Work-life Balance - An Elusive Goal?

This is a podcast from BFM 89.9, The Business Station. It is indeed BFM 89.9, The Business Station. I am Rich Bradbury and welcome to Enterprise Explores. This is that show where we will help you navigate the ever-changing universe of business from the headlines to the bottom line. Let's talk about a recent report on corporate Malaysia. By remote, there are global HR platform Malaysia has been ranked as the second worst country for work-life balance amongst 60 nations. Now, this statistic seems alarming and highlights a critical issue that impacts the well-being of employees and the overall productivity and competitiveness of businesses in this country as a modern workforce increasingly values balance and well-being, understanding the underlying factors contributing to this ranking is essential. So, Malaysia's ranking points to several deep-seated issues within the workplace culture. Long working hours, high job demands, and the pervasive expectations to be constantly available have created this environment where employees struggle to find equilibrium between their professional and their personal lives. This imbalance has far-reaching consequences affecting mental health, job satisfaction, and employee retention. To dig a little deeper into these issues and explore some potential solutions, that's the key, I think, here. Local solutions, I'll be speaking with organisational psychologists and CEO of OSI, Kettle Doshi, to help us understand the psychological impact of poor work-life balance. The specific needs and desires of Malaysian employees and practical steps employers can take to foster a healthier, more balanced work environment. And if you have any thoughts, you can get us on our U-mobile WhatsApp number 018789 Reach out to us on X, we are at BFM Radio. Welcome to the show, Hettle Doshi, organisational psychologist and CEO of OSI, welcome back. How are you? I'm really good. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Always good to have you here on the show, Hettle. Here's the thing, right, based on this study, key factors evaluated included statutory leave days, sick pay, maternity leave, minimum wage, health care, happiness index, average weekly working hours and inclusivity, Malaysia scored 27.51 out of 100, with an average work week of 40.8 hours and a minimum wage of $1.07, so that's about 5 ringgit per hour, and alluding to employees and Malaysian being the most overworked alongside only Mexico and Nigeria. Why do you think our country ranked so poorly? Wow. Wow, that is a bit of a scary stat, isn't it? Yeah. Alright, so just before we get into that, and I hope I don't get into any trouble as I say this. Be careful how you step, be careful how you step. Alright, I'll try and be as careful as I can, but for my evidence based perspective or a scientifically validated approach, what kind of balance has various or very definitions and the way that the study has conducted itself may not be valid or reliable, because for example, when you talk about work-life balance, that means different things to different people, and you need to scientifically validated approach, a scientifically validated survey that you use to measure what it intends to measure, for example, inclusion, we have nothing to do with work-life balance, right? For example, how many days of leave that you get in a year may have nothing to do with work-life balance. I'm not saying it does or it doesn't, but we don't know. And as you try to understand or deeper the report, there is not much clarity on the validity and the reliability of this study from an evidence based approach. However, what I know for sure is that in our own assessments of the working at work index in Malaysia, that uses a reliable and valid way of measuring work-life balance. That statistic shows the duration over a period of time as well. So for example, in 2020, it was in 2023, work-life balance was two of the 20 factors that have become a even larger risk to Malaysia, the two are of 20. So I mean, everything else looks positive or at least a little bit positive, but that could be because of post-pandemic, but we need to need to need to see what's really happening, and that will have some time next end of this year. But the two major things that has gone on in Malaysia that has added higher psychosocial risk, meaning the pain of the people, or the pain that they go through on a day-to-day basis, is tempo, meaning the speed at which, not even the amount of work, but the speed at which they are changes. And the speed at which you need to be able to get things done, that is now because of that movement that is taking place, that is now impacting on your work-life experience and causing a risk of even 2% higher. And 2% is a lot, yeah, it's almost like you can't see the pain of Malaysia and Singapore, like every cent to count, you know what I mean. So while I mean, nothing is valid or reliable study, I'm sure there's a lot of value that you can see from it. At the same time from the study that we've done, it is true that work-life conflict or work-life imbalance is a major critical issue in Malaysia and becoming worse over a period of time as well. So we could essentially say, according to this study, anecdotally, this is what we think. If they have said that, then we could have just gone, okay, well then that's something we can talk about. