Human Resource Policies And Practice

For this assignment, I was assign to select a national corporate personality and discuss on his/her management of his/her major enterprise. I had decided to talk about the late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong, founder for Genting Malaysia Berhad. The reason that I’ve choose him because I was inspired by his determination and hard work from transforming Genting Highlands from an unexplored hilltop into one of the world’s most successful casino resorts. His idea of transforming a jungle hilltop to a tourist resort was doubt by many as they thought it was risky and foolish to invest so much money and time in developing but Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong believes in his dreams. He had dumped in all of his fortune for this project and put aside all the negative comments from his friends and family. It really surprised me on how he turns all the negative comments from people to motivate himself and put in his very best effort. It also inspires me on how he did not care about what other people think and comment about him. In fact, he just followed his dreams and went ahead firmly with his plan. With hard work and effort, he is now one of the Malaysia’s wealthiest businessmen.

Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong was more than just a developer, personifying the clutch of overseas Chinese business entrepreneurs who fled hardship in their homeland to build the corporate empires that played a major role in South-east Asia’s economic boom.

Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong is a model of success, starting from scratch, and his achievements came through hard work. As he was building at a new unexplored location, there were many difficulties he had to face. After getting approvals from the

Federal and State government, Tan Sri Lim started to begin his project. Among the problem faced were building an access road to the hilltop, water and electricity supply and sewerage system. But all the difficulties didn`t stop him. Tan Sri Lim managed to build the access road in 3 years while it was estimated to be 15 years.

The development of Genting, whose name in Chinese means “on top of clouds”, now attracts more than 18 million visitors a year but it brought him perilously close to bankruptcy before taking off. Even though, close to bankruptcy, I felt motivated by Tan Sri Lim entrepreneurial spirit of never giving up and determined to get back on his feet which now made him a billionaire tycoon. He was helped by the Malaysian government, which subsidised the building of a road to the resort and awarded him a casino licence. But his eventual success was attributed to his entrepreneurial spirit, and he gave an insight into his style in his recent autobiography.

When doing my research on the late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong, I felt admirer on how how he succeeded through difficulties and his rags to richest stories. Imagine from a nobody, Tan Sri Lim had to work his way up from scratch and eventually through blood and tears, he became one of the leading entrepreneurs in Malaysia that I admired. To my surprise for a very famous and success businessman, Tan Sri Lim is a very down to earth and a compassionate person. His humbleness that kept him grounded despite his success and status of ‘Tan Sri’ have won applause and was admirer among his peers.

Tan Sri Lim was born in 1918 in Anxi, a county in southeastern Fujian province, China and died on 23 October 2007, at Subang Jaya Medical Centre (SJMC). His body was buried at Gohtong Memorial Park at Gohtong Jaya on Monday 29 October 2007. More than 20,000 people, including royalty, Asia’s rich and famous, politicians, friends, business allies and members of the public paid tribute to Goh Tong in their own ways. They attended the wake, sent wreaths or penned messages of sympathy.

Cited by Tan Sri Dr Ng Lay Swee, president and chief executive officer of Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman “He is a source of inspiration and we salute his accomplishment. He will continue to live in the heart of those who have been touched by him.”

2.0 TAN SRI LIM GOH TONG

2.1 Background

Tan Sri Lim was born in 1918 in Anxi, a mountainous county in southeastern Fujian province, China, He was the fifth child in his family. His father was Lim Shi Quan and his mother Goh Ban. He has an elder brother (Jing Ya), three elder sisters (Lim Zhuang, Lim Bau and Lim See), a younger sister (Lim Mei) and a younger brother (Jing Kun). Tan sri Lim was born into a rustic environment in a village, during that time, China was in a period of turmoil and unrest after the 1911 revolution, but life was relatively sheltered for Lim in the village. He grew up peacefully and had the opportunity of studying in school. However, disaster struck and his father died when he was 16. Tan sri Lim was forced to leave school and he and his elder brother had to take over the heavy burden of feeding his family.

