An Initiative to Match Right Man for the Job

AN INITIATIVE TO MATCH RIGHT MAN FOR THE JOB

1. The evolutions of military affairs, globalization and the rapid advancement of information technology have brought about significant changes in the way the navies operate around the world. The advent of modern and sophisticated computer based systems and equipment has brought new challenges in human resource development, especially in developing countries. The days where the requirement for a minimum set of skills and competencies in managing analogue equipment and systems is something of the past. Today, operating and maintaining the systems and equipment in the navy require different sets of skills and competencies. As the saying goes, life was much simpler when Apple and Blackberry were just fruits. Hence, the existing human resource development programs need to be constantly reviewed and tailored to meet the ever changing challenges.    

1. Over the last eight decades, the RMN has transited through a passage that has transformed her from a brown water navy to a blue water navy. This in turn, necessitates the RMN to embrace the contemporary management tools and best practices applied by world class navies as well as established corporate organizations of the world.  The transformation, while beneficial has also brought about changes in work processes.  The renewed work processes have by and large required the navy to explore different fields of training so as to allow its people to acquire and develop necessary knowledge and skills.  Performing a job in the navy today is far more demanding in many ways and significantly different than two decades ago. Now, the people are required to think and work faster, to do more with less, to avoid doing more of the same and being more wary about stakeholders’ expectations and perception.  

1. Notwithstanding the challenges and more demanding job requirement, the RMN is also faced by other limitations such as scarce resources in discharging its duties especially in human resource.  Current government’s policy disallows any bidding for new billets in the civil services.  This means the RMN has to optimize the existing billets allocated in managing its human resources vis-a-vis fulfilling the more demanding expectations from its stakeholders. Therefore, creativity and innovation in human resource management is the only way forward to overcome most of the mentioned challenges. While the RMN envision the implementation of right man for the job concept for decades, the absence of a proper and systematic monitoring mechanism made the efforts to realize it an uphill task.

1. The critical need to address HRM issues and challenges has led to the development of a dedicated KPI (% of billets complemented by the right people) in the RMN strategic plan.  The initiatives to meet this KPI were designed to monitor and gauge how its personnel are being placed at various levels. It was a bold decision to embed this particular HR element in the RMN strategic plan given the risk of facing negative impact for not achieving the KPI. However, it was done based on the belief of the saying, what gets measured gets done. This in turn has brought about the special initiative called Billet Prerequisite (BPR).

1. In order to ensure the BPR project is developed in a coordinated and systematic manner, a dedicated team comprising of 6 officers and 8 ratings from various specializations were formed in Feb 2011. The main function of the team is to facilitate HR Dept to systematically identify suitable prerequisites for each and every billet in the navy. In addition, the team was tasked to develop and document these prerequisites in the central HR database system.  Once completed, the output will be a system that will facilitate speedy retrieval of human resource data and enable HR Dept to match personnel with the prerequisites to the right jobs more accurately. Accurate prerequisites shall enhance the HR Management Dept’s capability in Competency Management and development of a more realistic Succession Plan. Subsequently, appropriate training courses are made available to support the Navy Plan. The development of RMN BPR has necessitated a holistic approach to be undertaken so as to ensure the training and management of human resource are consolidated to ensure ROI and optimization of available resources in the RMN. BPR will also serve as a measurement tool to gauge the achievement and fulfilment of the KPI mentioned earlier.

1. It was indeed an ambitious project since it involved the development of prerequisites for more than fifteen thousand billets. It was also an exercise which was never attempted by any government agencies in Malaysia before. Therefore, there was no available template that could be referred to by the team as a guideline. The closest the team had as a reference was only a very brief overview on BPR attained from one of the regional navies. However, even though it was useful and the end-state of the project was similar, it was done using external consultants with over 100 million dollars budget within a time span of 5 years. The RMN team on the other hand, was tasked to complete the development of BPR without any assistance from external consultants or additional budget within two and a half years. Having laid down those facts, it would be perhaps stating the obvious to say the RMN BPR team was given a very challenging task.

