MUHAMAD NABIL FIKRI

FAL 12031053

OPERATION MANAGEMENT

Question 1 Based on the article, list the employability skills which required by graduates
in Malaysia.

1. Social and Interpersonal skills

2. Attitude and Adaptability skills
3. Learning skills
4. Entrepreneurship skills
5. Leadership skills
6. Industry-ready skills
7. Managing tasks
8. Solving problems
9. Decision making
10. Communication which is oral and written
11. Self-awareness
12. Critical thinking
13. Creative thinking
14. Preparedness to serve others

MUHAMAD NABIL FIKRI

FAL 12031053

OPERATION MANAGEMENT

Question 2 Based on Malaysian Transformational Programmes, determine the

employability skills in order to become a Quality Corporate Entrepreneurial in Business
Industry.

Employability skills are one of the soft skills which are as important as technical skills
and should be acquired by an employee in the industrial sector today. Unfortunately not all
employees today acquired employability skills that are expected by the employer. Malaysia is
going through an economic transformation and fast entering the industrialization era. This
development shows that its industries are progressing very fast and becoming more
technologically advanced. Therefore, Malaysia needs more expert work force to fulfil the
needs and requirement of the industries.
The Malaysian government recognises the need to develop the country's education system
to achieve its goal of becoming a developed nation, identifying education as one of the
National Key Economic Areas (NKEAs) to focus on to implement high-impact projects. The
measures introduced in the budget are in line with the initiatives in the preliminary report on
the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025 launched by the Ministry of Education to
transform the national education system into a high-performing system.
One of the aspirations in the blueprint is to provide equal access to quality education of an
international standard. In previous years, as part of the government's efforts to provide quality
education, tax incentives were given to private higher educational institutions, technical and
vocational institutions, profit and non-profit-oriented private schools and international
schools. Recognising the importance of early childhood education in a child's development,
this budget sees a shift in focus to pre-school education.
The revamping of the education system will be guided by the National Education
Philosophy, which was introduced in 1989 and remains the cornerstone of all education
2

MUHAMAD NABIL FIKRI

FAL 12031053

OPERATION MANAGEMENT

transformation efforts. During the Plan period, to further reinforce this philosophy, emphasis
will be placed on the participation in sports and co-curricular activities in schools to
contribute towards character building of students. The education system will reinforce the
importance of values and ethics as these represent critical building blocks on the journey to
Vision 2020. The goal of this philosophy is to further develop the potential of individuals in a
holistic and integrated manner to produce individuals who are intellectually, spiritually,
emotionally and physically balanced and harmonious.
Employability skills can be effectively assessed where the specific skill and its
application is described in course materials and learning objectives, and where it is clearly
located within the context of a given discipline.
Employability skills are teachable skills and may be taught in both school and
employment settings. Goals and objectives for teaching employability skills should be set.
Instruction should be designed to ensure those goals and objectives are reached. Parents need
to be involved in goal setting and modelling behaviour for in-school youth. Teach
employability skills using a democratic approach so that students awareness of values,
attitudes, and worker responsibilities is increased.
Although the academic skill level required by some entry-level jobs may be low, basic
academic skills are still essential for high job performance. Ideally, new hires will have the
ability and will want to learn. They also need the ability to listen to and read instructions and
then to carry out those instructions. When asked for information, these individuals should be
able to respond appropriately both orally and in writing, including recording and relaying
information. Reading ability includes comprehending what has been read and using a variety
of written materials, including graphs, charts, tables and displays. Entry level employees also
need the ability to complete basic math computations accurately.

MUHAMAD NABIL FIKRI

FAL 12031053

OPERATION MANAGEMENT

Employability skills can be gained in lots of ways and in many areas of the life, including
at school, in the community, at work, and through hobbies and sport. Employability skills are
required to gain employment or establish an enterprise. We as the employers have identified
four groups of skills which we will consider as essential to successful workplace performance
in all employment.
As for our entrepreneurship development, we had come out with for important areas to
manage the employability skills among the employees, they are:

Planning and organising.

Self-management.

Teamwork.

Technology.

