Uncategorized Archives - Acenter

Changing of Landscape for Employee

Acenter_Admin — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 06:38:19 +0000

Employees know when some companies are changing the workforce to better compete in a dynamic world. It is a fact that the consequences are massive and affect staff morale. Do click the below link to have ideas for better manage layoffs.

https://hrsea.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/talent-management/are-you-handling-layoffs-with-compassion/106705189

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Guiding and Mentor Future Leaders

Acenter_Admin — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 06:00:45 +0000

Fresh graduates and junior staff are just like children with certificates. They require guidance and respect when transversing their working world.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/07/parenting-expert-if-youre-already-doing-these-things-youre-a-better-parent-than-most.html

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Kindness to Staff

Acenter_Admin — Mon, 04 Sep 2023 04:51:14 +0000

Management has a tendency to prioritize profit over other issues. It is a wise decision for survival and generating a stable income for the future. Long-term survival depends more on 2 other factors for prosperity. One of the factors is humane or kindness.

Management taking care of their kindness to all will ensure a positive outcome and sustainable endeavor as all parties seek to maintain such relationship.

https://hbr.org/2023/07/why-kindness-at-work-pays-off?utm_source=social&utm_medium=linkedingroup&utm_campaign=recommendations&utm_id=hbr

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Putting people first: Nurturing a culture of growth and support

admin_acenter2 — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 02:46:52 +0000

Credit: https://www.thestar.com.my/

WITH the strong notion that people are at the core of its value creation story, TM paves its next era as a human-centred technology company (TechCo) to shape a Digital Malaysia that empowers communities, businesses and the government.

Its aim is to connect its stakeholders to opportunities by providing them with innovative solutions that will help improve their lives and propel them closer to their next goals, and in doing so create a more sustainable world.

TM is staying attuned to the needs of its audience to help shape its every digital decision. To drive the company’s goals and aspirations forward, it relies heavily on the skills and knowledge of its employees, or fondly known as Warga TM.

Change begins at home

TM’s sustainability approach rests upon four pillars, one of them being “Putting People First” to create an inclusive and nurturing work environment that builds employees’ careers and brings out the best of them.

Its work cultural statement #IniCaraKita (#ICK): We Own It, We Grow, We Innovate, and We Care, is instrumental in fostering a workplace where employees are accountable, innovative, and committed to creating sustainable impact for customers, businesses and people.

The four values are part of TM’s 80-20 high performance culture where 80% of an employee’s performance is based on their ability to meet or exceed their job key performance indicators, while 20% is based on their behaviour at work.

TM also conducts regular engagements including townhalls from divisional level to group level to not only ensure that the company’s achievements, challenges and updates are communicated but transparency is practised across all levels. This is in line with its governance pillar of fair and transparent communications.

As it continues to put the needs of its employees at the forefront of its operations and decision-making processes, it conducts its Organisational Health Index (OHI) bi-yearly survey to gauge internal sentiments while offering a platform for Warga TM to provide constructive feedback to the organisation.

Human capital investment and technology adoption

TM’s Digital Way of Work approach looks at a flexible and dynamic work culture across the organisation to foster creativity and teamwork.

In addition, the company promotes a hybrid working arrangement whereby employees work from office three days a week, and two days from anywhere as this contributes to sustainability across several aspects including reducing office space, commuting time, stress, all while promoting work life balance and enhancing their overall well-being at the same time.

To promote seamless communication, productivity and efficiency throughout the organisation, TM invests in the latest tools, resources and cutting-edge technology including artificial intelligence (AI), analytics, robotic process automation (RPA) and agile collaboration applications.

Its field teams across the country are also equipped with digital tools and applications to better serve customers and manage TM’s extensive network for optimal performance.

When it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion, all employees of TM have equal chance and access to career development, upskilling programmes, training and advancement opportunities regardless of their demographic profile.

Warga TM are rewarded according to the philosophy of “pay for performance” based on the outcome of their own performance as well as TM’s overall performance rather than gender, race or physical capabilities.

Fair and competitive compensation and benefits are also ensured, such as annual increment and bonus, compassionate leave, insurance coverage, awards and recognition, medical benefits and more.

TM encourages employees to accumulate experience and cycles of learning through job rotations, thus creating opportunities to be promotion ready.

Upskilling and reskilling employees for a sustainable growth

To sustainably adapt and meet the ever-evolving market and business needs, TM offers on-demand learning such as LinkedIn Learning, Coursera and TM Learn to equip Warga TM with the necessary skills to remain competitive in a demanding market.

In moulding the company’s next generation of leaders, the middle management and non-executives will be nurtured through development programmes that cover topics such as communication, and decision-making to give participants the opportunity to develop their leadership skills through hands-on learning activities, regular feedback and coaching.

Employees as the execution engine of transformation and performance

Apart from upskilling and reskilling its employees, the company aims to inspire and motivate employees by introducing new ways of working that will yield greater performance and efficiency.

