4 Job Boards to Hire Your Best Recruits in Southeast Asia

unnamed-1Today, there are a mind boggling number of channels to use while searching for the best candidate to join your team. In Singapore, the number one channel for recruiters to hire employees is through an online jobs portal. The other Southeast Asian nations are catching up to the trend. Which means, not only do you have to post in multiple online portals, you also have to stand out from every other company in your industry because everyone is using the most popular channel. We want to help you with that. Here we have a list of jobs portals, both conventional and specialized, for restaurant and retail owners to recruit staff.

Recruitasia: This website is devoted to the hospitality sector in Singapore. This is a great site for very specific roles for your establishment. It also provides industry news so that you can stay ahead of the curve when you are recruiting. Currently, the website is in beta stage. During this stage, jobs can be posted free of charge while the website is adding new features and receiving customer feedback to improve their application procedure.

JobsDB: This website runs ads in many Southeast Asian countries: Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and China. In Singapore, it currently has 300 positions posted on the website under F&B. In the Philippines, the site features 960 positions. Every recruiting ad costs SGD 99. However, JobsDB is turning over all Job ads to JobStreet.com.ph in order to streamline the two recruiting sites into one.

JobStreet.com: JobStreet runs in Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. Currently, the Singapore site is featuring approximately 800 vacant positions in the F&B industry.This is the largest recruitment website in the Philippines and one you cannot miss while posting ads. The Philippine website is currently running a promo package that is 40% off the standard price (the standard price being PHP 5,600). The Singapore website runs 3 packages, based on number of ads you want to post and how long you want them to stay live. The price ranges between SGD 180 to SGD 400.

KalibrrKalibrr: This startup recruitment website works on a completely different pricing strategy. Instead of charging employers per ad, the ads are free and the database is open for employers to find their best candidate. They are charged a minimal fee of PHP 50 only when they want to contact the candidate. This company is becoming increasingly popular in the Philippines with around 1000 applicants signing up every day. Kalibrr features restaurants and retail as the most popular searches. (Disclosure, both Mike Stephenson and Stephen Jagger of PayrollHero are investors in Kalibrr)

These four are a few of the most popular recruiting website in Southeast Asia. We hope this list is useful and do let us know if you have any additions to the list that are unconventional or special to the retail or restaurant industries.

Where does South East Asia rank on Maternity Leave?

baby photoEmployee benefits are a growing concern for human resource (HR) administrators. South East Asia (SEA) lags behind the global average in terms of providing employee benefits. However, when it comes to maternity leave, the situation has been improving.

According to the International Labour Organization’s report: Maternity and paternity at work: Law and practice across the world, there has been a shift towards increasing maternity leave periods that go further than the 14 – week standard suggested by ILO. However the coverage is neither sufficient nor long enough for mothers before they have to get back to work.

SEA ranks in the middle to lower half in terms of length of maternity leave. On average, around 12 to 13 weeks are given as leave.

Singapore: the Ministry of Manpower lays down conditions for eligibility of maternity leave. This leave can be paid by the employer or can be reimbursed by the government. The length of the leave depends on certain conditions. A maximum of 16 weeks is allowed if the following criteria are met:

  1. The child will be a Singapore citizen
  2. The mother is legally married to the father of the child
  3. The mother has worked in the same establishment for a minimum of 3 months.

The last condition is mandatory for eligibility. MoM also takes into account the number of children the mother has to judge eligibility and coverage.

Malaysia: The 1955 Employment Act gives mothers 60 days (8 weeks) of maternity leave as long as the employee has worked in the company for 90 days prior to taking leave. The employer needs to pay the employee in full during leave. There are certain concessions for civil servants. Malaysia does not provide maternity leave for the sixth child and following children. Because of the short leave provided, mothers often work up to the due date in order to spend time with their child during leave.

Indonesia: Three months (or 12 weeks) of paid leave are given to mothers. At least 1.5 months of this leave must be taken after the birth of the child.

The Philippines: Article 133(a) of the Labour Code states that an employee who has worked in the establishment for at least 6 months is entitled paid leave 2 weeks before the due date and 4 weeks after delivery. The employer is required to pay for only the first four children.

Under SSS law, a woman member of the SSS is entitles to maternity benefits. While the employer must pay these benefits to the employers, it can be reimbursed by the SSS. In order to abail the Maternity Benefits, the employee must pay at least 3 monthly contributions within the year before the semester of childbirth.

Thailand: An employee is entitled to 90 days (or 12 weeks) of maternity leave. However, the employer must pay a maximum of 45 days. The remaining 45 days are paid from the Social Welfare Fund. In order to avail payment from the Social Welfare Fund, the employer is expected to make contributions to the Fund for at least 7 months before pregnancy.

Here we have a list of countries and the maternity leave that they offer:

Duration Countries
< 12 weeks ·         Hong Kong

·         Malaysia

·         Papua New Guinea

·         Philippines

·         Taiwan

12 – 13 weeks ·         Cambodia

·         China

·         DPRK

·         East Timor

·         Indonesia

·         Laos

·         Myanmar

·         South Korea

·         Thailand

14-17 weeks ·         Brunei

·         Japan

·         Singapore

>  17 weeks ·         Mongolia

·         Vietnam

Source of Cash Benefits: Historically, Asia has seen a higher percentage of the maternity leave being paid by the employer. However, the trend is moving towards cash benefits coming from mixed sources: from the employer and social security services. To put this in perspective, Europe, a region that has led the way for right of the employee, has always provided cash benefits from social security.

Paternity Leave: Rights offered to fathers are fairly limited. Countries offer just a couple of days of paternity leave as a shared provision between parents. Usually this leave is taken by the mother. Sometimes this leave is not paid. Approximately 28% of countries in Asia provide paternity leave.

Events Your Management Team Should Attend (Southeast Asia)

upcoming eventIs your restaurant chain growing? Are you expanding your retail stores? Are you bringing a new brand into the region? If you are, you are most likely identifying and implementing new systems and procedures in your business to help you manage your growth.

Here are some events that your management team should attend;

Zendesk.com
April 22nd, Zendesk’s Zen U – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (details)
April 25th, Zendesk’s Zen U – Jakarta, Indonesia (details)
April 30th, Zendesk’s Zen U – Manila, Philippines (details)

These are free events open to anyone interested improving their support process and customer experience.

PayrollHero.com
May 2nd & 3rd, PayrollHero’s TAS Certification – Manila, Philippines (details)
May 6th & 7th, PayrollHero’s TAS Certification – Manila, Philippines (details)
May 9th & 12th, PayrollHero’s TAS Certification – Manila, Philippines (details)

These are free events open to customers of PayrollHero who want to have their team time, attendance and scheduling certified. 

May 10th, 1:30pm, PayrollHero Unwrapped – Cebu, Philippines (details)
May 1st, 1:00pm PHT, PayrollHero Webinar – Online (details)

These are free events open anyone who wants to learn more about PayrollHero’s time, attendance, scheduling, HRIS, analytics and payroll platform. 

TradeGecko.com
May 10th, 3:30pm, TradeGecko Unwrapped – Cebu, Philippines (details)

These are free events open to anyone interested improving their inventory management systems and procedures.

New Leaf Ventures
May 10th, 10:00am, Better Business Brunch – Cebu, Philippines (details)

Entrepreneurs and soon-to-be entrepreneurs who are passionate about building their businesses.

Any others we should know about, let us know in the comments.