INDUSTRIAL RELATION: TERMINOLOGY

1. JOB TITLE

A job title is the name of the position you hold at your company, typically associated with a specific set of tasks and responsibilities. A job title often denotes a person's level of seniority within a company or department. Usually it stated in an offer letter or resume.

2. WAGES

Wages is defined as basic wages and all other payments due under contract of service. It is excluded annual bonus, overtime payment, commission, subsistence allowance and travelling allowances.   The increase in the minimum monthly wage under the 2020 Order to RM1,200 per month in major cities in Malaysia was announced during the 2020 Malaysian Budget. In addition, the 2020 Order increases the minimum monthly wage for the other parts of the country by RM50 to RM1,100.

3. NORMAL WORKING HOURS

The Malaysian Employment Act defines the workweek as 48 hours. This provision was made at the time when most employees in Malaysia work for 6 days a week, so, they’re required to work only 8 hours a day maximum. There are special restrictions, considered to be protection provisions, for women in the industrial or agricultural sector.

4. RETIREMENT AGE

The retirement age is the age at which a person is expected or required to cease work and is usually the age at which they may be entitled to receive superannuation or other government benefits as example, pensions. The Minimum Retirement Age Act 2012 (MRA Act) stating that the minimum retirement age of an employee shall be the age of 60 years old. The MRA Act applies to all employers and employees in the private sector throughout Malaysia.

5. TRIPARTITE

Tripartite is recognized as a tripartite system and is made up of 3 groups and Ministry of Human Resources act as a president. His role is to oversee the overall development of discussion. This includes employers and their organizations, employees and their unions and Government. Role of employers and their organizations are to negotiate and deal with trade unions of employees and to represent their members in any trade dispute between an individual member and employee’s union. The government as the legislator through parliament. Their role is to equip the unemployed with basic industrial skills and to improve the skill level of the workforce and to assist in maximizing country’s manpower resources through manpower planning.

6. MEF

Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) is the central organization of private sector employers in Malaysia recognized nationally, regionally and internationally. Established in 1959, MEF promotes and safeguards the rights and interests of employers. MEF provides a forum for consultation and discussion among members on matters of common interest, and seeks for the adoption of sound principles and practices of human resource and industrial relations through information, advice, research and information, training and other activities.

7. OSHA

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 is a US labor law governing the federal law of occupational health and safety in the private sector and federal government in the United States. Its main goal is to ensure that employers provide employees with an environment free from recognized hazards, such as exposure to toxic chemicals, excessive noise levels, mechanical dangers, heat or cold stress, or unsanitary conditions.

8. ACCOUNT 2 OF EMPLOYEES PROVIDENT FUND (EPF).

The EPF is a compulsory savings scheme for employees so that they will have sufficient funds in their post-retirement years. The first account, dubbed "Account I", stores 70% of the members' monthly contribution, while the second account, dubbed "Account II", stores 30%. Account I restrict withdrawals to the moment the member reaches an age of 50 years, to boost retirement fund by investment in unit trust, is incapacitated, leaves the country or passes away. Withdrawal of savings from Account II however, is permitted for down payments or loan settlements for a member's first house, finances for education and medical expenses, investments, and the time when the member reaches 55 years of age.

9. TRADE UNIONS.

The legal definition of “Trade Union” in the Trade Unions Act has implications are membership of a union is limited to workers working in Peninsular Malaysia, or Sabah or Sarawak and Unions with membership from a variety of industries not permitted. Other than that, the employers can form unions. The purposes of Trade Union are to promote the economic, social and educational welfare of their members and to protect the rights of their members at the workplace.

10. COLLECTIVE BARGAINING.

Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and rights for workers. The interests of the employees are commonly presented by representatives of a trade union to which the employees belong. The collective agreements reached by these negotiations usually set out wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms, and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs.

