OREANDA-NEWS. August 22, 2014. PETRONAS won the fifth Asia’s Best Employer Brand Awards 2014 at the Pan Pacific Hotel, Singapore, cementing the oil and gas multinational’s position as one of the most reputable employers in the industry and region.

On hand to receive the award on behalf of PETRONAS Senior Vice President of Group Human Resource Management, Puan Raiha Azni Abdul Rahman was PETRONAS Head of Human Resource Transformation, Puan Bernadine Sammy.

She received the trophy and certificate from the awards’ advisory board members Dr Sanjay Muthal, who is the Executive Director of RGF Management Search, and Mr Ned Mody, who is the Site Head of Berkadia Services India.

“It came as a pleasant surprise to PETRONAS that we were granted the Asia’s Best Employer Brand Awards for 2014,” said Puan Raiha Azni.

The prestigious award recognised PETRONAS for its relentless efforts and investment in enhancing its human capital development, as well as human resource practices, policies and strategies towards offering appealing value proposition to increasingly diverse talent segments.

“PETRONAS has always believed in ‘building own timber’ to ensure we have a sustainable pool of talent to support the future growth and expansion of our businesses,” said Puan Raiha Azni.

“We are currently working on a number of initiatives to encourage educational foundations and capability development of our talent, as well as extending this to our local community as part of our corporate social responsibility in building pipeline of educated citizens.

“We continuously leverage on our own learning institutions, such as PETRONAS Leadership Centre (PLC) to nurture business-oriented leaders; Institut Teknologi Petroleum PETRONAS (INSTEP) to build technical skills; Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) to produce oil and gas technical graduates and research technologies, and Akademi Laut Malaysia (ALAM) as a Centre of Excellence for maritime education and training,” she added.

“The nurturing environment in PETRONAS, coupled with our robust business expansion, which provides an increasing number of exciting opportunities to prospective talents; as well as our commitment to being a responsible corporate citizen through our sustainable corporate responsibility initiatives in communities we operate – all these are factors, we believe, provide a strong value proposition for talents to be associated with the organisation,” said Puan Raiha Azni.

Asia’s Best Employer Brand Awards were jointly hosted by Employer Branding Institute, World HRD Congress and Stars of the Industry Group, supported by CHRO Asia as strategic partner and endorsed by Asian Confederation of Businesses. The awards were designed, owned and executed by Employer Branding Institute, an organisation managed by professionals from various countries and geographies who shared the same passion in human resources.

The awards acknowledged more than 100 organisations across Asia that demonstrated excellence in building their brands and identities as employers of choice visible through their human resource practices, polices and strategies, honouring exemplary work in employer banding in more than 20 Asian countries.

The selection of the awards winner was undertaken by a global research cell which constitutes professionals from different parts of Asia based on: 1, being exemplary in learning and development initiatives; 2, communicating distinctiveness in employee hiring, training and retention practices; and, 3, continuous innovation.

Some of the eminent personalities who were part of the jury included Global Chairman of World HRD Congress, Mr Michael McDonald; Global Chairman of Asia Pacific HRM Congress, Professor Tom Hilton; and, President of Foundation for Liberal & Management Education and India’s Iconic HR Leader, Professor Indira Parikh, among others.

On a separate note, in June this year, PETRONAS had also been recognised as the most coveted employers for 2014, unveiled by Universum, a global leader in employer branding, via the findings from its inaugural survey conducted among some 11,000 university students in Malaysia.

The oil and gas multinational was selected by those studying business, engineering, natural sciences and law as their Top 1 Ideal Employer.