HRD speaks with a leading HR leader in Malaysia to find out how his engineering background has impacted his career in HR
Starting out as an engineer with Nestlé Malaysia in 2001, Shahzad Umar is now the executive director, group human resources at the organisation.
He boasts a long list of employer branding awards under his belt, keeping the company consistently as the country’s top most attractive companies to work in.
HRD spoke to Shahzad to find out the company’s winning formula for talent and the challenges he’s faced in his role.
HRD: You started out as an engineer with Nestlé. Why did you make the switch to HR? How has your engineering background helped your career in HR?
SU: Thanks to the advice of my seniors as well as the strong support of the organisation, I developed my capabilities and grew my career.
A keen understanding of how your organisation really works and executes its goals helps a lot. In my case, that experience of working at the frontline contributed to the development of my understanding.
As an engineer, one gets to develop a good understanding of “process” and how the different constituents of various processes connect. In my personal view, inefficiencies within organisations typically occur at this juncture.
My decision to specialise in HR was certainly the right one. I strongly believe that our past experiences play an important role in shaping us, and my background in engineering has indeed contributed to who I am today.
HRD: Nestlé has managed to sweep countless employer awards over the years. How has the company managed to attract professionals in this competitive market?
SU: At Nestlé, we have a clear purpose and values which are embedded in our corporate culture. This sets our organisation apart from others. We are driven by our purpose of enhancing quality of life and contributing to a healthier future for all Malaysians, and our values are firmly rooted in respect.
Our purpose motivates our people to work for the company while our value-based culture engages the hearts and minds of our employees.
At the end of the day, it is the wholesome employee experience that would become the binding factor for companies to attract and retain top talent.
As the largest food and beverage manufacturer in the world with over 328,000 employees, we are able to leverage our size and scale to nurture our talent, giving them wide exposure as well as access to best practice tools and processes at work.
HRD: What are some of the challenges of your role? How do you overcome them?
SU: In my role, the key challenge is to ensure that my team embraces continuous learning and upskilling in order to continue to deliver greater value to our organisation.
It is imperative in a fast-changing business environment that we continuously improve our HR function to be both efficient and effective. Beyond just providing strategy, we must deliver on the day-to-day operations with quality.
For example, we do this through our productivity-improvement platform known as Nestlé Continuous Excellence.
Building on which, we have set our leadership routines as a HR leadership team in a manner where we get to use different platforms to observe and analyse information from a macro to micro level.
I also personally read a lot to stay abreast of current evolving trends and technologies in the HR field.
Having greater knowledge about the bigger picture as well as what the future may bring helps me to share important perspectives and insights with the leadership team and other HR professionals.
Such conversations of the timely delivery of initiatives transpiring from these discussions help elevate HR’s value as a strategic partner to the business.