As China’s situation was becoming worse, Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong decided to take the plunge in venturing out to Malaysia (known as Malaya at that time) following his cousin, Lim Kheng Chong’s footstep. He left China through Xiamen in early February 1937 at the age of 19. He worked for his uncle as a carpenter in the first two years, learning the Malay language in the meantime. After gaining experience he went on to become a building sub-contractor and completed his first job of building a two-storey school. He returned to Anxi in 1940, but went back to Malaya the next year.

The Japanese invaded Malaya in 1942. Tan Sri Lim survived the Japanese occupation when he earned a living as a vegetable farmer, but decided to switch to petty trading for a better living. Later on Tan Sri Lim ventured into scrap-metal and hardware trading. When the Japanese Occupation ended, due to the demand for heavy machinery for resumed operations in mines and rubber plantations, Tan Sri Lim take this opportunity and engaged in second-hand machinery trading.

From used machinery trading, Tan Sri Lim strayed into iron mining, joining as a partner in an iron mining company which couldn’t settle the outstanding payment of two bulldozers with him. This proved to be a successful venture, and he later went on to form a joint-venture company.

While dealing in heavy machinery, Tan Sri Lim accumulated a wide range of reconditioned machines as well as a substantial amount of cash to move into construction and related industries. In the name of his family construction company, Kien Huat Private Limited, Tan Sti Lim began taking on several contracting jobs with help and guidance from his uncles. Kien Huat won accolades and became recognized as one of the leading construction companies, building the Ayer Itam Dam and the Kemubu Irrigation Scheme.

2.2 Experience

The idea for Genting Highlands came when he was having dinner in Cameron Highlands in 1964. Tan Sri Lim thought it would nice to have a cool place where people can escape from the heat in the lowlands. As Cameron Highlands was too far from Kuala Lumpur, he had to search for another location. He did some research and that’s where he found an unexplored hilltop called Genting Highlands.

Setting up a private company called Genting Highlands Berhad on 27 April 1965, with the late Tan Sri Haji Mohammed Noah bin Omar, Tan Sri Lim successfully obtained approval for the alienation of 12,000 acres and 2,800 acres of land from the Pahang and Selangor State Government respectively between the years 1965 and 1970.

During the Genting project, Lim spent all he had without earning any income. He sold an 810-hectare rubber estate to raise RM2.5 million. In addition, he invested all the money he had made from iron mining, sub-contracting and hardware businesses. The project was a heavy drain on Lim’s finances. When asked to invest in this project, Lim’s friends turned him down and counselled him to drop the entire scheme instead.

Genting was granted the only casino licence after Tunku Abdul Rahman, the prime minister of Malaysia then, visited Genting Highlands and commended Lim’s effort to develop a resort contributing to Malaysia’s tourism industry without government help.

Lim managed to obtain a pioneer status for Genting Highlands and tax incentives despite its resort development not qualifying for it. He did so by convincing the government that tax incentives in the early stage of development of Genting Highlands were not only vital for them but also profitable to the government later on.

The whole Genting project was completed in January 1971, but prior to officially commencing business, Kuala Lumpur and its surrounding areas were hit by the worst rainstorms in a century, the road to Genting was closed by landslides at 180 locations, the damaged sections took four months to repair. Genting opened its door for business on 8 May 1971.

2.3 Character

For a successful and famous businessman, Tan Sri Lim was a very down to earth and humble person. He believes that with hard work and the right attitude is the key to his success.

One of his positive attitudes was never to make language barrier a limitation to success. Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong did not speak well English. He spoke Hokkien in his hometown. After coming to Malaysia, he put an effort to learn Bahasa Malaysia, Cantonese and Manderin. Language barrier did not stop him from negotiating one of the biggest business contracts in the country.

