ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL
Awards and Recognition:
2020
2021
Company details
Address
Level 10, 1 First Avenue,
Bandar Utama,
47800 Petaling Jaya,
Selangor.
Level 10, 1 First Avenue, Bandar Utama, 47800 Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
Industry
Accountancy Professional Body
Vision
Driving a dynamic accounting
profession worldwide and to
be the most influential body
of professional accountants
Driving a dynamic accounting profession worldwide and
to be the most influential body of professional accountants
Head Count
154
Website
Explore opportunities with us!
Workplace Policies and Practices
Pre-boarding, On-boarding, Buddy system A new employee who joins the organisation is given a pre-boarding welcome pack and is assigned a buddy who helps the employee to assimilate into the workplace successfully. The 30/60/90 days on-boarding plan covers on-the-job training through coaching and an eLearning portal.Behaviours
All employees are encouraged to embed the five Association behaviours in their daily activities:
- Create exceptional experiences
- Create our future
- Embrace diversity
- Stand for what is right
- Succeed together as one
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion [DEI] is a key tenet of the Association’s values and culture. The emphasis is on a fully inclusive workplace that includes people of all ages, races, religious beliefs and sexual orientations. The Association practises gender equality during the hiring process.
Selected employees are designated as Culture Champions to help staff better understand D&I and promote the Association behaviours. Resources are available for employees to learn about D&I in the HR online learning catalogue and about bias in the ‘Unconscious Bias’ toolkit. The CEO of the Association has signed the ‘I Act On’ Pledge to commit to D&I, address bias and share lessons learned about D&I.
Management Charter
The Association has developed a Management Charter to set the standard for managers to lead their teams. The Charter guides Managers, outlining the tasks and traits that all managers should be demonstrating.
Ethics and integrity
Ethics and integrity are integral to the Association as a professional accounting organization. Every employee takes a compulsory annual Anti-Bribery online training course and also a course on Data Protection Act. A whistleblower hotline is in place.
Learning and development
Employees are given the opportunity to improve their competencies and skills through the internal CGMA Store or sponsored training courses. A coaching culture is also instilled via self-learning.
A Manager Resources Portal is provided to help managers in managing their teams. Weekly clinics on managing remote teams are offered since the start of the pandemic.
In January 2021, a world class learning platform in partnership with Coursera was launched for all staff. Staff now have further opportunities to gain critical skills and drive their career development. The platform is free for staff and no permission is required if they wish to enrol for any online course, certification or degree in a variety of subjects.
Employee wellbeing
The Association has pledged on prioritizing employee well-being. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Association provided for the needs of employees to enable them to work remotely. It adhered to four principles:
Employees and their families can tap on the Association’s global Employee Assistance Program for counselling and mental health support. The Program is free of charge, confidential and accessible 24x7, 365 days a year.
A fortnightly Team Huddle was put in place in 2021 to foster closer engagement with staff and to have a pulse on their welfare. This engagement is non-work related. Staff are welcome to ‘drop in’ at any of the Team Huddles to share their concerns, worries, personal challenges, or anything they wish to share. The session lasts for about 45 minutes and is led by the Association’s leadership team.
Employee appraisals
The Association’s traditional year-end performance appraisals for employees was revamped to focus on the concepts of Agility and Feedforward. Under the new approach, employees will set agile goals focused on what they need to achieve in the next one to three months. This allows for review of team KPIs and priorities throughout the year, and employee goals can be changed when the need arises. Conversations on performance will take place regularly throughout the year between employees and their line managers. Under the ‘Feedforward’ concept that focuses on the future, line managers will provide suggestions to help employees achieve positive results.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion [DEI] is a key tenet of the Association’s values and culture. The emphasis is on a fully inclusive workplace that includes people of all ages, races, religious beliefs and sexual orientations. The Association practises gender equality during the hiring process.
Selected employees are designated as Culture Champions to help staff better understand D&I and promote the Association behaviours. Resources are available for employees to learn about D&I in the HR online learning catalogue and about bias in the ‘Unconscious Bias’ toolkit. The CEO of the Association has signed the ‘I Act On’ Pledge to commit to D&I, address bias and share lessons learned about D&I.
Management Charter
The Association has developed a Management Charter to set the standard for managers to lead their teams. The Charter guides Managers, outlining the tasks and traits that all managers should be demonstrating.
Ethics and integrity
Ethics and integrity are integral to the Association as a professional accounting organization. Every employee takes a compulsory annual Anti-Bribery online training course and also a course on Data Protection Act. A whistleblower hotline is in place.
Learning and development
Employees are given the opportunity to improve their competencies and skills through the internal CGMA Store or sponsored training courses. A coaching culture is also instilled via self-learning.
A Manager Resources Portal is provided to help managers in managing their teams. Weekly clinics on managing remote teams are offered since the start of the pandemic.
