[VIDEO] Should you let your job define you?

published 12 JUNE 2021

Out of all the things the pandemic has changed, it did not solve an age-old workplace problem: burnout. With our work and personal lives forced to be encapsulated within the same space, is work-life balance still achievable?

RUMIT host Kathleen Kwan speaks to Low Choy Huat (EY Malaysia People Advisory Services Leader), Deepa George (HR Consultant) and Sam Blum (Writer at Lifehacker.com) to find out how we can redefine that balance.

video TRANSCRIPT

KATHLEEN KWAN | Presenter

When you meet someone new, one of the first questions you're usually asked is..

“So, what do you do?”

And I get it. Work is a big part of our lives.

And when you’re in your 20s, it can feel like there’s a LOT of things to consider. I mean, we’re at the very start of our careers, we’re figuring stuff out. And when it comes to work, we want to be good at it. We want to be productive. We want to get the most out of the experience. We want it to be a part of us.

[Intro] Rumitlah.

KATHLEEN

For most of us, 2020 threw a massive spanner in the works. All of a sudden, we were working from home. Our days were filled with virtual meetings, endless emails and relentless messages. In fact, studies are now indicating that the ‘pandemic workday’ is nearly an hour longer.

I mean, it’s not exactly new — workdays have been getting longer. Owning a phone means that we can be reached at any time of day. But between the constant communication and the fact that our living spaces have been turned into makeshift offices, it can feel like we’re working ALL the time.

What does this mean for us? Is it actually possible to invest in our careers and still have a life? Is work supposed to define us in this all encompassing way? Or, is there something wrong with this system?

“What is Productivity?”

KATHLEEN

The way I see it, productivity is basically how efficient you are at getting your job done. It’s a way of measuring your output, and ultimately, that’s reflected in how you’re getting paid.

LOW CHOY HUAT | Services Lead, EY Malaysia People Advisory

One is to really help you to plan out your career progression in terms of what new skills you need to develop and where you go from where you are at the moment. So that's for development and career.

The other one is really just around pay right? Because at the end of the financial year or performance year, HR will need to make certain salary decisions.

So productivity is important because, again, there is an expectation from the employee’s perspective that what gets tracked, gets measured, gets done right? So from an employee’s perspective, productivity is important because there is a cost aspect to salary and as well as the outputs the person is producing.

KATHLEEN

So, career development and pay. That’s what it comes down to. Or at least, that’s how I understand it. And that’s exactly why we’re all stuck on this hamster wheel, constantly chasing for more.

Maybe this way of thinking about productivity made more sense back in the day, when it applied to things like manufacturing and factory lines. There was one clear goal in terms of output.

LOW CHOY HUAT

Our economy has changed, right? You know, from a manufacturing based economy to a more services based economy. If I go back to the first industrial revolution where there’s manufacturing and production, right.

Because work is probably less complex, in a sense, and things are a bit more straightforward, in terms of measuring outputs.

KATHLEEN

That was a clear and simple measure of efficiency. So why are we still hooked on the same principles, when work has changed so much?

“Work has changed”

SAM BLUM | Staff Writer, LifeHacker.com

I think it's kind of like ballooned and expanded, in the internet age and sort of like with the rise of constant communication platforms like Slack and texting and email and all of that kind of hyper plugged in sort of. These modes of communication that have sort of made it necessary or enabled everyone to be working all the time.

Sort of like identification with work because we're a little bit more idealistic and we want to like, you know, approach work through the sense of self fulfilment and satisfaction. I'm like we're doing something to the betterment of humanity rather than just making a paycheck.

KATHLEEN

In this era of free market capitalism, if you don’t have enough, you’re not working hard enough. But what separates our lives from our work?

The sole provision of work is to provide a living, to survive – but in our lives, we also need to have the freedom to think and express; the desire to learn and connect.

So for many of us, when work and life become inseparable, work starts to consume you, bleeding into how you see yourself. Then you start questioning yourself and the meaning of the work you’re doing. After all, if life and work are one, then the meaning of your work is the meaning of… your life?

That can't be right. Right?

All this, on top of not being paid enough and not being heard in meaningful ways. This has serious repercussions on our mental health - and perhaps I'm exaggerating, but in the process, we also lose the things that make us human.

And it doesn’t stop there. This culture that we are religiously wrapped up in, could become the norm, eventually consuming the generations of people who come after us.

So, the measure of productivity has become a lot more complex than before. But one thing that has remained the same is that you are still expected to create an impact. Your pay and your professional growth depends on it.

DEEPA GEORGE | HR Consultant

The one thing that probably hasn’t changed over time is that the key measurement might have changed, but the actual definition of like you said, what’s doing well at work, it’s probably impact right? It’s about what you produce, it’s the output.

Now, the question is, how do we measure that productivity when it's not so tangible?

“How do we measure productivity?”

SAM BLUM

We sort of have this mentality that like, you have to be on all the time and your company necessitates that because your company needs to grow and your company needs to provide shareholder value for people on the board of people who own stock, if it's a public company.

So I think it's driven by both and I think the technology enables it, but I think the demand that companies want to expand. And I think the ultimate goal of a lot of firms in this day and age, [is to] attain funding, attain value for your VCs and then either go public or sell the company. And that's it. And it's all motivated by making money. And in order to do that quickly in a profitable sense, you need to have workers who are constantly churning for you.

KATHLEEN

But the constant grind could lead to burnout.

There’s always a lag between how quickly things NEED to change, and how quickly they ACTUALLY change. Part of that is because many of today’s leaders started their careers in a different era. But how does that play out with the younger generation of leadership? The leaders who are expected to shape and shepherd a whole new work culture – one where the concept of PURPOSE takes center stage?

DEEPA GEORGE

But if I were to generalize in that generation, it was about command and control and it was not bad. It was just different. Gen X is about control, but then consult. So we want to be involved.

And then you come to Gen Y, and for Gen Y they definitely want to be consulted. No more control elements there at all. You see the consultation, but they also want to create, so they want to be part of the journey of being able to, you know, initiate ideas and so on.

KATHLEEN

If you’ve ever worked with a boss from a different generation, you’ll understand the complexity of addressing different viewpoints. On top of that, more often than not, there’s a power distance between you and your superiors that makes it hard to initiate a conversation.

So yes it’s hard, but we need to address this gap. Otherwise, there will always be a mismatch between how we’re expected to function and what is actually sustainable.

And we’re not saying that bosses shouldn’t be expected to push us or want us to work hard. Good bosses should do that because they want to help you create value for the team.

But who's going to push you to create value for yourself, in your personal life, in your own definition of what fulfilment should be? Really, it can only be you. The perfect intersection and balance of work satisfaction and personal fulfilment probably doesn't exist, or it does in moments, and shifts over time. But prioritising your own fulfilment and growth, beyond and away from work, is a value only you can create and no one can take away.

What do YOU find fulfilment in?

[END]

CREDITS