An interesting read of my classmate’s (Asfvin Pugunisparam) blog post intrigued me to research more about the brain drain drain problem facing my country, Malaysia. Currently, it seems that Malaysia is experiencing a major problem with brain drain and this condition is not expected to get better any time soon.
There are many factors that could have resulted to this, mainly, having a better standard of living. As the statistics show, 76% of Malaysians who sought their future overseas was a result of them being able to have better career prospects. Better career prospects include having higher salaries, job advancements and even higher job satisfaction.
This is unsurprising nowadays as people seek to work for the companies which are able to provide them with good salaries as well as a satisfying job. When looking at the top 100 companies to work for rated by CNN, the companies sought after by employees possess a flexible organizational structure with a cohesive and dynamic workplace. Look at Zappos or Google for example, which incorporates work and play together during work hours. Not only is work done more productively, employee satisfaction is boosted along with their loyalty.
In the future, companies will want to work towards having that balance between work and fun as opposed to a traditional structure, which focuses only on the success of the company. People of today are more suited to work in the new environment as priorities and perspectives change. In order to tackle the brain drain issue in MaIaysia, this is definitely one of the factors that have to be looked at and implemented with immediate urgency.
Read more about the severe brain drain problem in Malaysia here.
