KUCHING: The Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) was conferred a Malaysia Best Employer Brand Award by the Employer Branding Institute on 24 April, placing it among the top 50 employer brands in Malaysia in 2017.
In a separate event, three of the convention centre’s chefs medalled two golds and two silvers at the World Harvest Festival Culinary Competition held from 28 to 30 April at the Sarawak Cultural Village.
BCCK chief executive officer Eric van Piggelen commented: “As a company that has set its sight on competing on a global level, BCCK’s mission is to deliver events of world-class standard, be they local or international events.
“For this to happen, we firmly believe that our people are our greatest asset and are critical to the success of our business. We have dedicated enormous attention and efforts over the years to be an employer of choice – from providing a conducive work environment to skill building/personal development and ensuring the general well-being of our staff.
“It is an honour for BCCK to be recognised as a best employer brand. The key take-away from this recognition is that we are on the right track managing our human asset, and we are greatly motivated to further enhance our human resource management practices.”
On the gold and silver medals clinched by the three BCCK chefs, van Piggelen said, “Our chefs’ participation in culinary competitions is reflective of our human capital management practice to nurture promising talent – we create opportunities for our people to develop their confidence and finesse both within internal and external settings.
“This approach produces a symbiotic relationship between our organisation and employees. We are proud of our chefs’ achievements; they are BCCK’s ambassadors for sound human resource management practice.
“We are focused on creating and reinforcing our talent pool, by ensuring that our people are skilled in their specialities and have avenues to express their passion and creativity, and enabling them to grow and thrive in their jobs – serving the objectives of BCCK and staff’s own personal development needs,” said Veraya Ratnam, BCCK director of human resource.
Commis chef Hafizul bin Fadillah Hamza scored both a gold and silver while chefs de partie Elossa Danette scored a gold and David Kuan a silver at the World Harvest Festival Culinary Competition under the fish/seafood main course and plate appetizer categories.
About 80 chefs from all over Sarawak participated in the three-day competition hosted by the Kuching Chefs Association.
The annual Malaysia Best Employer Brand Awards, hosted by the Employer Branding Institute, World HRD Congress and Stars of the Industry Group, recognise Malaysian organizations which are exemplary in human resource (HR) practices, using marketing communications effectively in attracting, retaining and developing talent, and in retention policy.
Some of the key criteria which qualify organisations for the awards include: translating and combining vision with action with HR strategy, building line to meet HR strategy with business and cultivating competencies for the future to enable building the organisation to be future-ready.
