KUALA LUMPUR: The government is aiming to develop high-performing civil services by transforming the public service and developing high calibre future leaders.
This is to nurture agile and future-ready civil servants, equipped with leadership skills and innovative thinking, who can face future challenges.
According to the 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP) report, the government has identified strategies to achieve this goal, which has been termed - Transforming the Public Service and Developing Future Leaders.
"The measures would lead to higher competencies amongst civil servants.
"This will result in improved capabilities in providing quality services as well as increase the confidence of the people in the public service," said in the 12MP report.
In transforming the Malaysian public service, the report said though the country's civil servants performance is on par with some regional peers and is consistent with the aspiration to become a high-income nation, Malaysia however would need to undertake several fundamental reforms to create more efficient and effective public service to better meet public expectations.
In this regard, training modules for civil servants will be further improved to ensure civil servants possess the traits of excellence required in effectively managing domestic and global challenges.
"The training will include aspects of grooming, inculcating positive attitude, developing leadership skills as well as knowledge enhancement and exposure to ensure civil servants stay relevant and competitive.
"The availability of a large pool of high performing civil servants with the right attitude who are equipped with state-of-the-art technology and skills is essential to enhance overall performance.
"With the acceleration of digital adoption, every civil servant is expected to be digitally literate by 2025," said the report.
In addition, the role of central agencies, including the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (Mampu), Finance Ministry and Economic Planning Unit (EPU) will be enhanced to effectively drive public sector transformation and ensure optimisation of resources under the first strategy.
In developing future leaders, the 12MP report said the government is also emphasising recruiting and keeping the best talent, priming premier leaders in the public service, inculcating good values and ethics as well as enhancing skills development.
"In line with the public sector efficiency agenda, a single-window recruitment platform for the public service will also be developed to better coordinate recruitment systems which would improve the efficiency of the recruitment process by matching candidate profiles with suitable vacant positions.
"The mechanism of recruiting professional and managerial officers in various schemes will be improved to attract the best talent from various backgrounds.
"Good values, patriotism and preparedness to serve beyond expectations will be instilled in the early stage of recruitment and periodically throughout the service," it said.
Digital culture will also be inculcated in the early stage of a civil servant's career with the successful implementation of initiatives under the Public Sector Digitisation Strategic Plan 2021-2025. This will further enhance the digital capabilities and competencies of civil servants, the report said.
In retaining and attracting talent, more flexible working arrangements will be introduced to provide options for employees who have constraints in working full time in the office, it added.
"Flexible working arrangements such as working part-time, working remotely or combination of both which would benefit several groups, including women, single parents and persons with disabilities (PWD).
"In order to support flexible working arrangements, departments and agencies will provide the necessary digital infrastructures," said the report.