Tan Sri Lim was also a punctual person. When it comes to an appointment, Tan Sri Lim had a habit of being punctual and better still to come 5 or 10 minutes early. In fact, Tan Sri Lim made punctuality as his personal and business principle. He did not make excuse to cancel appointment just because the person is not important. Tan Sri Lim also said that if he wants to know if a person will be a good friend or good partner, he will monitor on his punctuality. If he/she was late for any meeting or job interview, it shows that he/she will not make a good employee.

Tan Sri Lim also believes in the power of conviction. Once he had made a decision and he really believe that it is a strong one, he will go ahead with it. No matter what problems or barriers that Tan Sri Lim will face in the future, he will do his very best to resolve it. Tan Sri Lim was a highly motivated person and he never gives up easily.

Furthermore, Tan Sri Lim was also a highly risk taker person. Be bold but yet cautions. He will try things that have never been done before by others. Challenge the norm of ways of doing work or job. He was willing to take risk and strongly believes that with hard work and determination, a reward will be waiting at the end of it.

Last but not least, Tan Sri Lim also lived a disciplined and simple life. Being disciplined is very important and is one of Tan Sri Lim’s key to success. Discipline is doing something that you don’t like but eventually will benefit you in future. Tan Sri Lim’s advice was to get up early from bed to start your day and you will see prosperity coming your way.

2.4 Achievement

Tan Sri Lim had won many awards throughout his extraordinary life. After taking a huge gamble and setting up a hillside resort, and proving all the doubts wrong, Tan Sri Lim was awarded the title ‘Tan Sri’ I 1976 for his contribution in booming the country’s tourism industry. This is followed by the Malaysian Entrepreneur Award in 1985. This is followed by the manager of the year award the following year. As his business bloom, he was than honoured the business achiever of the year in 1994. Genting was awarded the number 1 ranking of 10 Malaysia Leading Companies in 1996 and at the same time was also awarded the best Employer Award.

Apart from having a successful business, he still had time to help the society through his foundation, the Yayasan Lim. The foundation helps out those who are in need. Yayasan Lim is a family foundation that donates regularly to educational and medical institution, old folks homes, various organisations for the physically handicapped and other charitable causes.

3.0 GENTING MALAYSIA BERHAD

3.1 Background

Resorts World Sdn Bhd, a private company limited by shares was incorporated on 7th May 1980 under the Companies Act 1965. Upon conversion into a public company in 1989, its name was change to Resort World Bhd (1989 – 2009) and subsequently Genting Malaysia Berhad.

In 1989, Genting Malaysia and Genting Berhad underwent a restructuring exercise which resulted Genting Malaysia acquiring from Genting Berhad its entire gaming, hotel and resort related operation including goodwill and other relevant assets. The shares of Genting Malaysia have been listed on the main market of Bursa Malaysia since 1989.

Genting Malaysia has been principally involved in the leisure and hospitality business covering theme parks, gaming, hotels, seaside resorts and entertainment (casino, concert, magic shows etc.) for over 45 years. The jewel in its crown is Resort World Genting, a premier integrated family leisure and entertainment resort at the peak of Genting Highland. In the past 5 years, Genting Highlands had attract over 19 million visitors annually.

Porpularly known as “Genting – City Of Entertainment”, Resort World Genting offers 6 hotels with 10,000 rooms, 200 dining and retail outlets, mega shows, business convention facilities, 40 fun rides and endless entertainment. One of the hotels is the first world hotel which is one of the largest hotels.

Resort World Genting was voted the World’s Leading Casino Resort (2005, 2007 to 2010) and Asia’s Leading Casino Resort from 2005 to 2010 by World Travel Awards. Resort World Genting also won various culinary awards at the recent Malaysia International Gourmet Festival 2011 and Hospitality Asia Platinum Awards (HAPA) 2011 – 2013 Regional Series.