In January 2021, a world class learning platform in partnership with Coursera was launched for all staff. Staff now have further opportunities to gain critical skills and drive their career development. The platform is free for staff and no permission is required if they wish to enrol for any online course, certification or degree in a variety of subjects.
Employee wellbeing
The Association has pledged on prioritizing employee well-being. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Association provided for the needs of employees to enable them to work remotely. It adhered to four principles:
- health & well-being
- productivity
- protecting jobs
- community and staying connected - with peers, managers, direct reports
Employees and their families can tap on the Association’s global Employee Assistance Program for counselling and mental health support. The Program is free of charge, confidential and accessible 24x7, 365 days a year.
A fortnightly Team Huddle was put in place in 2021 to foster closer engagement with staff and to have a pulse on their welfare. This engagement is non-work related. Staff are welcome to ‘drop in’ at any of the Team Huddles to share their concerns, worries, personal challenges, or anything they wish to share. The session lasts for about 45 minutes and is led by the Association’s leadership team.
Employee appraisals
The Association’s traditional year-end performance appraisals for employees was revamped to focus on the concepts of Agility and Feedforward. Under the new approach, employees will set agile goals focused on what they need to achieve in the next one to three months. This allows for review of team KPIs and priorities throughout the year, and employee goals can be changed when the need arises. Conversations on performance will take place regularly throughout the year between employees and their line managers. Under the ‘Feedforward’ concept that focuses on the future, line managers will provide suggestions to help employees achieve positive results.
Employee benefits
The Association provides the following benefits to employees:- Group Hospitalization/Clinical/Dental for employees, spouse and children, with free
- Covid-19 coverage up to RM5000.
- Group Term Life and Group Personal Accident (36x last drawn salary or RM200,000 whichever is higher)
- Work from home and flexible working hours, even before COVID-19
- Summer Fridays (half day off on Fridays for 9 weeks – July, August
- Year-end closure (25-31 December)
- Office facilities - nursing room, gaming area (pool, foosball, and table tennis), modest lounge and pantry area with unlimited hot drinks
- Study leave, exam leave, maternity & paternity leave, birthday leave and 2 days leave for CSR activities
- Parking and phone allowance for all employees.
- Full sponsorship for qualifications offered by the Association
- Upskilling competencies – free access to Association’s CGMA Store [chargeable to non-employees], free training resources in HR portal [Fusion}, 1 year training on critical future skills [Agile, Data Driven, Digital Readiness, Change & Ambiguity and Data-Driven Decision Making]
- Employee referral programme – employees refer a new hire and is rewarded if the new hire is confirmed as an employee after probation.
- Covid-19 benefits – free screening for Covid-19, face masks, hand sanitizers and disinfectant wipes, Internet allowance/broadband package
- Job levelling – this project was carried out to bring greater transparency to compensation at the Association and ensure that staff enjoy a competitive salary. A salary adjustment for affected staff was implemented in 2021.
- Staff were appreciated with a ‘thank you’ payment of 2% of their annual salary for their efforts in the organization’s continued success in an unusually difficult year in 2020.
It is an honour to win the Best Companies to Work For in Asia award for the second consecutive year as well as the Most Caring Employer award this year. With the pandemic resetting major work trends, the Association’s HR practices are also advancing with the times to enable us to prioritize care for our employees. A culture of caring creates an environment of trust that leads to success for the organization. I wish to dedicate this award to all our employees, most of whom have gone above and beyond their call of responsibilities to bring success to the organization despite the challenging times.
Employee engagement
The Association ensures connectivity for staff around the world by organizing Townhalls on a regular basis with the CEO and Senior Leadership Team. Local Townhalls are also hosted by a member of the Senior Leadership Team for staff based in Malaysia. In the Malaysia office, we have created One Team [consisting of 5 multi-racial employees] who carry out engagement activities for staff e.g. festive celebrations, birthday celebrations, etcBesides a digital newsletter and social media interaction, the Association has initiated the “You Earned It” programme. It is a recognition programme for employees to appreciate their colleagues who have helped them or gone out of the way to accomplish a task. Employees can nominate their colleagues for the Association Behavior awards and this is ‘celebrated’ via announcements on the Intranet.
All employees participate in a yearly internal survey as well as ad-hoc surveys to enable the Association to gauge the effectiveness of policies and practices, and get feedback for improvement.
The Association engages with employees for succession planning and to build an internal talent pipeline. It is also about setting out a clear career path for talented employees.
Employer branding
To the Association, employer branding is all about how, as an employer, we “walk the talk”. Through the various initiatives, programs, policies and best practices mentioned above, we enable employees to thrive and contribute their best to the Association. Our actions speak louder than words in creating the brand that all employees are proud to be associated with. Staff satisfaction as shown in our ‘Great place to work’ biennial survey, encourages the Association to innovate to become a highly valued employer.