MUHAMAD NABIL FIKRI

FAL 12031053

OPERATION MANAGEMENT

Planning and Organising Skills

Planning and organizing skills at workplace are one of the many important skills that
are necessary to become a good employee. Most of us need to multitask on different projects
at the same time. Each project will have different goals and separate deadlines. An
unorganized person may get confused among different projects, which may lead to
undesirable consequences. For example, company may suffer heavy losses, leading the
person to lose his job, the only solution to do one's work efficiently at office is by becoming
an organized person. Though there are several books and websites that giving advice to
people on how to become an organized person, many times people are not really able to
follow them. This is because, just by knowing about the management skills in the workplace
will not make one an organized person, rather, one has to be determined and put in the best
efforts to change one's old unorganized habits.
Therefore, we have come out with some ideas to help the employees to be more
organize person in our workplace so that they can contribute something to the company:

Organize the Desk - Many people have a habit to pile their desks with different types
of files, papers and official documents. Due to this, they may have to spend half of
their working time searching for what they want. Moreover, it becomes easy to lose
valuable files and documents when desks are cluttered. Hence, the first step to
organize your work is to clean up the clutter. It is important to file papers and
documents into proper files regularly. Every single thing should have a specific place,
and it should be put back into that place after use. In this way, you would not have to
waste your time in searching for important things. Rather, when all the things are
readily available, you will actually be able to work faster and complete your work on
time.

MUHAMAD NABIL FIKRI

FAL 12031053

OPERATION MANAGEMENT

Organize the Information - At the work place, you will have to deal with various
documents containing important information. Even though you have the habit of
putting these documents into files, be sure that you do not do it in a haphazard manner
or else it will not serve the purpose. In other words, there has to be some kind of
organization even while sorting out important documents. There are various methods
through which you can do this. You can use the three binder or the colour coding
method to sort out all the crucial information. Even if you are using the computer,
assign a separate folder for different data files to avoid wasting time searching for the
correct information. Make sure to allot a unique number to each file or folder. You
may create an index on your computer giving details of file numbers and their
contents. This will help you pick out correct file at any given time by merely running
a search on your computer for the documents. Basically, you can create your own
unique way of organizing information which you find comfortable.

Planning - Once you have cleared your desk and sorted all the information, the next
step is to plan your work. Planning is one of the most important skills at workplace.
Before you start your day at the office, it is important to plan each and every aspect of
your work. However, there are many people who think that organizing and planning is
a tiring and time-consuming process. But, what they do not realize is that planning
their work will give a general idea of what they have to do throughout the day. You
can make use of the day planners which will remind you of the activities that you
have to do on a particular day. With the day planner, you can make a list of things that
you have to do, rank them as per their importance, and accomplish them.

Managing Time - Another very important organizational skill that is important not
only in the work place, but also in our everyday life, is time management. There are
many people who regularly complain about not having time to finish their work.
6

MUHAMAD NABIL FIKRI

FAL 12031053

OPERATION MANAGEMENT

Though it is not possible to change the amount of hours we have in a day, instead, it is
possible to finish our work by properly managing the available time. For this, you
have to plan well about how you are going to spend your day. Allot time for each
work and strive to finish it in that time. In this way, you will be able to accomplish
your work on time and sometimes before time also.

MUHAMAD NABIL FIKRI

FAL 12031053

OPERATION MANAGEMENT

Self Management Skills

Self-management skills are those abilities that allow an employee to feel more
productive when doing daily routine regardless of the working environment. Well-developed
self-management skills will help you efficiently communicate with co-workers, management
and customers, make right decisions, plan your working time, and keep your body healthy.
The development of self-management skills is one of management best practices for
those people who have decided to become more productive employees. While companies
tend to spend large amounts of money and energy to provide their employees with special
self-management skills & training, each worker can personally organize self-assessment
surveys to define whether he or she has the required skills set.
Such an idea is extremely important for workers who aggressively look at career
development. Without the personal effort for developing self-organization and selfmanagement skills, its hard to imagine a productive employee who succeeds in career
promotion and professional advancement.
To improve self management skills, employers often organize special self-assessment
training. Usually such training is conducted by the Human Resource department or external
trainers are employed. To develop self-management skills of the personnel, our company can
organize self-development training sessions.
We are interested in hiring a productive individual who has well-developed selfmanagement skills because such an employee can fit the companys requirements and show
better productivity. For employees its highly important to develop self-management skills
and abilities because higher productivity paves the way for career promotion and professional
advancement. In any way, both the employer and the employee will benefit from developing
abilities and skills for self-management. Here is a list of the key self management skills
required for an employee to be more productive:
8

MUHAMAD NABIL FIKRI

FAL 12031053

OPERATION MANAGEMENT

Stress Resistant - The first and foremost skill of self-management refers to a personal
ability to resist any stressful situations. When you develop this self management skill,
you can avoid many mistakes that people usually make when being stressed out.
Because a stressful situation usually blocks our ability to think and make rational
decisions, we cant cope even with the simplest tasks at the workplace, so our
productivity goes down and we get frustrated. Thats why you need to develop this
ability in order to be a productive employee able to offer resistance to a stressful
situation.

