This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on April 18, 2022 - April 24, 2022

Here’s the good news. In many ways, Malaysia’s career women are doing better than ever. They have more opportunities than their grandmothers could have dreamed of, and are taking their chances with brio. As we commemorated International Women’s Month in March, that is well worth celebrating.

Specifically, women comprise 40% of positions in senior management teams in Malaysian companies, the most ever. That figure is higher than the global average (32%) or compared with other Asean countries (37%). More and more of these positions are in core operations and strategic leadership, such as CEOs — an increase of 28% in 2021 alone — as well as more chief finance, information and operating officers. Malaysian women’s representation on the top 100 publicly listed boards continues to improve, too, from 24% in 2018 to 26.4% in 2021 — the highest of any Asian country.

Here’s the bad news. Though their progress has been heartening, Malaysian women often find the workplace inhospitable. In a 2020 survey, more than half said they had experienced some kind of discrimination at work, including being asked to do more work than men for a similar job description. In addition, they reported that employers all too often queried them on their marital status or family plans, something that has blocked women from the promotions they deserved.

Another problem is that, like women elsewhere, Malaysian women often work a “second shift”. Regardless of income, they do substantially more unpaid care (for children and elders) and perform more household tasks, even though they work almost as many hours as men.

Then there’s the invisible “office housework”. These are actions that are not part of anyone’s formal job description, but that do a great deal to make the workplace both liveable and productive, such as managing workloads, checking in on people’s well-being, and supporting employee resource groups. In a sense, this is becoming a “third shift” — and women do more of it.

No wonder, then, that it appears that more and more women are burnt out — and more so than their male colleagues. Recent McKinsey research in the US is telling. In a 2021 survey of 65,000 people, it found that 42% of women said they were feeling burnt out, much higher than in 2020 (32%) and significantly more than men (35%). There is no directly comparable research for Malaysian women, but surveys from elsewhere in the region indicate a similar pattern. For example, a Singapore study found that more than a third of working mothers are finding it difficult to do it all, due to longer working hours, increased caretaking responsibilities, Covid-related disruptions, and the struggle to “switch off”.

So, there’s the Catch-22: Working women do more to prevent burnout — and also suffer it more. In a sense, companies risk losing the very leaders they need. It is a step in the right direction that 96% of Malaysian businesses say they are taking action on engagement and inclusion. And almost three-quarters are planning to adopt or increase flexible work practices.

These principles are fine, but far from enough. For example, compared with men, Malaysian women were less optimistic about working from home and other forms of flexibility; they are worried that they could suffer career penalties for doing so. Daily practices themselves need to be constructive, so that people do not feel that they need to be always on. To take the pressure off, companies can limit off-hours communications and set expectations on response time. This is not happening: Only one in five employees told us their company has said they do not need to respond to non-urgent requests outside of traditional work hours. Leaders can start the conversation by simply doing a pulse check and clearly setting expectations on response time. Finally, if companies want the office housework done, incentivise people to step up by including well-being and inclusion work in formal evaluations. Ensure that men start taking an equal load when it comes to tasks outside any formal job description, be it organising a team lunch or recruiting.

These recommendations may seem like common sense, but they are far from common in the workplace. Note, too, that none is directed exclusively to women. And that illustrates the larger, most important point: By making their workplaces better for women, leaders will make them better for everyone.

Victoria Ngow is an engagement manager at the McKinsey and Company Malaysia office where Ying Wan Loh is a junior specialist

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