Apart from the highland resort, Genting Malaysia owns and operates two beautiful seaside properties called Awana Kijal Golf, Beach & Spa Resort in Terengganu (on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia) and Awana Porto Malai in Langkawi (off the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia).

In 1998, Genting Malaysia undertook an equity investment in Star Cruises Limited, the leading cruise operator in the Asia Pacific. Genting Malaysia currently owns about 19.3% of Star Cruises.

Genting Malaysia’s registered office is located at 24th Floor, Wisma Genting, Jalan Sultan Ismail, 50250 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

3.2 Workplace

Employees are an integral part of Genting Group and it remains committed to groom new generations of talents in their business. The Group has a global workforce of over 58,000 employees. In today’s business world, with many social and economic changes, a company’s employees are its crucial competitive factor. Winning, retaining and promoting employees is thus the key challenge for the company. Therefore, Genting Group provides supportive working culture through training and development programmes, safety and health procedures and regulations as well as internal events and communication. In other words, Genting Group promote a safe and engaging workplace to keep a good balance between life and work. Communication channels such as internal monthly newsletter, intranet, internal notice boards, e-kiosks and regular meeting are provided to keep employees and management informed.

3.3 Financial Performance

According to the Consolidated – Non-Audited financial statement for the first two accumulated quarter of 2012, total net operating revenues increase with 4.55% from MYR3,888,062 thousand to MYR4,064,970 thousand. Operating result increased from MYR961,073 thousands to MYR1,107,009 thousands which means 5082 change. The results of the period increased 4.79% reaching MYR766,464 thousands at the end of the period against MYR731,451 last year. Return on equity (Net income / Total equity) went from 6.28% to 5.97%, the Return on Asset (Net Income / Total Asset) went from 4.66% to 4.57% and the Net Profit Margin (Net Income / Net Sales) went from 18.81% to 18.86% when compare to the same period of last year. The debt of Equity Ratio (Total Liabilities / Equity) was 30.68% compared to 34.80% of last year. Finally, the Current Ratio (Current Assets / Current Liabilities) went from 2.39 to 1.80 when compared to the previous year.

4.0 MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS

To my understanding, management analysis is to analyse on how an organisation is been managed in order to improve the organisation efficiency. There are many perspectives that can be looked into when analysing an organisation management. We can analyse based on the financial data, organisation structure, organisation planning and strategic, mission, vision and many more.

For my current assignment, I am going to do a management analyse solely on Genting Malaysia Berhad, also known as Genting-City Of Entertainment. As discuss before, Genting Malaysia Berhad was built by Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong in the year 1965. Gneting Highlands was just nothing but an unexplored hilltop and now, it is one of the world’s most successful casino resorts. How did Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong turn an unexplored hilltop into one of the most popular places for tourist attraction? The answer to this question is to analyse the management of Genting Malaysia Berhad by the late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong.

4.1 Vision

A vision is whereby a company looks into the future whereby at least in five years’ time defines having the desirable state of the company. All successful companies must have a vision. Having a vision is s stepping stone for a company in achieving their goals as vision shows and tell how or what the company wanted to be in future. Business without a vision is like a ship without a rudder and is in danger of drifting aimlessly.

For Genting Malaysia Berhad, its vision is to be the leading integrated resort operator in the world. By having this vision, it will guide Tan Sri Lim on what path to take or what best decision to make for his company. This vision shows what Tan Sri Lim pictures his company to be, concerning growth, values, employees, and social responsibility. Using the company’s vision as a guideline, Tan Sri Lim will then be able to strategize and manage his company in a more specific way.

As cited by Micheal Hyatt “Vision and strategy are both important. But there is a priority to them. Vision always comes first. Always. If you have a clear vision, you will eventually attract the right strategy. If you don’t have a clear vision, no strategy will save you”.

