LETTER | Dr Malar, an inspiration to all

LETTER | Well done Dr Malar Santhi Santheragespan and congratulations on being presented with the Employee of the Year Award on Labour Day 2023. 

You are inspirational. Your dedication and creativity are a good motivation for others to emulate.  When others talk about economic stimulus, your videos provide us with health stimulus. 

Your pro-active attitude is rare in the service. You know how tiring it is to treat hundreds of patients per day and you took the initiative to create videos to make people aware and take precautions… prevention is better than cure and lesser people will need treatment.

I do hope the Health Ministry and other ministries will take this an example and we may not need expensive consultants or high-levels committees to produce voluminous reports that ends up in the cabinet.

All secretary-generals should provide avenues or platforms where employees can excel and make the civil service more efficient. Please do not stifle their potential and do provide the carrot as an inducement. It will surely fire their passion and personal fulfilment.

Cuepacs have a role to play too to motivate their members and help them to shine. It is not an effective means to just ask for pay increase without productivity increases.

Nurture your members to be more efficient and self-confident. This way, the government will automatically have more revenues or profits and you do not need to ask for the increase, it will come automatically.

I also hope that the RM1 million allocation each for MTUC and Cuepacs will be put to good use for the welfare of the members.

We all know the minimum wage of RM1,500 is below poverty-level, employers must ensure the wages of employees match their skills and knowledge.

So, employers, keep your ears to the ground and listen to their needs, not yours. For without them, you would not be where you are.

Top-down management can wait during this transformation stage. Engage more and it will make your work simpler.

Malar have shown us the way.

“Allah desires ease for you; He does not desire hardship for you.” (2:185). The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. 

Go to basics, make it simple and everybody will gain and life will be happier. Happy Labour Day.

What say you…

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