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Yeah, we can still definitely talk about it. Well, I mean, as you say, your work-life balance, sorry, what was the report called that you guys were doing? It's the well-being at work. Well-being at work. It seems according to the ISO 45003, scientific or, sorry, it's a global international standard to measure the kind of key people go through and the impact that it has on their own well-being specifically, and also psychological safety, meaning the way that they begin to have relationships because of that pain, is that me? Yeah, yeah, okay. So if we use as an example, then, the well-being-work thing, what specific aspects of work-life balance do Malaysian employees find most challenging? I mean, and we were just talking about some of these things outside of the studio, you know, and what we look at the, let's take public holidays, for example. We have some of the most public holidays in the world. I think we're only like this, I think we're about a six or seventh, you know, most public holidays in the world. Right. And when I look at things like that, I'm thinking, well, we have like two weeks at work, then we have a day off. We have three weeks at work, and then you have a day off. How does that kind of thinking impact, you know, work-life balance, surely you must do? Yeah, I mean, okay, so context, right, in the workplace, I think the main thing that I really like to anchor on when it comes to work-life balance or work-life integration or life-work integration, I don't know what the concept, you can call it by a million different names, but it is the job of an organization to really, really organize, that's why the word is organization. It is the job of an organization to organize itself in order to thrive sustainably such that people that are working in it can contribute more and more to society. And that is a combination of what organizations mean together with the WHO's version of well-being at work. So, even organization cannot organize itself in a way that can allow people to thrive and contribute sustainably, I don't think it should be in business because the way that they often say is that all what to do is business, right, business as usual, business is such, but you're the leader of an organization if your business is not organized in a way that continues to let people thrive, you are doing a very, very, very, very poor job. Public holidays just so happens to be one of the things that you experience as a benefit of being a Malaysian or being a part of society in general. Correct, as part of society, and if an organization decides to sit down in Malaysia, that's part of the thing that you have to embrace, but beyond that, it's not just getting that one day off because sometimes when it's that one day off, you still are expected to work, right, because it's merely a public holiday, it's not necessary, the company's decision at that point in time. Or it could be another country that you're working in that does not have a public holiday and so therefore you need to work. The long story short is that that has nothing to do with the organization's benefits that it offers to an individual. The organization really needs to decide how best they can organize itself for sustainable growth and for everyone to be able to contribute, contribute better. So public holidays, sorry, nothing to do with organizational benefits. All right, okay. Let's keep that aside. All right. Let's side by that one then. So what is that Malaysian employees actually want now in terms of what life balance do you think? Yeah. I think, you know, just earlier just before getting on the show, we're talking about individual differences. Everybody wants different things, but here's what I realized. We may want different things, but we don't really know what we want. Right. For example, people say, oh, you know, what life balance, what does it mean actually? What does it actually mean in a way that is quantifiable, actionable? It is a word that is thrown around with very, very high levels of room for misinterpretation and potential conflict as well. So here's what we recommend whenever we talk about whether it's individual differences or whether it's commonality, it doesn't matter. What do you really want? So maybe I'll ask you, Richard, like when it comes to work, life balance, what do you think you want? That was sneaky, Hettle. You're putting me on the spot on live radio. Okay. I mean, that kind of clear distinction between personal time and work time is something that I would love, but I also realize that I'm in an industry where I'm not really afforded that possibility because it's a 24 hour, seven day a week industry. Now if there's breaking news stuff and there's stories that I need to carry, that's important I should be doing that. But when it comes to the things like we're organizing a meeting or and it's about this particular topic, which is not necessarily stupendously important, then don't message me after six or seven PM at night. I feel it's just little simple things. If it's important and I need to talk about it, tell me if it's a sore thing, can it wait until I'm in the office tomorrow? Right. That makes a lot of sense. So number one, I love that you said six or seven PM, we often tell people just decide that. Right. Because time is really critical what we are doing 30 PM now we're talking right now we're talking. So when that work we are expected to perform like athletes, would you agree? Yeah, I agree. Performing ourselves constantly outperforming the competition and the most important part for an athlete apart from skill acquisition and discipline is recovery time. So the idea here is not I need time for my life but I need excellent recovery from an organization perspective. I want recovered people because tomorrow it's game on I need you to perform. So it is a very strategic way of understanding and also telling everyone these are the ground rules do whatever you want after 4 30 we don't care, but when you come back it's game on I want everyone to be