4.2 Planning and Strategic Management

Besides having a clear vision, having a solid management is also very important. This is because a vision without action is daydream. To have a solid management, he or she must first plan and strategize on how to manage the company. Planning gives individual and work units a clear map to follow in their future activities and at the same time, map maybe flexible enough to allow for individual circumstances and changing. Strategic management on the other hand gives a comprehensive of ongoing activities and processes that organisation use to systematically coordinate and align resources and action with vision, mission and strategy throughout an organisation.

Using Genting Malaysia Berhad as an example, by looking at where Genting Malaysia Berhad is standing now, in my opinion, Tan Sri Lim sure did a great job in planning and strategizes the management for his company. Looking at the Genting strategy, they continue growing its core leisure and hospitality businesses by concentrating on its competitive advantages, enhancing its customer facilities and improving its current offerings in this business. The Genting Group also plans to identify growth segments within the leisure and hospitality, particular in gaming, hotel, and cruise sectors and make appropriate investment in Malaysia, and , if appropriate, overseas to expend these businesses. The Genting Group believes that its strong balance sheet and stable cash flows and revenue stream from its leisure, hospitality, gaming and entertainment business enable it to expend its revenue base by growing its other business activities.

Since the vision had already been identified, let’s look at the SWOT analysis for Genting Malaysia Berhad. First lets analyse on the strength. Genting Malaysia Berhad strength is that it is a leading multinational corporation and one of Asia’s best managed companies. Genting Malaysia Berhad’s main resort, Genting Highland Resort is situated at a hill, thus making it ideal tourist attraction due to its cooling weather and also provides various entertainments for all ages.

As for its weaknesses, since Genting Malaysia Berhad main business is in hospitality and leisure, therefore business will fluctuate seasonally with more people during peak days that is public holidays, school holidays and will have fewer people on working days and weekdays.

Next, let’s analyse on its opportunities. With Singapore legalising gambling in its country, Genting Malaysia Berhad took this opportunity to expend its business in the country by opening a resort casino. Other than Singapore, Genting Malaysia Berhad also made further investment in other countries in developing its name as one of the international gambling and entertainment giants in the world.

Last but not least is on is threat. The presence of The Sands empire opening its premise, The Marina Bay Sands in Singapore have to be a threat to Genting Malaysia Berhad. There will be risk of losing customers as people will have more choices on where to go.

After analysing using SWOT analysis, Genting Malaysia Berhad will then be able to implement strategies to overcome its problem. Looking and the weaknesses, since Genting Malaysia Berhad business fluctuate seasonally, in order to minimize the risk of fluctuating revenue, Genting Malaysia Berhad has diversify into various activities such as plantation in order to provide steady revenue all year round.

As for the threat, Genting Malaysia Berhad will need to improve on their services in order to gain loyal customers. Gening Malaysia Berhad needs to be different so that people would go to their casino resort instead of others.

4.3 Leadership Behaviour

Under the leadership of the late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong, Genting Group continues to grow from strength to strength. His commitment to excellence, innovation and growth has resulted in the birth of premier global brand names.

Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong had all the behaviour and personality of a leadership. One of the behaviour leadership that he had is courage. Tan Sri Lim is willing to stand up for ideas even if they are unpopular. He does not give pressure to others’ opinion in order to avoid confrontation. Tan Sri Lim will do what right for his company and for employees even if it causes personal hardship.

As mention before, Tan Sri Lim is a discipline person and discipline is one of a successful leader’s criteria. Discipline is a serious issue that no great leader will want to take it lightly. At some point, someone in the company will not follow rules and guidelines. Therefore, making the right decisions in an event like this will make the difference between success and failure. This is because Tan Sri Lim will need to properly discipline to those that break rules. It is important for the safety of the organization. However, it is easier said than done.

When Tan Sri Lim just started his company, he may have difficult time taking action against someone in his group that has done wrong. For example, if someone is constantly late or does not follow rules, he must make a decision on how to deal with the situation. When taking action, he must not be too strong and must not be too weak.