Agile@Scale: A new way of working to transform employees from rigid to resilient by working in squads that will expose them to specific ways of work such as sprint planning, daily stand-up huddle, retrospective and more.

Agile@Scale started off with Unifi, and seeing that it was a success, the programme will be extended to other lines of business within the next three years.

ASPIRE: A Women’s Advancement Programme: Recognising the importance of promoting gender diversity and equality in the workplace, TM introduces programmes like ASPIRE that play a critical role in helping women leaders achieve their full potential and contribute to the success of the company.

The first batch of talents have already onboarded the programme, and they will be groomed to grow their professional image and personal branding, explore skills to lead, negotiate and navigate today’s workplace, and gain opportunities to network and connect with peers, mentors and sponsors to enhance future career progression.

Keeping employees’ well-being in check

TM ensures that Warga TM are well taken care of by establishing policies such as no-meeting policy (after 6pm and on Friday mornings), well-being 360 programmes like financial literacy awareness, mental health webinars, “Life Coach” sessions and well-being first aider to provide personalised sessions from mental and physical health coaching to career development and more.

Warga TM as the key success factor of TM

In recognising outstanding performance and contributions to the company’s success, TM believes in sharing the stories of their employees through awards as well as on social media.

The #IniCaraKita Award recognises Warga TM in applying the #ICK behaviours at work, while the Kaizen Award acknowledges those who initiate or enhance internal processes to improve employee experience.

Their hard work and the impact they have created does not go unnoticed as TM promotes their employees’ “Life at TM” stories on social media with the tag #TMCareCrew – a small way of celebrating TM’s everyday heroes.

Staying true as a human-centred TechCo, TM believes in helping everyone realise their aspirations by scaling big ideas, building new businesses and taking better care of our planet.

To do all these, it starts with its people.

References: https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2023/06/30/putting-people-first-nurturing-a-culture-of-growth-and-support

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‘Scattered Spider’ Cybercrime Group Targets Mobile Carriers via Telecom, BPO Firms

admin_acenter2 — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 02:13:57 +0000

Credit: https://thefintechtimes.com/

A threat actor tracked as ‘Scattered Spider’ is targeting telecommunications and business process outsourcing (BPO) companies in an effort to gain access to mobile carrier networks and perform SIM swapping, cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike warns.

A financially-motivated threat actor, Scattered Spider has been observed increasingly targeting the telecoms industry since June 2022, setting up persistence mechanisms and even reverting implemented mitigations to regain access to the compromised networks.

According to CrowdStrike, Scattered Spider has been relentlessly trying to gain access to victim networks, typically performing daily operations once access has been obtained. The threat actor was seen deploying virtual private network (VPN) and remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools.

The cybersecurity firm explains that, after successfully containing Scattered Spider’s intrusion into one organization, the threat actor moved to a different company in the same vertical, using the same tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs).

“In all observed intrusions, the adversary attempted to leverage access to mobile carrier networks from a Telco or BPO environment, and in two investigations, SIM swapping was performed by the adversary,” CrowdStrike notes.

For initial access, the threat actor leveraged social engineering, including via phone calls and SMS and Telegram messages impersonating IT staff, to trick victims into entering their credentials on a phishing page, or downloading and installing a RMM tool controlled by the attackers.

Scattered Spider would also engage with the victims directly to obtain their one-time password (OTP) if multi-factor authentication (MFA) was enabled, or relied on MFA push-notification fatigue for that.

In one attack, the adversary used compromised credentials to access a victim’s Azure tenant and instantiate Azure VMs for credential theft and lateral movement.

The threat actor was also observed exploiting CVE-2021-35464, a critical flaw in the ForgeRock Access Management (AM) solution that can lead to code execution. ForgeRock’s OpenAM application server front-ends web applications in many organizations.

In many cases, the attackers gained access to the victim organization’s MFA console to add their own devices and assign them to user accounts they had compromised credentials for, thus being able to maintain a deep level of persistence.

The use of a broad range of legitimate RMM tools also helped the attackers fly under the radar and avoid being blocked by endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions.

The threat actor was also seen using various ISP and VPN providers to access the victim organizations’ Google Workspace environments, Azure AD, and on-premises infrastructure (targeting both Windows and Linux systems). In one attack, the attackers downloaded Azure AD group members and users in bulk.

“In all investigations performed by CrowdStrike incident responders, the faster the organization implemented swift and bold security measures, the faster the adversary activity ceased. These containment and mitigation measures focused on secure identity and MFA controls and configurations,” CrowdStrike explains.

References: https://www.securityweek.com/scattered-spider-cybercrime-group-targets-mobile-carriers-telecom-bpo-firms/

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Bringing back ‘humanness at the workplace’ in the era of uncertainty

admin_acenter2 — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 01:31:40 +0000

Credit: https://hrsea.economictimes.indiatimes.com/

#ETFutureForwardSEA Indonesia commenced with a stellar opening keynote session on, “Bringing back ‘humanness at the workplace’ in the era of uncertainty” by Junaid Murtaza, President Director, L’Oréal Indonesia, wherein he shared some of the best practices that business leaders can follow to keep “humanness at the workplace” intact in this new era of uncertainty.

