Welcome in English or Ahlan Wasahlan in Arabic or Selamat Datang in Malay.

I have been a Human Resource professional for more than 20 years working in a wide spectrum of areas within Human Resource. I have progressed up the corporate ladder from the very bottom with rapid and multiple promotions, praise to God. My main interests are motivation and child development

If you have any specific queries you would like to post to me, please email to amzzah_naseehah@ymail.com.

Kind regards
hjmalek

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Sunday 31 August 2008

Family outing at Kompleks PKNS, Shah Alam

Yesterday my family and I attended a khenduri (thanksgiving ceremony) in Shah Alam at my previous boss's house. The khenduri was held in conjunction to the upcoming fasting month, which is expected to be on Monday 1st September 2008. After the khenduri, we stopped by at Masjid Shah Alam to perform our noon prayer. As my wife had always been interested to shop at Kompleks PKNS, Shah Alam, we then headed towards it after the prayer.

Kompleks PKNS, Shah Alam brings me a lot of nostalgic memories as I had once lived in Shah Alam for three years as I was then studying at Institut Teknologi MARA, ITM from 1987 until 1989. ITM had been upgraded into university status in 1999 and more popularly known now as Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM),

We spent close to two hours shopping at the complex. The complex is famous for its wide range of malay boutiques where one can purchase baju kurung (a traditional female attire), jubah (robes) for males and females, tudung and selendang (female head scarves), brooches, songkok and kopiah (a traditional male head gear), capal (a traditional male sandal) at affordable prices.

Compared to Wisma Yakin, another smaller complex in Kuala Lumpur and Pekan Rabu complex in Alor Setar that I had written in my earlier posting in this blog, all three complexes sell almost the same range of products and Kompleks PKNS is somewhere in between all three in term of size and varieties. However, it is a lot more convenient to shop at Kompleks PKNS as the shops are more organised and there are lot more modern and up-to-date designs available here.


My wife bought for herself two pairs of modern jubah with local Malaysian motives, my daughter who had always been reluctant to participate actively in our family shopping outings had a field day of purchasing two very beautiful pairs of jubah and selendang which she had selected herself. My two boys got their hip jackets and I got myself a very nice pair of capal. We headed back home at about 5.30 pm to avoid the pre-Merdeka traffic.

Saturday 30 August 2008

de templer Restaurant - The Authentic Chinese Muslim Cuisine

Last Friday, I had dinner with my family at this restaurant. It is located at Jalan Melati Utama, 4, Melati Utama, Setapak, Kuala Lumpur, along the MRR2 highway in front of Platinum Victory Condominiums. We had crabmeat and shark fin soup, sizzling prawn, deep-fried cuttlefish, dried chilli chicken, brinjals with salted eggs, fried eggs with big onions and plain rice.

While having our dinner, my eldest son and I were curious as we thought the restaurant is run by Chinese Muslims, however it was not seem to us they were Chinese Muslims, probably converts. I then had a chat with one of the waitresses and from the way she provided the information to me, she seems to me as part of the business establishment, more so that her facial feature looks like one of the more senior person operating the restaurant. She told me that there are four partners of the restaurant, three Malay Muslims and one Chinese non-Muslim. The operator is the Chinese partner but the three Malay Muslims were not there at the restaurant. She told us the restaurant had only started operations at this location on Sunday 24 August 2008.

From the brochure she gave to us, we knew that the restaurant had already started operation as Jinjang Fish Head in 1999, specialising in Thong San fish head and vegetables. It then opened up its second branch in Kepong and the third branch in Rawang. Throughout this period, the restaurant also appeared in Chinese language TV programmes such as 8TV "Ho Chiak" and Astro Wah Li Tai "1 Day 5 Meal". Realising the potential of Halal market, de templer Restaurant was established as a joint venture with the three Malay partners.

Unlike Cheng Ho Restaurant which we had lunch a month ago (which was featured in my earlier blog posting), de templer Restaurant is very spacious, twice the size of Cheng Ho Restaurant. However unlike Cheng Ho Restaurant, there were not many customers at de templer Restaurant when we were there. However I would say that the food was more delicious and the service was much better at Cheng Ho. Nonetheless, I would confess that the brinjals with salted eggs at de templer was the most delicious brinjals that I ever had. Similar to Cheng Ho, de templer also does not serve any dessert, but we had plenty of choice on drinks, which we did not have at Cheng Ho.