A great leader must also have respect for others. As for Tan Sri Lim, he not only is a humble person, but he is also a polite and respectful to others. For a very successful businessman, he did not misuse his powers and look down on others. He had not forgotten about his pass and where he came from. In fact, he uses his power to set up Yayasan Lim, family foundation than donates regularly to educational and medical institution and other charitable organization before he passed away.

4.4 Human Resource Policies And Practice

Human resource is a department of a company that is responsible for managing those resources, such as hiring and training new employees and overseeing the benefits and compensation packages provided to all of the company’s employees.

For Genting Malaysia Berhad, all recruitment & selection, training & development, reward system and performance appraisal is managed by the human resource department team. In order for the human resource team to maximize their management performance, Tan Sri Lim had set up a list of policies and practices for the department to follow.

One of their practices is to select appropriate people with an appropriate selection process. Every employee is unique tapped with them is even unique set of skill sets. As a human resource, they must be able to align the job requirements with relevant skill sets embedded in an employee. This helps in creating an environment of high job satisfaction among employees. If the human resource fails to do so, employees will fail to achieve their goals due to unaware and in the dark in terms of what actions they need to perform.

Next is to provide effective orientation, education and training. The crucial task before an employee is assigned a particular task is to monitor and evaluate his or her skill set and find out if any skill gap exits. If skill gap is too wide, relevant training should be administered to the employee in order to gain better performance towards the competencies.

Furthermore is to provide on-going coaching and feedback. Feedback is a crucial entity which boosts the morale of the employees. Feedback system should be incorporated and religiously followed. A healthy environment of feedbacks should be inculcated.

Other practices by the human resource department in Genting are to design effective compensation and recognition system that reward people for their contributions. Provide compensation is commonly disregarded but the fact that rather than the money its value redeemed is far greater than the money itself. Therefore, it’s essential to chalk out a mode which links performance to rewards.

Last but not least, they also provide promotion/career development opportunities for staff. It’s the sole duty of the human resource manager in improving or acquiring the skills sets bestowed on his employees. It provides the employee to become more effective and also brings a sense of worthiness to Genting Malaysia Berhad.

.4.5 Business Ethics And Corporate Social Responsibility

As mention before, Genting Group has a global workforce of over 58,000 employees. In Genting Malaysia Berhad, they provide a supportive working culture through all kinds of activities such as training and development programmes, safety and health procedures and team-building events to reinforce the corporate values.

Training and employee development is vital in developing a productive and dedicated workforce in line with the company’s culture an dvision. In 2009, employees of Genting Group attended internal and external training programmes. The training includes grooming, personal impact, customer service and service delivery particular for the front-liners. There are also team-building activities aim to foster team spirit and team work and also improve communication skills between all levels of employee.

Genting Group also conducts safety, health and environmental training programmes to create awareness and consciousness within it workforce. One of their safety, health training activity is developing action plans in relation to the influenza H1NI outbreak in complianxe with ministry of health guidelines. Step taken include self-awareness, flu vaccine, and placement of thermal scanner at certain areas at the Resort.

4.6 Motivating To Enhance Employee Performance

Nowadays in this competitive business world, more business owners are looking at improvements in quality while reducing cost. This also implies to Genting Malaysia Berhad whereby they need to get more from their employees but at the same time, their employees are looking for more out of them. Employee reward and recognition are one of the methods used by Genting in motivating their employees.

Genting will organize events such as Employee of the Month awards and Employees Appreciation Nights to recognise the outstanding achievers and long-standing employees. The 3-day annual Genting Employees Carnival held in December was attended by over 18,000 employees and immediate family members. Places of worship are allocated and contributions are made to support internal religious organisations, irrespective of religions.

In my opinion,

Based on Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong Biography. StudyMode.com. Retrieved January 20, 2013, from http://www.studymode.com/essays/Tan-Sri-Lim-Goh-Tong-Biography-1099426.html, he