Current Issues on Job Description and Specification of Halal Executive in Malaysian SMEs

Currently, Halal industry is growing rapidly across many countries due to the increasing of demand towards halal products. Thus, a lot of company including non-Muslim owner company apply for the Halal certification. Therefore, the role of Halal Executives being introduced to ensure that every process of making halal product follow the guideline given by Jabatan Kemajuan IslamMalaysia (JAKIM). In recent years, it has been reported that the Halal Executives (HE) were burden by abundance of workload but still underpaid by the organizations. Thus, the purpose of this study is to identify the current issues on job description and specialization of Halal Executives in Malaysian small and medium enterprise (SME). Besides, the objectives of this study are (I) to determine the current job requirements and specialization of Halal Executives in Malaysian SMEs, and (ii) to study the current issues regarding Halal Executives position. This research paper was conducted using exploratory method. The data were obtained from numerous websites about job vacancy and opportunity all around Malaysia from 2019 until 2021. The data were assorted based on the company, job position, job descriptions, job requirements, job specialization, salary, gender and year of the
job offered. The findings show that most of the Halal Executives position offered in Malaysian SME paired with other position such as quality control, quality assurance and hygiene executive. Salary offered by some of the company or organization are not equal with the knowledge, skills and positions offered. Plus, there is gender bias occur in some of the company for the job recruitment. This study was only focus on the halal executive position in Malaysian SME. Thus, other researcher could conduct research on a bigger area or different job position.
Keywords: Job Description, Job Specialization, Halal Executive