Motherhood vs career: the Malaysian mother’s dilemma

Women make up 70% of those enrolled in public universities in Malaysia, but the country still lags behind their neighbours when it comes to women participation in the workforce. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Seth Akmal, March 7, 2015.

Sue (not her real name) was walking around with a sense of purpose at the Women's Comeback Fair in Kuala Lumpur recently, desperatly seeking a job that would allow her flexibility to care for her recently delivered premature baby still in hospital.

Working in the service industry, the 33-year-old from Kuching has to do eight-hour shifts around the clock and wished her company had a policy where she could transfer to another department to be able to cope with family needs.

"There are other departments which could offer me the stability of working from 9 to 5pm, but I would need some training.

"Unfortunately, there is no such policy, so I need to get out," she said.

Mother-of-two Pauline Teo, who joined multinational company BASF Asia Pacific Service Centre last year, chose to return to work after a seven-year career break and decided to pursue a different line.

Formerly in the pharmaceutical line for eight years, she is now a human resource analyst and works four hours a day under a job-sharing arrangement, which means that Teo shares the responsibility of what is typically one job with another person. 

"For me, the reason for going back to work was for self-fulfillment and to focus on myself.

"In fact, the thought of going to work was relaxing after full-time motherhood duties," she said.

A view of the Women's Comeback Fair held in Kuala Lumpur recently. A TalentCorp study finds that the career graph for women peaks when they are in their 20s and gradually drops off, never to peak again. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Seth Akmal, March 7, 2015.Teo said she wished more companies would offer training programmes for people like her, who want to return to work but prefer to take on different fields than what they previously used to do.

According to Maybank group chief human capital officer, Nora Abd Manaf, the bank offers its employees a wide range of flexible working arrangements (FWA) including, flextime, telecommuting and reduced hours.

Women made up 58% of the workforce in Maybank as of last year, and their representation in senior management grew from 11% in 2008 to 35% in 2014.

But while select companies have begun to realise the importance of facilitating women, TalentCorp chief executive officer Johan Mahmood Merican said that in Malaysia currently, only one-third of public listed companies have some type of flexible working arrangements for  women who have to find a balance between home and job.

This essentially means that many mothers are forced to choose between a fulfilling career, and spending more quality time with their families.

Johan said that another concern with women dropping off work was that it usually involves high performing individuals, given that they had to work hard and as such were unable to find a work-life balance.

"But these are the ones we want to retain in the workforce so that they can be future leaders," he said.

Facilitating work-life balance for women a business case

Given that women make up 70% of those enrolled in public universities in Malaysia,  getting women to stay on in the workforce and facilitating returnees was a business case to access the country's talent pool.

"Therefore, if companies do not figure out how to attract and retain women in the workforce, there will naturally be a talent crunch," Johan told The Malaysian Insider.

TalentCorp's goal now is to to achieve a "double peak" profile for the labour workforce made up of women in Malaysia.

Malaysia currently has a "single peak" profile, Johan (pic, left) explained, where for gender participation according to age, the graph peaks once when women are in their 20s and gradually drops off, never to peak again.

He added that national statistics show that this was because women leave the workforce to fulfill traditional gender roles, such as motherhood.

"But in other countries like Korea and Japan, there is clear double peak profile, which means that those who leave the workforce, eventually come back, creating the second peak," he added.

While more and more companies are beginning to reach out to women returning to work, many are still resistant to the idea of FWA, claiming that it was costly and complicated to implement.

Johan Khoo, managing director at Accenture Strategy Communications, Media & Technology, said that what was most needed among Malaysian employers was a change in mindset.

He added that traditional workplace was evolving and Malaysian companies must evolve as "millennials will demand it".

Khoo said that getting the Malaysian corporate sector to look into offering flexiblities for the workforce was imperative, as failure to do so would make the country uncompetitive regionally as well as globally.

As it is, Malaysia's women labour force participation rate was one of the lowest, at 52.4%, among Asean countries, according to a survey by TalentCorp.

"Flexiblity should be for everyone but we are focusing on women because that is the largest untapped pool of talent currently in Malaysia," Khoo told The Malaysian Insider.

He said the government was the first to offer staggered working hours more than two decades ago, then to solve the traffic congestion at government offices in Jalan Duta, Kuala Lumpur.

"So if the government can implement something as simple as that, why can't Malaysian corporates (do it)?

"It is not hard, it's a question of a little trust, they need to realise that if you lend trust to employees, they will give it  back to you," Khoo said.

- TMI