Growth and profitability are two key levers defining the economic aspirations and talent considerations across Southeast Asia. Facing a significant skills and capabilities gap and a growing need to be agile and build the right employee experience, companies in a region are forging newer, more business aligned talent initiatives to be successful. 

As part of the HR Evolution Perspectives 2023: Experts Take series, we sit with top HR leaders across APAC to know more about how they envision this journey towards business excellence and explore the steps they are taking to make it a reality. 

This interview series is in continuation of the HR Evolution Perspectives 2023: Empower and Evolve study. A first-of-its-kind look at the largest people, HR and transformation trends in the APAC region. Based on responses from more than 1,200 HR practitioners, 350 CXOs and nearly 1,500 employees, the study unravels vital HR, business and people trends that will shape the future.

In this episode, we have Alexius Purwoto, Manager of Human Capital, Pertamina Internasional EP share his advice to HR leaders and explain how he is charting a future with Pertamina operating in the oil and gas business. 

Some highlights from the conversation include: 

• M&A is a key expansion route and HR leaders should find the right solutions

• Building a capable organization necessary to tackle external challenges

• Mapping skills, experience, and position key to solving capabilities gap

• Leaders responsible for both structural aspects and function-specific performance 

M&A: a necessary part of growth 

For Pertamina Internasional EP, a company operating in the oil and gas industry, growth and sustainability are two key parameters to balance. Given the geographic spread of the company that spans multiple continents, growth is often a challenge that requires out-of-the-box thinking. 

Given this business context, Alexius explained how expansion through M&A is a crucial priority. From an HR standpoint, this means operating across different geographies and ensuring employees have a cohesive experience at work to be productive. 

Focusing on different aspects like engagement, competencies, and talent development across multiple geographies through a unified approach will be crucial. 

Addressing skills gap critical 

How capable the organisation as a whole at tackling business challenges remains an important aspect of Pertamina’s approach to building capabilities. By looking at both domain leaders and employees from a lens of enabling them to handle and 

As HR leaders, noted Alexius, “we need to have the courage to ask ourselves how capable we are to handle challenges.” To do this, it's important to look at business objectives from both a short-term and long-term perspective and help the company build and grow accordingly. 

Another key aspect is to have the right person in the right position. “While this remains a challenge and building the people with the right mix of skills and experience takes time,” noted Alexius, ‘it is important to begin with mapping people with skills necessary to be successful.” This helped the company identify the people who are the correct fit for the roles and gaps that need to be addressed. Given the geographical diversity that the company operates, proactively assessing gaps and finding the right solutions is important 

Talent mobility needs to be facilitated through different measures

An important component of Pertamina’s operation across different geographies and roles is to effectively deploy talent. Both as structural and functional leaders to specialists in the different domains in the oil and gas sector, deploying the right talent at pace is crucial for business success. 

To do this impactfully, a fair and competitive compensation structure is necessary. Relocating talent should not come at the cost of staying away from family and incurring costs. 

The other important aspect that facilitates talent mobility is its clear link to career progression for individuals. Working as experts and growing professionally to leadership positions need to be better mapped out and communicated to employees to ensure talent mobility is a success. This becomes even more important for Pertamina as it deals with employees who are its own and others who work in a more partnership model.