playing the top level of game after that I don't want to hear from you. I don't want to see. But like what you were saying, there's some organizations where it makes no sense I cannot put a cut off at 4 30 because we are 24 hour by 7 but if you are 24 by 7 you still need to organize all of the random events that are happening up from there. For example, someone had told me recently, it all year in crisis comes, you know, we've got lots of things that happens after seven o'clock, I'm like, where's the data? How many things are happening after six o'clock? Now often does it happen, who is the one telling you that you need to do this and what is the root cause? Is it because it's a crisis? Is it because somebody's telling you at the last minute? Is it something that's happening every day? So where's the data drivenness around your job scope? So this is not about time anymore, your job requires you to work four days in a week according to the data for three extra hours and that needs to be remumerated. Right. Right. Right. Right. That's fair and that's coming from an employee perspective, right? But if we flip things on its head, you know, how do, how can employers cope with this kind of thing? I mean, what do they need to be doing? And how do they go about doing it without it affecting the way in which they've done things without affecting their bottom line, without affecting that relationship with their employees? Yeah. I love that you say without affecting the relations you've got employees because what happens when you are disorganized as an organization? You don't have an understanding about jobs. You don't have an understanding about the time that is taken to create or complete a job at the level of quality that is required. And if you're not looking at things in a bit of a granular level, which is why it's very important to have people that actually do job analysis, job design, then what will happen is that there will be a lot of something, an indicator, which is very high in Malaysia, or organisational injustice and disrespect. I feel that it is very unfair and it is unjust about what you're doing to me. So for example, in an oil and gas sector, you could have people in corporate office that do not have to work after five o'clock or have less of a chance of being bumped. But if you're offshore, for example, you're working 24 by seven, effort versus reward. If this is the amount that I have to, the amount of pain and sacrifice that I need to, you put in in order to get a job done, what are the rewards that come with it as well? An organisation that doesn't practice organisational design, organisational analysis and ultimately rewards compensation consequences leads to a feeling of unfairness. And the moment you feel unfair, you feel disrespected. The immediate thing that you're going to do to another person is to transfer your energy to wherever you are. And therefore, conversations around, wow, this is so unfair. Let me take it out with corporate people. Right? For example, then eventually you would have you versus me. This group versus that group or a person who has to stay back versus who doesn't. And once you have this feelings of injustice and you have this energy that is being transferred around that is a little bit negative, you end up having a very toxic, potentially toxic culture or culture that you become very used to that is in essence actually toxic. Okay, let's take a short break here. Of course, I am speaking with Hedledoshi, organisational psychologist and CEO of O's Psych. She's helping me understand the psychological impact of poor work, life balance, the specific needs and desires of Malaysian employees and employers and practical steps employers can take to foster a healthier, more work balanced work environment. We'll be right back after a few messages here on BFM 89.9. The Business Station BFM 89.9, the Business Station. Welcome back. I'm Rich Bradbury here on Enterprise Explos. The show where we help you navigate the ever changing universe of business from the headlines to the bottom line. We're discussing a work life balance report by remote, a global HR platform where Malaysia has been ranked as a second worst country for work life balance amongst 16 nations. I'm speaking with organisational psychologist and CEO of O's Psych. Hedledoshi, she's helping me understand the psychological impact of a poor work, life balance. Specific needs and desires of Malaysian employees and the practical steps employers can take to foster a healthier, more balanced work environment. Hedled me and you have seemingly spoken about this topic round and around the houses. I don't know how many years at this point. It doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. No, no. When our grandkids are working on that. I think so. I think so. One of the questions I always keep getting brought up is productivity. When you don't feel great at work, when your balance of work versus your life essentially work life, whatever you want to call it, how does it affect employee productivity and overall job satisfaction? You already know the answer, there's probably people at home already know the answer, but let's just hear it again. I think it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation, you know. Let me try and say this in a way that makes a lot of sense, makes sense in my head, but let me try and say it in a way that makes sense when I speak out loud. Typically, when your productivity is a little bit low and you're not someone who can negotiate for better work conditions, it probably is because you lack self-esteem. And you lack the power of legalization. And once that happens, it continues to fracture that within you. So once you then end up