September Milenia Muslim magazine with part 4 of my collumn is available now


You may get a copy at the local bookstore, newstand or subscribe directly from Milenia Muslim (<--click here).

Sunday 24 August 2008

Self awareness a key to self improvement and success.

I had an opportunity to attend a two day workshop on Service Excellence for Leaders at the Le Meridien hotel, KL conducted by Ling Turner on Thursday and Friday 21 and 22 August. There were a few powerful tools that were shared during the workshop. One of the tools that had made a big impact on me was during the feedback session.


The feedback session was organised with 7 participants and a facilitator. Each participant were requested to provide three motivational and formative feedbacks. Motivational feedback is anything about a person that is positive and pleasant which constitutes as a motivation. Whereas formative feedback is anything about a person that requires his or her improvement. Combining both of the feedback would ensure success in achieving Service Excellence.


I was very much impressed with the formative feedbacks that I received. The theme was similar with four out of the seven participants. I realised that though I had done certain well intention actions, however the receiver had understood them differently. I became aware that my verbal and non-verbal communication had to be in line with my intention. I then openly shared my plan of actions with the group to improve on this area to ensure perpetual success in the operations of my organisation.


At the end of the workshop, the facilitator congratulated me for being positive and open to the formative feedback. I in turn thank the facilitator for the learning and guidance that were an eye opener to me.

Tuesday 19 August 2008

Family Holiday in Alor Setar 16-17 August

In 2006, my family and I attended a wedding reception of my friend's daughter at Teluk Intan, Perak. We stayed for two nights in one of the hotels in Teluk Intan town and took the opportunity to explore the town and it's surrounding during our stay there. After that pleasant outing, I have always dreamt of hitting the road visiting all the cities and towns around Peninsular Malaysia with my family. As part of the plan to realise this dream, I purchased a seven seater Hyundai Trajet in 2007. However time had always been elusive for me to realise my dream.
However, the opportunity came when one of my staff invited me to attend his wedding reception at Sintok, located about 52 kilometres from Alor Setar, the state capital of Kedah. I then planned that I would be able to stay overnight in Alor Setar and visit the city as well as its surrounding areas such as Kuala Kedah and Changlun.

We hit the road Saturday morning 16 August and took the North South Highway. We passed through Permatang Pauh at about 11 am and saw the roads and overhead bridges were ordained with parties' flags and banners. We did not stop and went straight ahead towards Alor Setar. We reached Alor Setar at about 1.30 pm. We stayed at Alor Setar Seri Malaysia hotel, which was near the Darul Aman Stadium and Wat Nikrodharam (a Thai Buddhist monastery). We took the family room at an expensive rate of RM180 per night. I wish either the state government of Kedah or the Federal Government would ensure that room rates in Alor Setar would be as affordable as possible for local tourists to contribute to the state tourism industry. However the lunch at the hotel restaurant was reasonable with the delicious local meals and nice ambience.

It was raining after we had lunch so we were trapped in the hotel. After the rain stopped in the evening, we went out for dinner. We had a simple dinner and explored Alor Setar and Kuala Kedah. We passed through the modern Alor Setar Tower and the historical Balai Besar, Balai
Nobat, Mahkamah Tinggi Negeri, Masjid Zahir, Pekan Rabu and Muzium Diraja Kedah.

The next morning, we visited Pekan Rabu again. Pekan Rabu specialties are it's many stalls selling a variety of items from delicious tidbits, traditional Malay costume to beautiful handicraft. We had our breakfast there and tasted the otak-otak. Then we went for a pre-Eid Hari Raya shopping. My sons had their full baju Melayu attire with songkok, my wife bought some tudungs, my daughter had her beautiful kaftans and I got myself two high grade but very cheap (compared to KL's price) kopiah.

Then we headed to the hotel to freshen ourselves. We checked out from the hotel at 1 pm. We attended the wedding and along the way to Sintok we saw endless padi fields. We then left for KL. We intentionally went out of the North South Highway at Permatang Pauh to see for ourselves the by-election fever where Anwar Ibrahim is trying to gain re-entry into Parliament. Then we followed the old road to KL until we reentered the North South Highway at Changkat Jering. The journey was worth the time and money spent.