1. Once established, the team wasted no time and quickly identified the major activities involved by developing the timeline for the project. The project was divided into 4 phases namely planning/coordination phase, data collection and compilation phase, prerequisite development phase and finally the implementation phase. In the first phase, team members were sent for appropriate courses to equip them with sufficient knowledge to perform this challenging task. Numerous coordination meetings were held with relevant departments that could contribute directly towards the successful completion of the project. At the same time, appropriate data collection tools were developed indigenously by the team to facilitate efficient and effective execution of subsequent phases of the project.

1. During the second phase, the team had to carry out data collection exercises through surveys in all 140 units where the RMN personnel are appointed nationwide. While conducting this exercise the team was also tasked to conduct audit on each billet in all the units surveyed. The auditing process entails identification of all the units’ core functions with the main objective to either add or reduce the existing billets allocated to them. Both activities were done simultaneously since it is imperative to review organisation structures according to current and future functions in order to establish appropriate prerequisites for their billets. It was indeed a tedious and time consuming process which took the team almost 18 months to complete.  Collected data were then compiled, scrutinised, filtered and uploaded into the central database system which serves as the master list.  Upon successful data compilation, the team finally had the ability to retrieve, select, extract and present required information needed by the HR Department to develop necessary action plan in realizing the implementation of the “right man for the job concept”.    

1. In the development phase, the processed BPR data were translated into BPR forms, which were then presented to eight committees. The committees are represented by all the trades and main sub-specializations representatives in the RMN, namely seaman, supply, engineering, submariners, special force, divers, hydrographers and air wing.  Fifty meetings and workshops were conducted involving approximately 500 man hours to complete this process. In addition, another committee chaired by the Assistant Chief of Staff Human Resource was formed in December 2012 to further scrutinise the output of those committees to ensure all the prerequisites and the additional training courses required were realistic and realisable.  This particular committee served as the final authority to approve the developed BPR for implementation.  The process of presenting to this committee was also time consuming and tedious as it involved another 20 sessions of discussion and deliberation.

1. The approved BPR was then implemented in stages. Since the RMN belief in the saying the navy exists because of the fleet, the implementation of BPR was started with the billets onboard all the ships in Jan 2013.  This was done simultaneously with the development of BPR for base units. By the end of Nov 2013, all other BPR for each and every billets involving RMN personnel were successfully completed. The entire development process took 35 months to complete.  

1. Currently, the implementation phase of BPR project is still at its infancy stage. However,  it has started to show some positive outcomes. The percentage of billets filled by right people in the fleet has increased from 58% in Dec 2012 to 72% in Dec 2013. The focus for 2014 is to further increase the percentage for the fleet while making efforts to gauge the percentage of billets filled in shore establishments.  

1. Even though the development of BPR took longer than anticipated, the delay was justified since the whole process of developing BPR was conducted in-house by naval personnel without the assistance of external consultants. Numerous issues and obstacles were faced during the development stage and a lot of valuable lessons were learnt through trial and error. This contributed towards the continuous improvement throughout the whole processes of BPR development. While it is perhaps still too early to cheer for its success, probably its timely to say that the RMN is in the right direction in identifying the measures required to effectively place competent personnel at every level of its organizational structure and hence getting closer to its goal to become a world class navy. The RMN can also be proud to be the first among the services in the Malaysian Armed Forces to use a set of documented criteria for the purpose of identifying and placing the right people at various billets.

1. The fact remains that, the BPR implementation process will take times and continuous efforts to mature before the desired end-state are achieved. Initiatives to further improve and update the newly established BPR will have to be within the RMN HR development main focus for years to come. Incrementally the “bar” needs to be raised with regards to the targeted KPI (in fulfilment of billets in the RMN with the right people) so as to drive the HR Department to be more creative and innovative in achieving the organizational goal. A success story such as this may be small to other big and advanced navies of developed countries, but for the RMN it is a significant step in its journey towards realizing its vision to be a world class navy. The RMN truly believes in its most valuable assets, which is its human resource. Therefore, it is absolutely vital to carefully train and place them to perform the right job. The optimization of the established BPR will certainly contribute significantly towards that.