not having that self-esteem, not having the power to negotiate for better terms and conditions, to be able to score the goals that you want for yourself in the organization, it then affects your productivity. When your productivity goes down, it continues to fracture your self-esteem. It continues to make your beliefs that I best not negotiate, I better just become a servant to what it's been told. Once I become that person, I end up transferring that energy to the people around me as well. So I think there are two ways around this, but the major thing that gets impacted on the well-being perspective is your emotional and psychological well-being. But another interesting thing that is happening in Malaysia is social well-being. Because as they experience more and more negativity in the workplace or lack of ability to negotiate for better terms in the workplace, they begin to have poor social well-being, meaning when they look at the world, they think that the world is becoming worse. Right. And from that perspective, psychological safety gets reduced. What that means is that if I feel that the world is getting worse, I feel that my life is getting worse. When I talk to the people next to me, I'm not going to make their lives better. And I'm not going to create better conditions for them either because if I'm not getting anything better, why should I get that to you? And psychological safety gets lower. And psychological safety is known to be the number one predictor for high-performing teams. So it must feel safe within myself, self-esteem, within others, the power of negotiation for me to create better conditions. If I don't have that, it's a big psychological chicken and egg situation if you get what I mean. Okay. Yeah, I do. You suggest them. Let's say, for example, we take a team as an example, right? And, you know, the boss is fairly easygoing. He knows how to deal with his staff, but he feels as though maybe their negotiation skills aren't so good. If he were to help them develop their negotiating skills, would you then say that the level of psychological safety within the workplace would be lifted? Yes, absolutely. So let me give you an example of that. Before we can even get to negotiation skills, there should be articulation skills. Some of us don't even know how to articulate what we want. And we may have the fear of being able to even articulating it eventually. Right? So here's an example of an exercise that we do that I recommend all organizations, anyone does this because it's so helpful rather than a leader trying to figure out what they can do, educating every and any and all employees to be able to do something called a love letter. A love letter is a written note, and we often say do not talk right down because there's 60,000 thoughts going out in your head. By the time you articulate, we don't know how you're framing the 60,000. So a love letter goes something like this. Dear boss or dear whoever, it can be Christian, dear Richard, whoever it is, right? Number one, thank you because if you don't start with a thank you, you would be perceived very poorly and it would seem as if you have feedback rather than appreciation. Thank you for helping me achieve my dream and my goal, which is ultimately about productivity. Thank you for XYZ, that really helped me to be able to score a goal for the team. Now I continue to have a dream, so the first part is appreciation, the second one, I continue to have a dream. I imagine that we'll be able to do an XYZ much faster in the future. And I think there's a huge potential for us to consider that. The third one is therefore this is my very specific ask, and some of them end up saying my specific ask is please do not call me after five o'clock, so I can recover. Right. Then the next part is the impact on this. If I'm able to go back at five o'clock, I'm able to cook my dinner for my family, whatever not, I'm able to pack my lunch the next day. I don't have to go out for lunch. I can eat lunch at home. I feel healthy. I feel like I have my life. My family is happy with me. And the benefit is that I will continue with the energy that I have, continue to score goals better and faster than before. Now, when they hand that over, the leader reads it, the leader is like, you're telling me that if I just stop calling you at five o'clock, you can give me all of this. And most of the time the leader, and we always say, you know, make sure that whatever you ask for is within their control. Most of the time it's within their control, but they didn't even know that that's what you really wanted, because number one, you didn't know that that's what you want. You didn't articulate it and you didn't make it easy for me to be able to accept it with all the benefits. And I think if that's what people do more and more of, I don't know whether it's what I balanced that you would achieve, but at least you would have your own balance within you because you know what it is that you really want to and that balances you out as well. And that helps to balance the leader because the leader would be wondering, what else can I do for you? I don't know what else I can do for you. I don't know what I should do for you as well. And the problem is the assumptions that leaders make when trying to make medical class conditions could be completely different from what the other person wants. And we call this the Rose bouquet effect. The Rose bouquet effect is when the wife complains and tells the husband, I don't like you, you're not a good husband, the husband buys a Rose bouquet. She takes the Rose bouquet, throws it on the floor and says, but that's not what I want. And the husband then buys croissant and then she takes the croissant, she