Friday 15 August 2008

2 nights at Tawakal Hospital

As I have mentioned via my Twitter, my daughter was admitted into Takaful Hospital on Tuesday 12 Aug, suspicion of either allergy or viral infection. She had red patches all over her body and was having fever on and off the past three weeks. She was weak, had loss some weight and had not been going to school on many days during the period.

At first, I was reluctant to admit my daughter into the hospital as the doctor did not seem to be sure of the cause of the illness, but the doctor said it was abnormal for someone to be having on and off fever for three weeks and by admitting her, the hospital would be able to monitor her. I then relented.

Next day, Wednesday, I went to the office to attend a meeting. I then left for the hospital right after that and stayed there for the next two nights to accompany my daughter. My wife was unable to take leave of absence, as she had to attend to some important duties at her work place.

Something funny happened on Thursday as I had only a piece of sarong with me, I had to wear my wife's batik sarong for prayer as my sarong was soiled. My daughter was laughing the whole day, as she had never seen me wearing a batik sarong before.

Several blood tests came in that Thursday morning and they confirm that my daughter had viral infection. Her x-ray did not show anything though. There was a particular test that had to be sent to Australia for testing. This reminded me of Anwar Ibrahim's arsenic case back in 2000. Hope nothing as serious as that.

Thursday afternoon was uneventful though. The hospital administration clerk came to my daughter's room and asked me to sign an AIA insurance form. I was confused as I was not covered by the AIA insurance medical scheme as my company would bore all medical expenses. I had several exchanges with her in the room and her supervisor over the phone. However, the administrators were very adamant that I sign the form otherwise they will not accept my company Guarantee Letter. Well it was a threat all right and I had no alternative but to sign the form. It will be interesting how they would deal with the form when they found out that it was not necessary.

My family and I had several picnic like meals in the hospital room, my two boys would come in the evening after school with my wife and we will have dinner on the room floor. It reminded me of my upbringing at Sungai Penchala, we ate on the floor all the time. It was fun nonetheless.

My daughter was discharged from the hospital today afternoon and we had a proper dinner at Restoran Chiengrai, the famous restaurant where practically many Malay producers had filmed their movies or dramas there. Well my family is my celebrity.

Monday 11 August 2008

Interview for Quality Assurance Analyst

I had recently interviewed 3 candidates for the position of Quality Assurance Analyst. The role and responsibility of this position are very much related to internal auditing, however I have a lot more ideas in store as I intend to develop the team I am managing to be in full compliance with the Control Framework structure as specified by my organisation's Financial Controller Management unit.

As my team is big (37 employees organised into 3 teams) and they are involve in payroll data maintenance, the biggest challenge I am facing is ensuring accuracy and integrity of data. I have a goal of zero error in payroll data where the processes are outline as follows :

  • Detect and correct error before payroll processing
  • Ownership of error

  • Learnings from error

  • Avoidance of recurring error

I structure my interview into 3 main ares, securing evidence of functional capabilities in

1) Human Resources,
2) Customer/Shared Services
3) Auditing.

Secondary to that, I also explore evidence of teamwork and good interpersonal behaviours.

One of the interview candidates had a very high score in Auditing and show evidence of resourcefulness in acquiring information when there seems to be the lack of it. Though she has little knowledge of Customer/Shared Services, she has high score on teamwork as she leads a team of 4 in her current role and had shared evidence of how she had organised the team.

However one of the questions I asked which normally most of the interview candidates would feel uneasy to answer is "how do you handle difficult situation or person?" Normally I will not post the question as such. In this instance I have asked her "have you had any experience in either handling a difficult situation or person?" She was quite for a while, and then she answered unassuaringly, "Yes, my boss, the accountant". I then asked her to elaborate. She then opened up and told me that her boss had always gone back on time even during critical period of account closing and reconciliation. Hence, she had difficulty in getting support post the normal working period. So any outstanding matters had to be carried forward to the next day, which delay the recon and reporting. When this happen, the accountant would then make a fuss and she will keep quite.

