NEWS
Aon Hewitt and JobStreet Survey Reports Substantial Gaps Between Asian Companies and Western Companies in Attracting Talents in Malaysia
28 Jan 2011

MALAYSIA – A recent survey by Aon Hewitt, the global human resource consulting and outsourcing business of Aon Corporation (NYSE: AON) and Jobstreet.com reports that job seekers in the region and Malaysia prefer to work for Western companies than Asian companies.

In fact, 71% of the respondents rank American companies as their preferred choice, followed by the British and Australian companies. Overall in the Asia region, 78% of the job seekers also voted American companies as their preferred choice. Amongst the Asian companies, Japan topped the list at 60%.

The Aon Hewitt and Jobstreet.com Jobseekers’ Preference Survey was launched and conducted in October 2010, and collected about 14,000 responses from job seekers in Asia on their perception about companies in the region. The survey was conducted in eight countries including Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. A total of 3,440 respondents reside in Malaysia.

The survey points to a substantial gap between Asian and Western companies in terms of their attractiveness to job seekers in Asia. The preference ratings for American and British companies are as high as 84% and 78%, compared to the 66% preference rating received by Japanese companies; best rank Asian nationality in this survey.

“What strikes us is how far behind the Asian companies are in terms of being the preferred employer. With a tight job market and a strong employment outlook for 2011 in the region, Asian companies would need to enhance their value proposition as an employer to attract the talent they want, both at home and around the region,” said Yusuke Higaki, Country Manager, Jobstreet.com Japan.

The study shows that most job seekers in the region considered ‘excellent work environment’ as the most important attribute when they select an employer (see figure 2A). In Malaysia, 95% of the respondents here rate ‘excellent working environment’ as the most important attribute. The other key attraction factors are overseas training and development opportunities (75%) and the perception of the product or service quality of the company (68%).


FIGURE 2A: KEY ATTRIBUTES FOR SELECTING AN EMPLOYER (All respondents, N = 13,964)

The least attractive factor is the nationality of local top management. Only 37% of the respondents considered having local nationals as local top management to be either "extremely important" or "very important". (See figure 2B).


FIGURE 2B: KEY ATTRIBUTES FOR SELECTING AN EMPLOYER (Respondents residing in Malaysia only, n = 3,440)

The perception of work environment is where Asian companies are trailing behind Western companies in Malaysia and the region.

“Our analysis shows that the desire to work for a company with an excellent working environment is positively correlated with the desire to work for American or British companies but negatively correlated with the desire to work for an Asian company with the exception of Japanese companies,” said Rick Payne, Regional Practice Leader, Human Capital, Aon Hewitt.

For Asian companies, one of the key challenges is to turn the negative perception to a positive perception on the working environment, and effectively communicate and create awareness to the target audiences.

Payne added that, “All else being equal, most job seekers would prefer to join a Western company than an Asian company because of the negative perception about the working environment. Such perception could become a huge stumbling block for Asian companies to attract top talent in Malaysia. If Asian companies want to compete for top talent in Malaysia and the region, they need to invest into building an attractive and sustainable employer brand."

An effective employer brand communicates the employment experience and the expectations of both employer and employee.

The 2010 Aon Hewitt and Jobstreet.com Jobseeker’s Preference Survey was jointly conducted by JobStreet.com Japan and Aon Hewitt Consulting. The survey was administered online throughout the month of October 2010 and gathered a total of 13,964 valid responses. All of this year's respondents have at least a university degree, with 17% holding a Master’s degree or above. A total of 57% of the respondents are below the age of 30 and about 30% are between the ages of 30 to 39. The ratio between male and female respondents was approximately 3 to 2.Close to 98% of the respondents reside in the following five countries: the Philippines (38%), Malaysia (25%), Indonesia (18%), India (10%) and Singapore (7%).

Aon Hewitt is a global leader in human resource consulting and outsourcing solutions. Aon Hewitt designs, implements, communicates and administers a wide range of human capital, retirement, investment management, health care, compensation and talent management strategies. employees.

Aon Corporation (NYSE:AON) is a leading global provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, and human resources solutions and outsourcing. Named the world's best broker by Euromoney magazine's 2008, 2009 and 2010 Insurance Survey, Aon also ranked highest on Business Insurance's listing of the world's insurance brokers based on commercial retail, wholesale, reinsurance and personal lines brokerage revenues in 2008 and 2009.

JobStreet operates the JobStreet.com online recruitment websites presently covering the employment markets in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, India, Japan and Thailand. The Group currently services over 60,000 corporate customers and over 8 million jobseekers. JobStreet is listed on Main Board of Bursa Malaysia Securities (JOBST).


Source : Aon Hewitt