throws it on the floor. But the problem is that they both write, they're both wrong, they both trying to articulate, but neither of them have asked, what do you really want? So when he asks, what do you really want, she might say, I don't know, just be a better husband. But then he should say, I don't know what that means, tell me exactly what that looks like. And if I can and so is in my control, I will do it for you. So the Rose bouquet effect is when we try and do things for each other, thinking that that's the right thing or the thing that will make the other person happy. But I think that's what Malaysia is trying to do, coming up with a lot of beautiful things, or let's give you all a flexi hours, let's give you incentive for food, let's give you all these things. But the more you give someone, without them articulating what they need, the more when they look at it, they might just say, I don't know whether that's what I really want. It's almost like you're speaking different languages. Yes, speaking different languages and it's also making people very pampered and obnoxious when you give them something. And then you realize, my God, I'm giving you everything is still not enough. Right, right, right. They need to articulate that. Okay. So before we move into a break then, you know, there's all these things that we've spoken about, you know, this strong desire for better work, life balance, flexible working hours, options to work remotely, supportive work environment. What do you think then are the main challenges that employers in Malaysia face when they try to implement these initiatives? Right. I think it's called the paradox of choice. You're wondering, right? Like, how do I make this choice? There are multiple ways of making these choice. Yeah. My nation is limit your choice and just make a decision to cut work out at a certain time. Just cut it out because nobody is being paid more. It is just and it never leads to better or higher performance. It just leads to more and more behavioral practices that are reactive, rather than strategic proactive and full of negotiation for better outcomes, not only for life, but for goals as well at work. So my recommendation would be for all leaders, you might feel that there's a paradox, meaning when you make a choice, like, oh, if I cut out time, I'll be losing out on other things, you will be losing. But if you don't put that in place, you will be losing other things the other day during a session, a workshop. One of them had to leave halfway and check herself in to the hospital for cardiac related issues. In the past, it used to be males getting cardiovascular diseases and it was more predominant than men. But now it's getting safe for women because this is what workplaces do to you. So we'll just say, do not wonder what choice you need to make. Make that choice because it is the right thing to do and make that choice for you and reward people who do really well in that condition, create consequences for people who cannot cope with that environment because that environment is the best environment to create. And if you don't communicate, if you're one person who, between the 12, the 95, this is when they're supposed to be high performing, but if you don't communicate, you don't show up at that time. Have an exit strategy for people who are not creating a sustainable way for us to keep this environment flourishing rather than saying, because of some people, now we have to go back to, like, let's not do the party and let's just keep this going until God knows what time. We're not making the good ones pay the price for the ones that are not disciplined enough to stay in this environment and it is difficult, Richard. Such environments are made for athletes. You know, it's only the really good ones that can do 95 in my personal opinion and succeed at it. Okay. All right. We need to take a short break here, folks. You are tuning to Enterprise Explorers, the show where we help you navigate the ever-changing universe of business from headlines to the bottom line. I am speaking with Hettle Doshi, the organizational, psychodist and CEO of O Psych. We'll be right back after a few messages here on BFM 89.9, V Business Station. Benchmark for managers, BFM 89.9. BFM 89.9, V Business Station. Welcome back. I'm Rich Bradbury here on Enterprise Explorers, the show where we help you navigate the ever-changing universe of business from the headlines to the bottom line. We're discussing a work-life balance report by Remote, a global HR platform where Malaysia has been ranked as the second worst country for work-life balance amongst 16 nations. I'm speaking with organizational, psychodist and CEO of O Psych. Hettle Doshi, she's helping me understand the psychological impact of a poor work-life balance. Specific needs and desires of Malaysian employees and the practical steps employers can take to foster healthier, more balanced work environment. There's a couple of things I wanted to go back and touch on Hettle. Now Malaysia, as we talk about often and when people talk about it in tourism adverts and brochures and whatever, it's a cultural-month melting pot. We hear this over and over again, are there cultural attitudes towards work-life balance and productivity in Malaysia that influence these different issues, do you think? So, my understanding from all of the data that we've collected across organizations and the teams within it is that there is no Malaysian culture. Okay, there you go. You heard that here first. There is no Malaysian culture. There are no Malaysian, there are no even organizational culture. So some organizations think they have a culture. What it is is that there are different teams with different teams, different