What is Sustainable Employment?
In the context of sustainability, employment refers to creating job opportunities that meet the needs of the present generation and ensure that future generations can have access to the same opportunities. This means that employment must be created to promote social, economic, and environmental sustainability.
Sustainable employment practices include fair wages, safe and healthy working conditions, and skills development and career advancement opportunities. Sustainable employment also means creating jobs resilient to economic, social, and environmental shocks. This includes investing in education and training to create a highly skilled and adaptable workforce, promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and providing social protection measures such as health care.
SDG 8 is focused on promoting sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all. The goal aims to achieve this by addressing issues such as job creation, labour rights, and social protection while promoting entrepreneurship, innovation, and technological advancement.
What is Sunway Doing?
Leadership
Equal Opportunity - Diversity and inclusion are closely tied to Sunway University’s core values of integrity, humility, and excellence which are incorporated into every facet of our day-to-day operations and goals. Sunway University aims to create a culture which promotes fairness, equality, dignity, and respect for all in the workplace, values and utilises the contribution of staff members with diverse ideas, backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives for Sunway University growth and success of the customers and communities we serve. In this sense, Sunway University has adopted several open policies regarding employee and other operational matters, including putting in place schemes such as the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), remote working employment and standard working hours which support staff welfare and wellbeing.
#1 Graduate Employability in Malaysia - Sunway University has been awarded top 1 in Graduate Employability among all private universities in Malaysia by Talentbank Group based on the National Graduate Employability index that gauges the employability rate of graduates from universities across Malaysia, making our graduates officially in being the preferred recruitment choice of the nation’s leading brands.
Sunway Group Educates New Hires on SDGs through the “Are You the Master of Sustainability?” Board Game - In 2022, the Sunway Education Group “Are you Master of Sustainability?” board game has been incorporated by Sunway Group as part of their New Hires Orientation Programme to allow new hires to learn about Environmental, Social and Governance, along with SDGs, notably preparing them to work towards Sunway Group’s vision and mission in addition to their career journey with Sunway.
Sunway Career Services
Sunway Career Services offers programmes and peer advisor services to help students navigate their way through becoming employee ready. These services include
- Career Assessment & Advisory
- Career Assessment & Advisory
- Resume Review & Mock Interview sessions
- Career Readiness Program (CRP)
- Recruitment & Career Fairs
- Employer Linkage for Internship & Graduate employability
Learn more about the team here.
Research
Embedding the Framework of Culture of Health in Small Medium Enterprises: A Comparative Perspective between Japan and Southeast Asia - In this joint research between Sunway University and Saitama Japan funded under Toshiba Foundation, it explores the Culture of Health framework (CoH) which is developed by Harvard University and its applicability in the context of Asian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Subsequently, it aims to derive an insightful narrative for a Post Covid (SMEs) engagement with the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals and create a dialogue with concerns arising from planetary health. The CoH comprises a 4-pillar framework encompassing organisational and societal well-being: 1. Employee Health (well-being of workers) 2. Consumer Health (Healthfulness and safety of products and services) 3. Community Health (Business impacts on public) 4. Environmental Health (Business impacts on environment) These pillars convene businesses to create a corporate ‘Health Footprint’ for the mutual benefit of business and society
Education
Group Coursework – Case Studies - The School of Business has embedded SDG elements in its units, for instance, MGT3044: Business Ethics and Social Responsibility. Students have worked on case studies toward addressing the sustainability issues faced by the community and nations, including slums and responsibilities of firms and sweatshop working conditions, living wages, impact on the environment, crimes, drugs, and prostitution. This allows students to better understand the sustainability issues around them and critically formulate appropriate strategies for tackling them.
LaunchX: Building the Startup Generation of Tomorrow - Sunway University, likely the only university around the region or even the world to have access of a multibillion conglomerate with 13 business lines and in-house venture capital firms – has created a game changing open innovation ecosystem which is being continuously evolved to support the growth of local start-ups as well as create employers instead of employees. One of its notable initiatives is the Start-up Foundry, an entrepreneurship programme launched by Sunway Innovation Labs (iLabs) at Sunway University in collaboration with Sunway University’s School of Science and Technology. This programme has accelerated the emergence of sustainability-focused businesses by Sunway students. Some of the environmental concerns these start-ups address are fast fashion, single-use plastic in the F&B industry and sustainable packaging solutions.
External Engagement
Bina Pavo 2nd Asia-Pacific Family Business Summit 2022 - Sunway University, together with Sunway Institute for Global Strategy and Competitiveness (IGSC) as the knowledge partner, Bina Pavo – an advisory business firm, hosted the 2nd Asia Pacific Family Business Summit 2022 to share important insights on the state of family businesses in relation to sustainability and ESG issues in Malaysia. Professor Pervaiz K Ahmed, the director of Sunway IGSC was invited to give a speech on “Family Business – ESG Initiatives and Challenge” that sums up the findings from multiple roundtable discussions with family businesses where thy voiced their barriers towards achieving ESG goals.
The 2nd International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Intelligent Systems (ICETIS 2022) - Dr Tang Tiong Yew has shared insights about Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in this conference which aims to convenes academics, researchers and developers from both academia and industry to share and exchange their latest research contributions and identify practical implications of emerging technologies to advance the wheel of these solutions for global impact while also in line with the fourth industrial revolution goals and its respective impact on environmental sustainability
Related Policies
- Anti Bribery and Corruption
- Diversity and Inclusion
- Employee Assistance Programme
- Gift, Entertainment, and Hospitality
- Modern Slavery, Forced Labour and Human Trafficking
- Pay Equity
- Remote Working Employment
- Working Hours
Activities/Student-led Initiatives
KPMG Signature Day at Sunway Campus
