Kuala Lumpur, 2 March 2023 – Human Resource Development Corporation (HRD Corp) has embarked on a comprehensive digital transformation effort geared at helping Malaysian talents to embrace learning and development opportunities within the digital economic landscape. These cover internal initiatives aimed at improving employee efficiency and external programmes geared towards enhancing the agency’s stakeholder experience.

This transformation is needed to support HRD Corp's rapid growth in the past year, as it saw the number of employees trained surge to 879,000 in 2022 from 348,724 in 2021, and the amount of employer levy collected grew to RM1.811 billion last year, an increase of 113.6% from the previous year.

HRD Corp is also aiming to train up to 1 million Malaysian workers in the next five years for digital-related jobs. This is important, given that the digital economy currently contributes over 22.6% to Malaysian GDP and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.59% per year for the next three years.

According to the Minister of Human Resources, YB Tuan V. Sivakumar, “HRD Corp will play an instrumental role in driving the ministry’s human capital development aspirations in 2023 and beyond. The ministry is committed to empowering Malaysians to train, grow and sustain careers in high-value digital economic jobs in cybersecurity, AI, FinTech, IR4.0 and more. At the same time, talent development is not just about productivity alone. We must provide Malaysians opportunities for growth and satisfaction while safeguarding their health and wellbeing."

HRD Corp’s digital transformation began in 2020 and centres on five (5) core priorities; Channel Expansion, Platform Modernisation, Delivering an Analytics Centre of Excellence, Improving Operational Efficiency and Strengthening Cybersecurity.

These efforts started at the internal organisational level, with the introduction of HRD Corp’s hybrid multi-cloud ecosystem that improves the organisation’s speed, efficiency, and agility while providing employees with the safety and flexibility to work anytime and from anywhere.

This eventually led to an external transformation that has enhanced its stakeholders' experience and provided them with the ease of doing business with HRD Corp. For example, HRD Corp introduced its 24-hour conditional approval for grant applications on 9 January this year, which uses machine learning technology to automate the approval process.

Since then, 21,392 applications have been approved, for 8,212 employers, with over RM117 million in training grants committed. The new tech-enabled process has also allowed HRD Corp to reduce its average grants approval processing time to 13 hours and 13 minutes.

Beyond that, HRD Corp’s new tech infrastructure is also designed to improve customer satisfaction. Its AI Chatbot, for example, provides faster access to information about HRD Corp's products and services while optimising customer case resolution.

The agency is also the first government organisation to deploy its very own super app, MyHRDCORP. The super app is designed to bring all its services together on one platform. To date, MyHRDCORP has received over 16,000 downloads and is widely used by HRD Corp’s Employers, Trainers, Training Providers, and individuals looking for employment and upskilling opportunities. Soon, employers will be able to use MyHRDCORP to pay levy, monitor grant application approval status, and observe employee training outcomes. Trainers and training providers will also be able to obtain their training scores and ratings from participants from the super app.

These efforts are in line with the organisation's evolution following its rebranding in 2021, which saw HRD Corp go from an agency that collected levy and funded employer training programmes to becoming the custodian of Malaysia's talent development, providing training, placement, employment and income-generation opportunities to all Malaysians.

HRD Corp is aiming to become a fully digital organisation by 2025. To that end, it believes that the internal digital transformation changes it has carried out have paved the way for the external impact and value that it is delivering to its stakeholders today.