dreams and different ways that they achieve it. So when we say culture, I don't really understand what it means because when we say Malaysian culture, I don't understand what that really means because there is so much of variation and diversity. But I suppose what it's trying to be is that one commonality that strings everyone together. What strings everyone together across all different companies that I know is that the tempo and workpiece is very, very high. And the second thing is that influence at work, the ability to negotiate is the biggest challenge that I find universally to exist in Malaysia. Right, right. So it's not work-life challenge, yes, work-life template is a trend that is increasing. But the next biggest one is the ability to influence the ability to negotiate, the ability to speak to feel safe to be able to do that for a better life. And when we double-click on that culture, that cultural commonality across all organisations, when we double-click on that, when we ask a lot of people, "Where do you think that comes from?" They give us a lot of different ideas and from all the different variables we call it, we found out that self-esteem was very, very low. So self-esteem means do I, what opinion do I have of myself? When it comes to my competence, and what opinion do I have of myself when it comes to likeability? So these are two things. One is your competence, the other is your character. And these two things go back to the fear of failure, the failure of not being good enough, and the fear of not being good enough. And the opinion and the majority that we have found in the Malaysian database, think of themselves. When I think and I lay an opinion on myself that is poor, I cannot find voice in way to be able to raise that issue or be able to challenge somebody else for a better condition for my life. Because I feel I don't really, deep down, I don't really deserve it. Let me ask you a question that on that, and this could get quite esoteric, I guess. How far back or how wide of a view do you have to have of something like this? Because if you really looked at it, you could look at it to be like, you can go back as far as colonialism, imperialism, and that real top down, you do what I say kind of approach to things that has maybe permeated the Malaysian quote unquote culture. Do you know? And I stuck there through every day life and got into work places. I love that. I mean, I love that. You say like historically, when you think this may have started, what do you say that the contribution, the contributing points and really self-esteem, the opinion that you have of yourself, and you are just one person, but you are immune to it that forms an entire country, right? Exactly. Then your family, your family to your organization, whatever not. So this idea here about self-esteem and the opinions that you have of yourself, typically is evidence-based. So what happens is that the more you feel your country is losing, the more you feel your team is losing, your organization is losing, your family is losing, or you are losing, when you compare yourself to the next, evidence tells you that maybe I'm not good enough. It's not only a feeling that you have about yourself, but it's typically some evidence that you're getting around. So for example, when you say Malaysia's second lowest in this work-life balance index, immediately it makes you have a low opinion of the country, and from the low opinion of a country, when you say your Malaysian, you have a low opinion of yourself, and then you hang out with a person from Singapore, and then your self-esteem goes down a little bit. When Singapore starts to say my currency is better, or when somebody tells you, oh, we have the best echo in the world, what are you the best at? In the moment, you lack the evidence to say that I am better, but it's not a comparison, but what happens is naturally social comparison, and then begins that idea that that cultural element is something that I find, and I know work-life balance is just the manifestation of it. It's not the reality. There's something much deeper than that. Okay. Okay. Let's make things a bit more positive, then. We're some examples of companies here in Malaysia, or even globally, that have learned something, and they've gone on, and there's this beautiful, beaming light of great work-life balance, and people are consistently happy in the workplace. Is there such a thing, and where do I get a job? Yeah. I can mention the organisation's name, but typically it's the leaders that make that happen. It's not even the organisation, because the organisation has ideas, principles, philosophies, but the ones that lead it as well. So I think the ones that have done the best that I have seen, and over a period of time, seen them progress radically, and very quickly, are the teams that are very data-driven. So what they do is five things. Number one, they agree that they want to have the best life ever. It's not the only best work. They want to have the best life ever, and then with the best life ever, deliver, and score goals across all aspects of their life. So they agree that life is the most important thing. They agree to bring the best version of themselves in the workplace. They agree that they want to score goals in the workplace. Then they assess. They assess at all the things, and we call it psychosocial risk, that all the pain that they are going through that prevents them from scoring these goals. They also look at the pain that is preventing them from working well together, which is called psychological safety, and well-being, which is things that are going on in my life. So three elements risk well-being and safety. They assess that, but also now