I then asked her, "What is your expectation from your boss?" She answered, "as a boss, at least he should understand the difficulty of his subordinates in completing the work without his assistance and make some time to stay back or ask the subordinates whether they require his assistance before he goes back". Then I twist the question and asked her "if I were to switch the role where you are the boss, what would you think of your subordinates?" She did not get what I meant in the first instance. Then I rephrased myself "you are the boss, everyday you go off on time as you need to fetch your children from school. You always wondering why is your subordinate had never asked you any question on her work before you leave. However whenever the dateline for recon and reporting are up, she is always behind time." Hearing that she laughed in agreement.

Sometime in life, we always expect others to know what to do and to take the first step. However, it is a lot easier for us to take the initiative and pull out the first step as we have then the control and the steer.

____________________________
photos from http://www.freefoto.com

Sunday 10 August 2008

Tips on how not to do business

My brother and I own a plot of land, about 3.5 acres, somewhere near the new Batang Kali town centre. The land was a former rubber smallholder plantation. I once had tried to replant the land with local fruits but was conned and had to endure with a loss of a few thousand ringgit plus a motorcycle that I bought for the helper. The rubber trees are about 20 over years and not much interest was given on the land as it has hilly terrains, a bit secluded with an access dirt road to it from a distance of a kilometre away from the Batang Kali to Genting Highlands main road (my land is marked with the red arrow and yellow background in the map below).



A few people had approached me to tap the rubber trees, but the yield would be little, about RM50 to RM100 a month. Three months ago, I met a young entrepreneur, let us call him Angah, who owns a company that runs a business on consultancy and agricultural venture namely herbs. The company also extracts and clears rubber trees and then replants trees on the land with higher potential returns. When we first met, he portrayed himself as a vibrant, highly knowledgeable and professional young entrepreneur. I was not impressed as my experience in interviewing employment candidates; action always speaks louder than words. After the first meeting where we explored the venture, we went to visit the land. I showed him the area and asked him to locate the land boundaries for himself, which are marked with planted stones, quite customary from the colonial era. Angah said he would do that with his workers and then would provide me with a quotation.

A week later we met and Angah handed to me a quotation and letter of intent to extract and clear the land. After perusing the documents and listening to what he had said, I told him that he had probably over estimated the land as it was much bigger than what my brother and I really own. Angah then agreed to get a survey done on the land and would provide me with another quotation and letter of intent. I also requested him to provide me contact details of his former customers because I intend to perform a site visit to see for myself how the extraction and replanting were done. Angah agreed and also offered to accompany me, but I told him that I would be travelling extensively for the coming months and the visit has to be done after my return.

I then had several business visits namely to Hong Kong for 3 days contract review, Singapore business meeting day trip, then another Singapore trip for a 3 days course and lastly a 2 weeks training in The Hague, The Netherlands. All these happened in the month of May and June. Somewhere in between my travelling itenary, Angah sent me a text message insisting to have the site visit and claiming RM500 for the land survey. I reminded him of our agreement on the timing of the site visit and declined to pay the land survey cost, as it was suppose to be his business expenses. After all I had already commissioned a survey prior to this and the only thing that Angah needed to do was to locate the land boundaries demarcated by the stones mentioned earlier.

Apparently, Angah was not very pleased with the answer. He transformed himself completely opposite to what he had portrayed to me prior to this. He then became demanding and abusive in his text messages to me. He claimed that I had misinformed him on the actual land area and I failed to pay him the land survey cost as promised. Neither of these was true as I clearly pointed to him his mistakes in his quotation (which was higher than what it should have been) and had given him some pointers on how to locate the land boundaries demarcated by the stones so that he can correctly provide his quotation. Clearly this was not my scheme to con him, more to save him from financial loss.

We then arranged for a meeting to discuss this over. He did not turn up and gave me a call instead. We spoke for more than an hour. He was demanding and abusive throughout the conversation. After the call, I concluded that the only thing he was interested in was to claim the RM500 and not in the work which was supposed to yield him a few thousand ringgit. I then decided enough is enough. I then informed him via text message that I am no longer interested to appoint his company, as I did not have the confidence that he has placed my interest in this venture. I also told him that I would not pay him the RM500, as this claim was not part and parcel of the discussion. He replied with a sarcastic text message that was abusive nonetheless.

It was quite obvious that Angah was more interested in short term business gain. He put a lot of pressure to regain his RM500 but did not pursue the potential long-term business relationship that was to be profitable, as he had informed me. Though he had portrayed himself quite positively in the beginning, but throughout the short business engagement he had with me, he did not possess the realm of business that should be based on trust, goodness, righteousness, truth and positive values. Truly a different experience than what I had with Ah Kow in my earlier posting.

