KUALA LUMPUR (March 30): Corporations need to change their ways of managing their talent resources to halt brain drain in the country, according to outsourcing and workforce solutions provider Kelly Outsourcing and Consulting Group (KellyOCG).

In a statement March 29 in response to an article entitled “Malaysia’s brain drain reaching critical stage” in Asean Today on March 18, KellyOCG Asia Pacific vice president Anthony Raja Devadoss said corporations need to priotise having a talent supply chain management strategy immediately.

Asean Today had said that 26% of Malaysians who have US$30 million of investable assets are planning to migrate within the next 10 years.

Devadoss said they needed to accept that the brain drain issue was not going away for the next few years at least, and advised corporations to plan to move away from the traditional way of employment to a robust talent engagement framework.

He said KellyOCG believed Malaysia’s fundamental workforce and talent was highly adaptable to a “Free Agent” model, especially in the Gen Y and Gen Z pool of mid-20s to early 40s employees.

Devadoss said adopting a ‘Free Agent’ model as part of the company’s Talent Supply Chain Management (SCM) strategy fits well to an overall flexible and varied approach to sourcing workers for the company.

He said the non-traditional way of filling up the need for a workable workforce in a company, besides full time employees, may involve temporary staff, independent contractors/freelancers, service providers and alumni, retirees and interns to make up for a more fortified SCM strategy.

Devadoss said there were numerous ways and action points that corporations and organisations can take, in order to do something about the impact of Malaysia’s brain drain problem on their talent and human resource requirements. These include talent optimisation, good succession planning, building employee competencies, managing transitions and much more.

“But immediately and most fundamentally, KellyOCG is saying: First, work at a Non-Traditional Talent Supply Chain Management (SCM) Strategy that incorporates the free agent workstyle trend that we believe will work quite well in Malaysia’s corporate culture,” he said.