Lyna Mohamad
Adinin Works and Engineering Sdn Bhd (AWE) has been working closely with various government agencies as well as its clients to increase recruitment and retention.
Partnering with Brunei LNG in the ‘EmployAbility programme enables AWE to further contribute ensuring a quality workforce.
This was said by AWE Managing Director Haji Musa bin Haji Adnin at the launch of EmployAbility yesterday.
“Over the years, we have participated in various youth training, graduate and national employment programmes and schemes. Our long standing Bruneianisation Policy and Mentorship Programme (launched in 2010) and on-the-job training have also made a tremendously positive impact to our local recruitment and retention to date,” he said.
AWE has employed some 900 local personnel or 65 per cent of their overall employee strength. In its Brunei LNG project, 57 per cent or 320 personnel are locals, with plans to breach the 400 mark this year.
“Nevertheless, we have faced a number of challenges. For example, in 2021, we recruited 180 locals out of which 115 or 65 per cent left us. Though we try to provide the best working environment, we are still disappointed in losing many locals every month for various reasons.
“As Brunei continues to be faced with staggering statistics in the numbers of unemployed youth, the company has made ‘Local Business Development (LBD)’ its corporate social responsibility.”
Meanwhile, Zainal Daud Sdn Bhd Managing Director Haji Zainal Abidin bin Haji Mohd Daud said it is timely for the programme to be launched as the skill level of local workforce needs to be elevated to meet the current industry standards both locally and Internationally.
“EmployAbility will equip the locals with technical and practical knowledge, thus improving their confidence level as well as making them self-reliant and marketable”.
Being associated with Brunei LNG as a business partner for almost 35 years now, Haji Zainal Abidin said the company will certainly contribute and support Brunei LNG on this new initiative, and commit and support the implementation. As a local company and as part of LBD, Zainal Daud has been employing and training the local workforce for several years with distribution of locals in their workforce ranging from semi-skilled to skilled technicians and engineers to managerial role.
Zainal Daud created the post of LBD manager 11 years ago to facilitate employing locals in the company. He managed to achieve the target at 82 per cent in its Brunei LNG operations as of December last year.
“Our efforts will continue in line with Brunei LNG’s LBD policy to maximise the contribution of locals in our operations,” he said.
As one of the business partners of EmployAbility, Exceltech Solutions Sdn Bhd Managing Director Hafriz Fayadh said the participation in EmployAbility marked another milestone for the company, including winning the Priority Integration Sector Award under Energy at the recent ASEAN Business Awards.
“As Brunei LNG business partner, we achieved our LBD contractual target last year with an encouragingly low employee turnover. But the implications of COVID has shown to us all that we need to operate differently now. This pandemic has shown our weaknesses, our society’s weaknesses and it has taught us that there has not been a better time to act and strengthen Brunei’s local resources and talent pool.”
Tendrill International Sdn Bhd has always been active in knowledge transfer and capacity building for the youth by providing internship programmes and support to institutionns.
Managing Director Albinus Khan also said the apprenticeship programme marks another milestone for Tendrill.
Established on 1987 as wholly owned local company, Tendrill has 346 employees, 83 per cent of which are locals.