Problem Solving - The second self-management skill requires you to use your brain
as a mechanism for making right decisions. Even the hardest tasks and challenges can
be efficiently handled if the mental process in your head is always in progress.
Problem solving requires you to operate facts and make right assumptions to analyze
the situation, review problems, and find effective solutions. Keeping your mind sober
allows you to take right decisions even in the toughest situations.

Communication - The way how you can communicate information to others will
determine your success. Communication is one of the key self-management skills
required for both personal development and career advancement. Being able to
efficient communicate any information to other people means that you can share
information with the minimized possible distortion and in the fastest possible way.
Productive employees always can efficiently communicate with their colleagues and
management because they comprehensively understand the value of clearly and
timely delivered information. So be sure you work on developing this skill for selfmanagement.

Time Management - Producing expected results in a timely manner determines the

success of our effort. Time management is an extremely important self-management
9

MUHAMAD NABIL FIKRI

FAL 12031053

OPERATION MANAGEMENT

skill that makes an employee be more productive. Theres a great variety of time
management techniques that show you how to develop this skill for self-management.
Just use the web search to find plenty of them.

Memory - An ability to memorize events, names, and facts which allows an

employee to remember about everything he or she needs to do daily tasks and duties.
Among other self-management skills examples, committing to memory requires your
personal effort for developing your mind abilities. There are a lot of techniques for
improving memory, so use the web search to find them.

Physical Activity - Keeping your body in good shape is a critical self-management

skill example. When you feel healthy and have a robust nervous system, you can do
more things and cope with many challenges. Physical activity allows you to
strengthen your body, keep your muscles up, and be more productive.

10

MUHAMAD NABIL FIKRI

FAL 12031053

OPERATION MANAGEMENT

Teamwork
Teamwork has becoming more commonly to be used and widely accepted from time
to time as way to increase productivity in the workplace. It is a true and well proven fact that
if we work individually we are more likely to be ineffective as compared to when we work in
a team. The profitability of a process in a company strongly depends on the teamwork
strategies and programs that are adopted.
Teamwork apparently functions in a collective manner. Every employee of the
company has his own set of skills and abilities, and if he uses it for a particular task that does
not majorly require his capabilities, the employee performance is not shown much. However,
for doing the same task, if the employee works in a team and takes guidance from the team
members, all the skills of the members collectively can make a substantial amount of
difference in the quality as well as the quantity of the productivity. Moreover, a team member
can also enhance his present skill sets by learning from his colleagues.
These are some essential skills that are required to be a good team member. Owing to the
importance of teamwork in employee output, companies today are conducting professional
teamwork training programs and workshops for corporate. We ourselves had identified
several ways to develop the teamwork skills among employees:

Persuading - Persuasion is also another essential and important skill that you need to
possess for working in a team. If a team member does not agree with your decision, it
is not right to take on a fight. The best and professional way is to explain to him the
benefits of your decision. You need to be friendly and at the same time professional,

while persuading team members.

Problem Solving and Communicating - If you are problem solver, you would play a
very important part in the functioning of a team. A team will in no way like you if you
11

MUHAMAD NABIL FIKRI

FAL 12031053

OPERATION MANAGEMENT

just sit idle and do not try to resolve the barriers that come in the processes. And to
solve problems, it is again very crucial to communicate with team members as well as

others entities from where you can get assistance in problem solving.
Respecting and Listening - Respect is another essential in teamwork skills. You
should have a respect for your team members with regards to their suggestions and
views. The team will certainly reach a good decision if the suggestions and ideas of
all team members are considered equally. Effective listening skills are a must for the
team leadership. Being a leader, it is not proper to force your will on others. There is
no doubt that you only will be taking the final decision, however, you also have to

listen to the reviews, suggestion, and ideas of the team members.

