Work.. How Much is Enough?

By: Professor Dato’ Dr. Wan Zurinah Wan Ngah

As the year comes to an end, I thought this may be a suitable time to ponder on what we call work. And I should have something to say about work having worked for more than 35 years. Oops, I may have let the cat out of the bag here and gave a clue to my chronological age. For your information, my biological age is still 30-ish, I hope!

We spend a substantial part of our lives in the work place; earn money to support ourselves, family and dependents, in short to make a living. When we relate work to performance, then the question raised is who are we working for? Is it for us or for our immediate bosses or the faculty or the institution or the government? Now then, this is of interest because of the mismatch between the expectations of the bosses (even with the presence of KPI) and the actual performance of ‘workers’.

Why is work not equal to performance? According to a Gallup’s worldwide survey (2013) in 142 countries on the state of the workplace, only 13% of employees are engaged at work. What this means is that an ‘engaged’ employee is committed to his work and shows this by going the extra mile to get things done, will use his or her initiative to get things done, is always improving him/herself or the workplace, does not wait for work to come to him/her but will seek to do more. In other words, ‘staff who emotionally invested in and focused on creating value for their organizations every day’ (Gallup report). This is in contrast to 63% employees who are not engaged and 24% who are actively disengaged i.e.,’ those who are negative and potentially hostile to their organizations’. These values vary according to the region but the picture painted is similar. The disengaged employees outnumber engaged employees at a rate of nearly 2-1. So if engagement at work determines work performance, how then can the level of engagement be increased?

And what factors determine engagement? Are these factors intrinsic such as the person’s genes or environment (upbringing, family background) or gene-environment interaction? (This is, after all a Molecular Biology institute). Or are they extrinsically determined such as the salary scale and incentives, the workplace, the leadership? It is possible that there are subjectivity in the interpretation of how much work is enough, that there is a limit to the amount of work that should be done. I think the introduction of KPIs and quality culture is probably to address this subjectivity.

Yes, you are right! All the above factors do contribute to engagement and performance. And we can go on and on discussing these. But in the end what is the critical factor that determines a person’s performance at work?

The bottom line is I think we should go back to the fundamentals of why we are here not just in the workplace and why we are here. As a Muslim, we pray, fast and pay zakat but are careless in ‘giving proper weights and measures’ when we work. There is a gap between what Islam means for the Muslims and what the Muslims want for themselves (the Ideal Muslim, Dr Muhammad Ali al Hashim, 1997) which is to always strive for excellence, to start our days with good intentions to excel and all for the sake of Allah. These are some reminders that we need and more often than not, forget as we go about our daily activities. I know I constantly need to be reminded!

So back to the question of how much work is enough? Maybe we can start the year 2015 by resolving to do the best we can, that our intention is clear that we are working for Allah first and foremost and then for us, to set no limits when working, to continue to learn and improve and to always always make doa for guidance and barakah from Allah. This will then ensure sustainability in performance as the rewards due are not limited to this temporary world but to the permanent hereafter, insyaAllah, Allahu a’lam.