we've added in self-esteem. They align once they look at it, they realise here these are the biggest trends in the biggest issues that we have, and typically the biggest issue would come around influence at work. The ability or the inability to articulate what you want, say to the person that you need to say to and negotiate, then they actually, after they align that this is what is going to help us to score the goals, they act on it, and they accelerate with the impact of whether or not the data is showing improvements. I think it's really magical when we say it's human lives, but you can actually take a very very inter-driven approach to see how you can systemise this whole team, data-driven matter to see how best we can score these goals. So the best ones, I think, take a very data-driven approach to managing not people but a system for all of us to score goals better. That system doesn't sound too different to that love letter that you were talking about, you know, how it's, you're thanking somebody, you're looking at your dreams, it's the ask, it's then the impact and then the benefit, you know, these are all, you know, if you break it down, that is also data as well that you can use and refine from. Oh yeah, absolutely, that storytelling a little bit, the difference would be that you have a dashboard with the, with the love letter, it's very intimate, it's, you know, very beautiful, it's one-on-one, but you may not be able to calculate all of that data points into a dashboard. So there are two elements to it. One would be the dashboard where you can look at things qualitatively across the board, across the organisation, various demographic cuts. So for example, well, being able in Malaysia is not an, sorry, well, what I'm not telling you is not a major issue for men, it's a significantly huge issue for women. Right, right. It's not a major issue for the older ones, it's a huge issue for the younger ones. So demographic cuts on that dashboard tells you what to play with, where to play with, a little bit better, but love letters is an intimate way of making that data work in your favour for you personally. It's right. Yeah, I do. Now, one thing that we often hear about and complaints that you get is, oh, the government's not doing enough for me in helping to promote a better work life balance, they're not pushing things enough, you know, what can they do? I mean, they can suggest a policy, they can tell companies this is what you should be doing. Well, at the end of the day, you know, unless this is written into policy, there are going to be companies out there who are going to be like, you know, this is the way that things have been. What would you do about that? I mean, are the government playing a strong enough role? Do you think in promoting a better work life balance amongst the workforce? This is my philosophy, but it's not a correct philosophy necessarily. You're thinking about it holistically, but I think it's a good philosophy for individuals. You wouldn't leave your money with your government. You wouldn't leave your mind with your government. You wouldn't leave your life with your government. So make sure that you're fully empowered to make sure that you make your own money in a good way, you make your mind better, you make your life better. So try to have lesser reliance on anybody except for yourself to make the best life possible, but from a government health perspective, they are massive amounts of gains if they can put in policies, for example, specifically for 5003. 4503 is a way to mitigate, and they have done this by the way, yeah. So this was June 20, 24 this year. Minister Steven Sim had announced the need for psychosocial risk, which is 4503, the impact on the psychology of human behavior in the workplace to be assessed and to make sure that there are competent assessors in the organizations to be able to look at what is the risk and to act upon it as well. Of course, then it shouldn't be just a checklist or something that you do, but you don't do it well. But yeah, I do think that the government is doing that best. I just think at the end of the day, it's individuals and companies to make sure that it really, really works super well for them in a way that is very meaningful in a way that helps you to score goals very simply. Right. Okay, so we've got about a minute and a bit left before I have to let you go, Hettle. What are your final thoughts on this? I mean, if you had to say within one minute to a bunch of employers who are setting a room, this is what you need to do tomorrow to help your employees feel more psychologically safe and eliminate psychosocial risk, what would you say to them? I would say, be very, very clear about what you really, really want, follow spires goals all the way, in order to get what you really, really want, time is the most precious commodity and use that time for three major things, eliminate the drama, set your mental state up for success, and number three, make sure all your relationships are set in place to set each other up for success. That's brilliant. Hettle, though, she, it's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you once again here on Enterprise Explos. Thank you. All right. Folks, I was speaking with organizational psychologist and CEO of Opsite Kettle, though, she, if you missed any part of this conversation, you can catch the podcast on our website at bfm.my or download the BFM app. You can also find our shows on Spotify, Apple podcasts and other podcast players just search for Enterprise Explos. Keep it here on BFM 89.9, the business station. You have been listening to a podcast from BFM 89.9, the business station. For more stories of the same kind, download the BFM app.