CYBERSECURITY

1. FUTURE CYBER THREAT ASSESSMENT

The future of cybersecurity will be largely determined by what hackers will be after. This will primarily be in two areas: Health and Wealth. More specifically, this means private healthcare-related data and sensitive payment information. Private health records can be worth a fortune. Credit card data can be used for fraud or sold on the black market. Hackers will also take advantage of the fact that companies increasingly rely on their supply chains and will target popular third-party tools, suppliers and companies as a way to breach as many targets as possible. Risk assessments can be performed on any application, function, or process within your organization. But no organization can realistically perform a risk assessment on everything.

To defend against such cyberattacks, companies will need to use more effective security solutions with innovative approaches. For instance, companies will assess their cybersecurity as seen from the hacker’s point of view. The goal will be to not only increase cyber resilience internally within their specific company, but also across the company’s supply chain. Moreover, companies that leave their resources open on the internet and fail to implement strong authentication will be a target to opportunistic attacks. To effectively protect their key assets companies must increase the visibility of security at the board level and increase investment in security talent and technology.

2. CRYPTOGRAPHY

Cryptography is a scientific concept where complex logic and mathematical equations are used to generate robust encryption methods. To keep this information from falling into the wrong hands, they had to hide its meaning. This allowed them the benefit of surprise, timing, and concealed maneuver. The earliest forms of cryptography relied on codes, transposition, and substitution to conceal their messages.

3. SEMANTIC CYBERATTACKS

Semantic cyberattacks, also known as social engineering, manipulate human users’ perceptions and interpretations of computer-generated data in order to obtain valuable information (such as passwords, financial details, and classified government information) from the users through fraudulent means. Phishing is one of the most popular semantic attacks in which hackers send an email hoping to collect some information from the victim.

4. COMPUTER WORM

A computer worm is a type of malware that spreads copies of itself from computer to computer. A worm can replicate itself without any human interaction, and it does not need to attach itself to a software program in order to cause damage. Worms are often deployed as secret agents. They collect and report information about your network to the hackers. Worms can be transmitted via software vulnerabilities. Or computer worms could arrive as attachments in spam emails or instant messages (IMs). Once opened, these files could provide a link to a malicious website or automatically download the computer worm. Once it’s installed, the worm silently goes to work and infects the machine without the user’s knowledge.

5. TROJAN HORSE

A Trojan Horse on the other hand is something that looks harmless. Trojan horses can be sent using several methods, including hackers cloning an email. A Trojan horse or Trojan is a type of malware that is often disguised as legitimate software. Trojans can be employed by cyber-thieves and hackers trying to gain access to users' systems. Users are typically tricked by some form of social engineering into loading and executing Trojans on their systems. Once activated, Trojans can enable cyber-criminals to spy on you, steal your sensitive data, and gain backdoor access to your system. These actions can include: deleting data, blocking data, modifying data, copying data, disrupting the performance of computers or computer networks. Unlike computer viruses and worms, Trojans are not able to self-replicate.

6. WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION ACT 2010

According to Law of Malaysia Act 711 under Whistleblower Protection Act 2010, improper conduct means any conduct which if proved, constitutes a disciplinary offence or a criminal offence meanwhile disciplinary offence means any action or omission which constitutes a breach of discipline in a public body or private body as provided by law or in a code of conduct, a code of ethics or circulars or a contract of employment, as the case may be.

This act provides protection to whistleblowers who voluntarily come forward to report or reveal information on corruption activities. This Act also encourages the public from all sectors to disclose corruption related activities. The identity of the whistleblower and the information provided are kept confidential from any party. Whistleblowers are also given immunity from any civil, criminal or disciplinary action due to the revealing of the act of corruption.

A disclosure of improper conduct under subsection may also be made although the person making the disclosure is not able to identify a particular person to which the disclosure relates. Second, although the improper conduct has occurred before the commencement of this Act in respect of information acquired by him while he was an officer of a public body or an officer of a private body; or of any improper conduct of a person while that person was an officer of a public body or an officer of a private body.

PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE (PLC)

What is Product Life Cycle?

The product life cycle refers to the length of time a product is placed on the market for consumers until it is removed from the shelves. The product life cycle is broken down into four stages—introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. This concept is used by management and marketing professionals as a factor in deciding whether to increase advertising, reduce prices, expand to new markets or redesign packaging.

List the 4 (FOUR) stages of PLC.

1.  Introduction: This step usually involves a significant investment in ads and a marketing campaign aimed at making customers aware of the product and its benefits.

2.  Growth: If the product is successful, it will move to the stage of growth. This is characterized by increased demand, increased production and increased availability.

3.     Maturity: This is the most profitable stage, while production and marketing costs are declining.

4.    Decline: A product takes on increased competition as other companies emulate its success—sometimes with price increases or lower prices. The product may lose its market share and begin to decline.

ADVERTISING AND SALES PROMOTION

1.      Media fragmentation and digital technology have had an impact on the advertising industry in recent years. How do you feel this will impact on advertising campaigns over the next 10 years?

Media fragmentation describes the pattern of increasing the preference and consumption of a variety of media on various platforms, such as web and telephone, even on channels such as more TV channels, radio stations, magazines and more websites. Fragmentation of the media means increased difficulty in targeting target audiences. The word "digital technology" is a very broad term, and given that almost all today relies on computers in one way or another, it encompasses a lot of things.

 In my opinion, while fragmentation may be good for the media consumer in terms of increasing choice, for media owners and advertisers, the increased supply brings much challenge. For media owners, such a challenge means limited capital in terms of both declining viewers and advertisement revenues. Audiences are restricted to media outlets for two reasons: (1) because of the rate of growth in media options for marketers, the total number of potential media viewers remains stable, and (2) the increase in available broadcast hours (due to expanded channels) is disproportionate to the increase in available viewing hours. Media fragmentation and digital technology can impact the advertising company to saves their budget and focus on suitable people to become their ambassador. In the future, the ambassador for brands and products going to be the influencer in media social platform such as Tiktok and Instagram because the wide audience and features to make a live session. Other than that, physical campaigns will be abolish and will be replace with online campaigns.

2.      What are the similarities and difference between advertising and sales promotion?

Advertising and sales promotion are two of the main components of a company, but they are distinct concepts that people sometimes confuse. Advertising campaigns are undertaken to create the reputation of the brand, and the effects become evident as time passes. Sales deals are much more urgent and concentrate on bringing money into the company bank account right now.

Sales promotion is constantly being used to fulfil an ever-expanding list of marketing goals. The marketing goals and strategies of the business affect the production of sales promotion objectives and strategies. Like ads, propaganda is skewed in favor of what is being advertised. Generally, we come across political propaganda, and recognize it as such, based on our own understanding of who is right. Propaganda should prevent prejudice when supporting intellectual, environmental and sociological aspects.

3.      Why are loyalty programs supposed to be effective?

Loyalty initiatives serve a dual function: to enable new clients to hang around after buying their products and services, and to ensure that current loyal clients still feel as if they are respected by your operation. Of course, by setting up a loyalty program, not only do you boost the consumer appreciation of your company, but you also increase the likelihood that current clients will share that joy with others close to them. The more a customer feels like a business, the more likely he or she is to help the company and recommend it to others. This, in turn, continues to be of a word-of-mouth cyclical nature that continues to develop for your company.

By providing a loyalty rewards program, you are undertaking a method of research that will provide you with similar customer information. Through trial and error, you will begin to see the kinds of benefits that drive your clients' desires and rewards that do not yield the same results. This helps you to hone up to the unique incentives that are most valued. Using this information, you can also apply the most sought-after incentives to particular items that you are most interested in sharing with your clients.

As example, Watson have a loyalty program where required the customer to purchase the Watson card and only pay once in a lifetime. This loyalty program give benefit to both parties and keep the customer to loyal with the company and improve the company to serve better for the customer.