I received another invitation recently to attend the Work-Life Balance Congress themed “The Way Forward” held from the 14-15 July 2010 at the Swiss Garden Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Following last year’s successful conference, I was excited to see what this year had in store.
This year’s conference was organised by NIEW (NAM Institute for the Empowerment of Women Malaysia), Gorgeous Geeks, Ministry of Women Family and Community Developmment and eHomemakers. The 2-day program was filled with exciting speakers and panelists from Malaysia and abroad. Speakers from the USA, Netherlands and Switzerland were connected directly via live-web conference facilities, thanks to Cisco.
Do click on the more tab to read more about the conference and to see visuals taken of the day using my Canon G10, hence do excuse the image quality.
Here’s the program for Day 1:
Day 01 Speakers
US Trends for Flexible Employment and Independent Contractor Earning Opportunity
Carol Coren, Principal Consultant, Cornerstone Principal – USA
Ideas for Management of the Home Worksite
Carole Dennison, Attorney & Counselor of Law, Dennison Law Firm – USA
Work-Life Balance: A Case of Social Responsibility?
Steve McCoy, Founder & Principal, Counterpoint
Work-Life Balance Programs in UK
Allan Rickmann, International management Consultant – UK
Workplace of the Future (Panel Session)
Day 2 was even more interesting and to top it all the Minister of Women, Family & Community Development Malaysia, Y.B. Dato’ Sri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil graced the event and gave a keynote speech.
Day 02 Speakers
Work Life Integration: How to leverage technology for greater collaboration, innovation and personal balance
Tracy Ann Curtis, Head Asia Pacific & Japan, Inclusion & Diversity, Cisco
Making Telework Works
Bevis England, Telework New Zealand
Policies to encourage work-life balance in corporate sector of Western European countries (Panel Session)
Catherine Bij de Vaate, Policy Advisor, E Quality-Knowledge Centre for Gender Diversity and Family Issues of the Netherlands
Marina Wyss, General Secretariat – Equality Section, Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland
The Way Forward – Truths & Myths (Panel Session)
Alecia Heng, Gorgeous Geek co-Founder and President giving her Opening Remark
The current work force comprises of workers from the following generations:
- Traditionalist (1928-1945)
- Boomer (1946-1964/5)
- Generation X (1965/56-1980)
- Generation Y (1980-2000)
Gen X & Y are more prone to a work-life balance compared to the Traditionalist and the Boomer generation
To summarise the 2-day event, here are some of the important key pointers to share with you:
- More people especially in the US are heading to self-employment due to job satisfaction, cost cutting by management and a shift in paradigm i.e. managers now are practising management style by objective instead or observation (this is slowly catching up in Asia but there still needs to be more of a paradigm shift in the current management).
- Benefits of working from home include: reduction in commuting expenses, cutting cost on professional clothing, cheaper overhead cost, flexible working hours, gaining employees who are more productive, balanced life and increase in quality of life. Flexible working is a useful management tool during downturns to retain valuable experience staff.
- Disadvantages of working from home include: harder to climb the corporate ladder, lower financial salary for those working on a part-time basis or participating in job sharing.
Final parting words:
Each and every one of us should strive to live sustainably…
“Sustainability is a mindset that fundamentally sees the world as an interconnected system” (Steve McCoy)
To have a better work-life balance, we should strive to “Work to Live and not Live to Work”
Related posts:
RSS Feed
By Email
Facebook
Twitter