Professor Mahendhiran Nair exchanging documents with MPC Director-General En Mohd Razali Hussain as YB Dato’ Sri Mustapa Mohamed looks on. 

The “Quality of Work Life (Malaysia) 2012” examines the perception of managers about their workplace and how they deal with changes at the workplace. The project explores four themes:

•    Examines general views of managers about their organisations
•    Explores how managers view management and leadership styles in their organisations
•    Examines working hours and the effects they  have on managers
•    Explores the strategic performance of organisations

Responses from junior, middle and senior managers were taken into consideration.

Although 40% to 50% of respondents show some reservations on certain aspects of the work environment, such as blame culture (53%) and lack of resources (51%), 82% of respondents think that morale is good in their organisations, reads the report.

 Professor Mahendhiran Nair and Business students who participated in the seminar, after the event.

Professor Mahendhiran Nair and Professor Pervaiz K Ahmed share a conversation with  YB Dato’ Sri Mustapa Mohamed (right).

A majority (70%) indicate that they enjoy coming to work and find work to be an enjoyable activity. 

Nonetheless, a significant number also note negative aspects of work. The overall positive work environment seems to offset the negative work environment. This is consistent with the general belief that organisational politics and conflict exists in all organisations but as long as it is not excessive it is unlikely to have disastrous impact on the overall organisational well-being, it adds.

Professor Pervaiz explains that the study came about when a meeting with Professor Worrall, who researched the subject in the UK, discussed the need for a comparative survey of the same subject in Malaysia.

“The MPC was very keen to understand how the quality of work life impacts productivity and performance, as well as with the expertise of Monash in the broader areas of Innovation and Quality Management. That was the start of the MPC link,” he said.

As a result, Monash University Sunway campus on May 15, 2012, inked a Memorandum of Understanding with the Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC).

Under the MoU, the Sunway campus and MPC agree to execute a number of research surveys and studies including developing insights into shortcomings and limitations of firm strategies and entrepreneurship.

The parties will also look into conducting comparative international benchmarking of Malaysian productivity and innovation performance against advanced and emerging countries.

The Sunway campus was represented by Deputy President (Strategy) Professor Mahendhiran Nair. The signing ceremony was witnessed by Minister of International Trade and Industry YB Dato’ Sri Mustapa Mohamed.

In conjunction with the event, the MPC organised a seminar titled “Gen Y in the Era Of The 21st Century”, which also saw the participation of about 10 students from the School of Business, Monash University Sunway campus.

How Malaysian managers feel about their employer.