the next five years, business leaders expect the majority (66 per cent) of the workforce to be engaged in skilled knowledge work, such as project managers, business analysts, engineers, IT specialists, and R&D and innovation experts.

Director of Randstad Malaysia, Jasmin Kaur, said the findings reinforce the need for Malaysia to create new knowledge-intensive skills and prepare the economy for growth in new sustainable industries such as oil and gas, and electronics.

“Having a highly-skilled workforce will ensure Malaysia’s competitiveness in the global economy. Underpinning this, employers and organisations will have to work with industry and the education sector to highlight the required vocational and business skills to ensure the next decades of growth,” she said in a statement.

The report also found that leadership (31 per cent) and creative/innovating skills (20 per cent) are ranked as critical to maintaining future competitiveness, much more so than traditional white collar skills such as problem solving (10 per cent) and analytical skills (8 per cent).

Jasmin said this highlights the importance of grooming leaders who can motivate and inspire future workplaces. She said leaders are a key part of an organisation and play an important role in driving growth and improving productivity.

“Leadership will increasingly be less about status and structure, and more about looking forward, knowing, adapting and inspiring.

“Taking an integrated approach in strategic workforce planning will also help business leaders overcome their biggest human capital challenge, that is to attract and retain top talent,” she added.

Seventy-one per cent of the employees surveyed indicated that they plan to leave their jobs in the next 12 months. A common reason cited by most (34 per cent) was the lack of opportunity for growth and advancement, while only twenty-two per cent indicated uncompetitive salaries as a reason for wanting to leave.

“An inclusive strategy in workforce planning that includes job rotation, skills auditing and promoting autonomy, can ensure employees are provided with the skills and continuous learning process that will help improve job satisfaction and retention,” said Jasmin.

A Fortune Global 500 company, Randstad is one of the world’s largest recruitment & HR services providers, with Asia Pacific operations in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, Australia and New Zealand. — Bernama