KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 9): Healthcare outfit Novartis Corporation (M) Sdn Bhd (Novartis Malaysia) has been awarded the Top Employer for 2020, in recognition of its excellence in people practices.

In a statement Dec 5, Novartis Malaysia said it was awarded the certificate by the independent Top Employers Institute.

Novartis Malaysia president and managing director Patrik Grande said the company was honoured to receive the recognition as it reaffirms its commitment to provide the best working environment to its associates with continued improvement in human resources policy, its benefits and career development opportunities.

"We take pride ourselves for embracing Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives, attracting and developing talents from diverse backgrounds towards our mission to reimagine medicines," Grande added.

Novartis Malaysia people and organization head Anne Heng said: "As part of our commitment to always place our associates at the forefront, we are introducing a new parental leave policy, offering equal parental leave to all parents through birth, surrogacy or adoption."

She said this global policy, which will take effect by Jan 1, 2020, offers 14 weeks (3.4 months) of fully paid parental leave.

"At Novartis, balance is at the core of our Diversity and Inclusion where we ensure our associates are privy to both work life and gender balance," she said.

Heng noted that the company aims to support its associates' journey towards becoming new parents with its new leave policy, noting that gender equity is a priority at Novartis and wants the male workers in the company to feel empowered to share childcare responsibility.

Novartis Malaysia has been present in Malaysia since the early 1970s.

In 2015, Kuala Lumpur was chosen as one of the five Novartis Global Service Centers, which deliver a broad variety of services to the Novartis group of companies worldwide.

The others are located in Asia, Europe and Latin America. Services offered by Novartis Global Service Center Kuala Lumpur include IT, HR services, FRA operations, product lifecycle services and procurement.