Moving from a familiar, stable, and predictable world of work to a fast and uncertain business world has been extremely challenging for people all around the globe. While this transition has been easy for some, it often came at the expense of losing empathy and human connections at work, which has become a leading concern for employers today. To address the emerging gaps, organisations and business leaders are now fixated on bringing back ‘humanness’ at the workplace in a quest to elevate experiences and performance at work.

Against this backdrop, #ETFutureForwardSEA Indonesia commenced with a stellar opening keynote session on, “Bringing back ‘humanness at the workplace’ in the era of uncertainty” by Junaid Murtaza, President Director, L’Oréal Indonesia, wherein he shared some of the best practices that business leaders can follow to keep “humanness at the workplace” intact in this new era of uncertainty.

Here are a few key takeaways from the session:

Organisations that will create environments where listening to the employee’s voice is a priority will stay at the forefront in the future of work. Organisations that are humane will continue to thrive and grow in the future.

Adding to it, Junaid shared, “At the end of the day, behind organizations, products, services, titles… are people. What’s unique about times today is that people have access to more information and have a voice through the various communication channels. So we have to put people at the center of everything.

What can organisations do in the future to bring back ‘humanness at the workplace’?

1. Purpose

Employees now need more meaningful interactions, a strong feeling of community, and purpose-driven work.
Sharing his thoughts on building a more humane workplace culture, Junaid said, “Overall, you have to focus on creating a strong sense of collective purpose, which attracts personal interests.”

It’s high time that companies start focusing on the purpose aspect. As per research done by LinkedIn and Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning, 52% percent of job seekers will not accept a job offer, if they do not agree or know about the company’s values and purposes and 90% of the respondents agree that work should bring a sense of meaning to them.

L’Oréal, for instance, aims to “create the beauty that moves the world”. It’s a purpose where it acknowledges the essentiality of beauty and utilizes its power to—among others—preserve the planet’s beauty, support diversity and inclusivity, and bring personalised beauty experienced through technology. Every leader, employee, business partner work hand-in-hand to achieve this goal.

2. Lead your team skilfully

Empathy promotes healthy interpersonal interactions, a great workplace culture, and productive results. Leaders are truly empathetic when they can place themselves in the position of one of their team members, recognise the suffering and stress they are experiencing, and prioritise that person’s well-being over their own.

Junaid shared, “For me, every leader in an organisation is an HR person. We need to start breaking barriers because at the end of the day, we all are dealing with people, hence, Leadership is HR, HR is leadership. We must have compassion, empathy, and humility.”

Fundamentally not a lot of us are focusing enough on how to train people to give feedback and receive feedback. As a leader, it’s extremely important to understand the perspective of how you can add value and ask your people, ‘how can I help you achieve your goals? How can I help you do better?’ Not ‘What can you do for me? What can you do for the organisation?’

Through initiatives like Pulse survey and Connect culture, L’Oreal offers platforms for its leaders and employees to talk transparently about their hopes and concerns for themselves or the company. A new initiative in Indonesia called Limitless Leaders Club also allow proactive sharing session by leaders to create new leaders from within.

3. Creating a culture of psychological safety

Psychological safety is fundamental and paramount. If employees do not feel safe, especially around the leaders, they will not share what problems they have, which can lead to low productivity levels and dissatisfaction at work.

“The burden of leadership historically has always been that leaders must have every answer, they cannot make a mistake, and that’s a big burden to bear. Leader should be brave in bringing their authentic and whole self to work.” shared Junaid.

Leaders should also focus on creating a culture of psychological safety in the workplace and amplifying human interaction in order to create a more humanising workplace. Meetings are the most important aspect in terms of humanising interactions. Meetings should be an interaction where everyone can share the problems they’re struggling with, and what they can get help with. With L’Oréal’s Simplicity 2 initiative, for example, there is no meeting allowed on Monday before noon, making more efficient meetings (say, “45’ is the new 60’”), and decline meetings outside of working hours.

4. Taking a personalised approach

It’s crucial to have people-centric policies that create an interactive and flexible work culture. Everyone is unique with their objectives, goals, and priorities.

People must be given options to choose or to use the benefits that fit their needs. It’s important to recognise the different needs of different people and acknowledge them. L’Oréal has MyFlex, an additional benefit that employees can use for various purposes according to their liking. While most companies are fully back to working 5 days at the office, L’Oréal keeps 2 days of flexible working.

To continue with flexibility, organisations must enable the value addition that technology has brought, it’s not about replacement but it is about augmentation, of how we can be more efficient, better, and faster together.

In conclusion, if we want to become more human organisations, we must engage with our people and be available for them in every way possible.

References: https://hrsea.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/bringing-back-humanness-at-the-workplace-in-the-era-of-uncertainty/101282427

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