Helping and Guiding - The most significant skills required for teamwork is the
willingness to help and guide other employees. For your team to be effective, you
should share your knowledge and understanding with the team members. You should
be helpful in clearing any doubts the team members have regarding processes and

practices that you are adept in.

Participating and Suggesting - It is certain that for being a team member, you need
to participate in team activities. Participation also relates to suggesting any points and
plans that can be profitable for the team and project. With participation and
suggestion, you can use your set of skills in a good way. As mentioned earlier, the
team will produce more if all members agree to participate in the decision-making
process.

Technology Skills
Technological proficiency is essential for most business positions in the modern work
climate. Internet-based faxing, laser printers, networked computers and advanced phone
systems are common devices in businesses of all sizes. Integrating technology into the
workplace offers productivity enhancements essential to remaining competitive. For small
12

MUHAMAD NABIL FIKRI

FAL 12031053

OPERATION MANAGEMENT

businesses, technology can replace extra employee expenses, minimize geographic

differences and help project a professional image. Increased technology may require
employee training to ensure new technology devices are used correctly and integrated
seamlessly into daily business processes.
Relaying information quickly and effectively is a cornerstone workplace skill.
Technology innovation has changed the method of communication transmission, but has not
decreased the need for effective communications. Email, instant chat programs and Internet
connectivity allow workers to quickly respond to customer questions, coordinate with
geographically dispersed co-workers and resolve problems outside of traditional work hours.
While technology integration increases the speed and methods of communication, the basic
need for clear, professional messages remains the same.
More skilled workers can improve the output of the firm in various ways, such as
undertaking tasks more quickly and with fewer mistakes, performing more complex or
responsible tasks, and implementing new technologies. Much of the evidence on the value to
firms of skills is from the estimated relationship between an individuals education and their
earnings. However, other cognitive capacities and behavioural traits also seem to be
influencing earnings outcomes, such as motivation, trustworthiness, and adaptability. Work
experience is also rewarded. Thus, firms seek skills and abilities which are only in part
formed within the formal education/or training system. Nevertheless, the evidence reported
here and later points to a positive relationship between higher skill levels and both earnings
and firm productivity. Those are some skills that we need our employees to be attached with:

13

MUHAMAD NABIL FIKRI

FAL 12031053

OPERATION MANAGEMENT

Access and Evaluate Information - Access information efficiently (time) and

effectively (sources). Evaluate information critically and competently.

Use and Manage Information - Use information accurately and creatively for the
issue or problem at hand. Manage the flow of information from a wide variety of
sources. Apply a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding
the access and use of information.

Analyze Media - Understand both how and why media messages are constructed, and
for what purposes. Examine how individuals interpret messages differently, how
values and points of view are included or excluded, and how media can influence
beliefs and behaviours. Apply a fundamental understanding of the ethical or legal
issues surrounding the access and use of media.

Create Media Products - Understand and utilize the most appropriate media creation
tools, characteristics and conventions. Understand and effectively utilize the most
appropriate expressions and interpretations in diverse, multi-cultural environments.

Apply Technology Effectively - Use technology as a tool to research, organize,

evaluate and communicate information. Use digital technologies. Communication and
networking tools and social networks appropriately to access, manage, integrate,
evaluate and create information to successfully function in a knowledge economy.
Apply a fundamental understanding of the ethical or legal issues surrounding the
access and use of information technologies.

Employability is not rocket science, its common sense. Most of us are able to evidence
and demonstrate it. However, as you go through a gruelling job application process, you can
14

MUHAMAD NABIL FIKRI

FAL 12031053

OPERATION MANAGEMENT

easily forget that recruiters are looking to employ a person and not a list of high-level skills
and competencies. Keep that in mind and be aware of your qualities, value them and look out
for opportunities for demonstrating them.
The best way to develop employability skills and qualities, of course, is to be
employed in any kind of employment will do. The trick is to see that experience in terms of
your transferable skills and overall capability. No employment is ever a waste of time. Look
for opportunities outside work. Volunteering is always a good idea, if you have the time. You
can also take on more responsibility in leisure, sport and non-work activities: organising an
event, taking minutes at a meeting - or just contributing and making an effort.
Employability skills are general skills that are needed to get most jobs, but they also
help the employees to stay in a job and work your way to the top. While there will always be
some job-specific skills that an employer is looking for, most employers will also want you to
have some general skills. Chances are they will be asked questions about both job-specific
skills and general employability skills in a job interview.

15