The Youth Roundtable Series is a new initiative by the Perdana Fellows Alumni Association to bring youth leaders from various   political, social and   economical divides discuss issues of national interest in an open manner. We aspire to catalyse this transformation and inspire other organisations to champion the culture of agree to disagree.  We are proud to have collaborated with eHomemakers and Young Corporate Malaysians (YCM) in organizing our second Youth Roundtable, themed “Work-Life Balance”, in conjunction with the ASEAN   Work-Life Balance Conference that was held from the 23^rd to 25^th of February 2016.

Work-life balance (WLB) is personal; it is a comfortable state of equilibrium between work and a private lifestyle in terms allocation of personal resources to family, the community, culture and the individual. The idea of a work-life balance is admittedly still novel to some, and to an extent taken quite lightly. But with the rising demands of today’s socio-economic development, an increasing number of people struggle for WLB. Long working hours, time-consuming commute between home and workplace, lack of affordable childcare, scarcity of flexi-time or telework opportunities are some of the factors that hinder WLB.

Our roundtable discussion revolved round two topics, that is, Talent Retention and Alternative Employment. Today’s labor market is also seeing an increasing participation of women, an ageing population and the retirement of baby boomers – a new paradigm that pressures companies to recognize the need to strike a balance between work and life as one of their talent retention strategies.

Talent retention refers to the extent that an organization or country manages to retain its skilled work force, usually on three main levels – organizational, geographical and industrial. Alternative employment consists of both formal and informal policies allowing employees’ temporal flexibility in their professional schedules, moving away from the rigid 40-hour workweek. Some of the initiatives are job-sharing, working from home, flexi hours and flexi place.