"60% of sponsored scholars are female. Don’t be choosy."

Group HR Planners met on the last day of July and the first day of August for 2 days at the ‘horseful’ hotel - Palace of the Golden Horses - near our HQ in KL. For 2 nights I slept with two green horses guarding me at both sides. There were even more horses at the lawn, lobby, cafe and washroom. I took water taxi one evening to the nearby shopping mall to dine at Nandoz.
It was just like being in Mecca or Damascus or somewhere middleastern when you were at this hotel. In fact my secondary goal to befriend Arab women or men -- plenty of them in the hotel -- somehow was not achieved.
This was my second time here at this Berjaya Group signature hotel.
Lets talk HR because I am n HR guy now.
The General Manager of Group HR delivered an opening speech on the outset of Day 1. His message was clear - HR planners must change the way they do manpower planning. We have got a nice HR Plan but not followed thru. Our plan was not connected to the business. Nobody refered to HR Plan. Few understood it. And many other negative things which only to me indicated that HR planners are not effective. We listened and nodded.
I remembered when I was IT Manager in my previous organization when the management accused us as doing things in isolation, not supporting business objectives and goals. We were good at spending only, investing into technology which could be obselete the next day it was installed. We were cost center rather than profit center.
Well, almost a similar and familiar message for services managers. I had to swallow it again.
He also talked about staff leaving the organization. Mainly for a greener pastures in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Attrition rate in the Group was expected higher possibly reaching 7% to 9%. Majority of our sponsored scholars were mainly females. History of female engineers working in the plant environment was not that encouraging in this organization. They left the plant for administrative jobs once they got married and had babies. They cited OSHA Act 1994 which forbids pregnant female employees from hazardous plant environment. They had Laws and Acts on their side. The management could not do a thing. Line managers wanted capable male staff. HQ people forced HR Planners to consider abundant females. HR peoples like me were trapped in the middle.
The reality set in. HR Planners got big task ahead.