Saturday 9 August 2008

Building relationship and gaining trust in work

One of the projects I am working on at the moment is rolling out a relocation services contract via a third party vendor into the Middle East countries. I have a Project Manager reporting to me to handle the implementation plans and to cover operational stabilisation. The project timelines of the implementation had been overly slipped due to some opposition from the local Human Resources unit. Actually the implementation has been simplified by a regional contract scope and a standardised implementation plan however due to poor coordination and miscommunication by the project team, the eventual slippage was inevitable.

During the latest project implementation review, the Project Manager, let us call him K, and I had a long discussion on how to recover loss ground and roll out the contract successfully. We identified that there is a specific personality in one of the Middle East countries who was very vocal in opposing the plan. Let us call him G. G had been questioning the contract rationale and had not been able to accept the explanation provided to him.

From my observation, there are some areas where K needs to improve himself. Firstly, K expects G to change by just accepting the contract. Secondly, K needs to strengthen his interpersonal skill as he is a natural introvert and increase his drive to secure a closure in work.

We spoke openly about my observations. I informed K that forcing the contract to G would not be conducive, as this would place G subservient to the contract. Not many human beings would be able to accept this condition due to their pride. It would be better to approach G from a level playing field where his pride would be safe guarded and at same time the implementation of contract is kept in tact. On his skills, we spoke about establishing relationship with G as a stakeholder of the contract by gaining his trust and cooperation. If these elements of trust and cooperation are secured and G's pride is safe guarded, the roll out of the contract would be effortless.

Within a week, K had taken up the advice and the contract implementation is now on tract.

Sunday 3 August 2008

Cheng Ho Restaurant, Chinese Islamic Seafood

This restaurant at Wangsa Maju owned by the legendary Malaysian rocker, Amy Search had been in the limelight for quite some time. Even the Malaysian Islamic Party's spiritual leader, Tuan Guru Nik Aziz had had his lunch there in the presence of Amy himself. I could have never imagined that getting a table at the restaurant was so difficult until I went there myself.

Two Saturdays ago, 26 July 2008, my family and I went there to have our dinner. We arrived at the restaurant around 8 pm and saw several people were hanging around the front door talking to a waiter. When we approached the waiter, we were told that there were 5 more groups of people in front of us waiting for their table and we could be waiting to about an hour to be seated. My sons were so hungry that we had to abandon our plan to have dinner there and went to have our dinner elsewhere.

The next day, Sunday 27 July 2008, we tried our luck again and went to the restaurant for lunch. We arrived at about 2.20 pm (it was a late lunch outing indeed) and we could see a full house of people enjoying their lunch inside the restaurant. When we came near to the door, only then we saw the "Closed" signed at the door, well it was our mistake that we did not read the restaurant operating hours the other night.

Today, Sunday 2 August 2008 we were smarter. It was a belated birthday celebration for my eldest son and we made sure we had our reservation for lunch at the elusive Restoran Cheng Ho. We reached there sharp at 12 noons and saw an empty restaurant. This was not right we thought as we had our reservation. Well we were early as the restaurant only opened at 12.15 pm. We hang around for a while and eagerly went inside when the restaurant was opened. We had a sumptuous lunch of shark fin and crab meat soup, steamed garoupa Nyonya style, buttered shrimps, black pepper minced meat, kailan veggies with salted eggs, oysters with egg omelets, deep fried minced chicken with cashew nuts, squid fritters and plain rice. The food was delicious and we did not leave anything behind. The service was splendid and the waiters were friendly.

Nonetheless, there were a few things I hope Amy or his management team could do to make the restaurant better. Even though the restaurant has a wide array of main dishes menu but they served us only fruits for desert. I wished there could have been a lot more varieties to choose from. I found the drinks menu were a bit odd, only fruit juices and ice blended drinks were available. Neither hot drinks nor canned drinks were available except the customary bottomless Chinese tea. Well albeit all these, we had an enjoyable lunch, could have been better if Amy was there to serve us himself, better luck next time.

August Milenia Muslim magazine with part 3 of my collumn is available now


You may get a copy at the local bookstore, newstand or subscribe directly from Milenia Muslim (<--click).