In a wide ranging discussion around students' preferences
on their future workplace environments, Eric Collins,
City Business Magazine Editor-in-Chief, sat down with
Hans Josef Tuble Velez; Sam Leung Chin-hin; Janet
Ng Wing-hei, all Exchange Student Club Ambassadors;
Jeffrey Wong Koon-kiu, Exchange Student Club —
External Affairs Secretary; Maria Lin Dandan, University
of Groningen, Netherlands; Igor Kasiho, University of
Ottawa, Canada; Quentin Pellier, EDHEC Business
School, France, all inward bound exchange students.
Work environment
Hans Josef: I prefer a hybrid environment. One where
there is an office, but also to have the flexibility to be
able to work from home or anywhere, not necessarily
headquarters but it may be other countries. It would
be good to sometimes have company culture, meet
colleagues and work together. That's beneficial too.
Sam: I also prefer hybrid mode, more diverse so that I
can meet more people from different countries, from all
walks of life. More flexible working time is also preferable
because I like to wake up early in the morning and then
start my work very early, finish my work earlier and have
my own time.
Quentin: I have to agree with both of you guys, but I
also feel it's important to have some diversity, but the
more diverse it is, the more adaptable everybody needs to
be. Everybody needs to pay more attention to what they
say, to what they think, what they write. And for my ideal
workplace, I also feel flexibility is a must.
Igor: So, I think after Covid, everyone is falling in love
with the hybrid mode and I'm also a fan of four days a
week.
Jeffrey: My ideal is for sure being very agile. In a previous
internship I worked in a very agile company, so as long
as you got the deliverables done you could just work
wherever or whenever.
Differences between East and West?
Jeffrey: I think it's really different between the eastern
and western culture because the western culture is more
encouraging of working from home and in Germany
they're considering cancelling Friday as a working day.
But in Hong Kong eastern culture the employers want
the workers to be there. They want to know that they're
working.
Igor: I think there's more power to the employees after
Covid. There's been an all-time high in people quitting
their job. The turnover is really high. So right now,
employers are much more flexible with their strategies.
Sam: I think it depends on the company culture, like in
East Asia, most of the companies value their culture and
then you have to be there and mingle with the other
colleagues and build strong bonding. You have to know
how to socialise with the colleagues and that's a big thing
in East Asia culture I think.
Maria: In the EU they have more labour unions with
better benefits and minimum wage compared to the US
where if you are a waitress you get a wage based on your
tips. They are not really brought up on now to employ
everybody especially when they're in a recession.
Janet: I think in the east, like in Hong Kong, some
international firms take working practices from the west,
so workers can choose to work from home to finish their
jobs and this can create a higher sense of motivation.
Work life balance
Sam: Work life balance means you have your
boundaries. If you work for 8 hours, then you are not
supposed to do overtime work without pay. I think in
Hong Kong it depends on the industry. Some industries
for example like the audit department in a big 4
accounting company, don't really have work life balance.
My brother works in one and as junior staff, he had to
work overnight until 7am. And back to the office like
9am or 10am or something like that.
Quentin: If you apply the idea of work life balance to
France or Belgium, it looks like people don't have it. And
even less for students doing internships. In France we
have this culture of the more you are in the office, the
more you work. So interns would start at 7am and stay
until 8pm just to show their boss that they're working.
Even if there's no hybrid mode, people are still going to
come to big companies. You can compare it to working at fast food companies as students. There are so many
people who want to go there that they don't really care if
you feel comfortable or not.
Jeffrey: I think one problem is that a lot of people are
working overtime, but they're not compensated. And I
think work life balance is actually not achievable because
by definition it means "after work. I don't think about
work." If you need to think about work, then you're not
resting.
Janet: I would analyse from the performance and
compensation perspective. So if employees are able to
complete everything in a really nice manner, then it's fine
to work for fewer hours. We should emphasise more
on the productivity or the quality on the work itself.
Also there should be a maximum of 9 hours per day.
If workers do overtime, companies should arrange a
budget compensation package.
Response time
Eric: As long as you're contactable you are accountable,
so then the question is what is the expected response
time? And that varies a lot between cultures.
Jeffrey: I'd say it's efficient in Hong Kong. My experience
in the US is everything is so slow. Like I was trying to get
my driving license there. I had to wait for 6 hours. Then
they told me, sorry please come back another day. Now,
I appreciate how efficient Hong Kong is. If you have any
problem you message your teacher, the professor is going
to message you back.
Quentin: I agree. Yeah, in France it's not as bad as in the
US, but pretty much and for example teachers. 2 weeks
before we have our SEG exams, the teacher says that
you can always message me and they answered 2 hours
before the test at like 6am. I asked questions to Jasmine
Wong, our coordinator for exchange or a teacher and
they answer in the same day. Hong Kong is pretty
impressive.
Maria: In the Netherlands they answer pretty fast during
the week. They do not answer at all during the weekend,
so they do have a better work life balance because if they
have 8 hours they only do 8 hours.
Igor: Yeah, Canada is not even efficient. I'll give you an
example. They're supposed to build a hospital in Ottawa
and it took them 5 years to decide on the location.
Lack of efficiency due to the chain of command. And
also in terms of work life balance, I think in Canada it
definitely depends on the sector. Not much if you work in
finance or especially in the medical field, but in the other
industries, it's actually great.
A career for life?
Hans Josef: I think nowadays people are more
opportunistic. The world now is very interlinked. So if
there's a better opportunity elsewhere most people will
go for it. If there's an opportunity to work overseas with
a work visa and then transfer to actual citizenship, people
will jump at that.
Sam: I'm one of the people who wants to work overseas
after graduating because I know there would be no work
life balance in Hong Kong and I value my own time. I
want to explore more cultures and more places and then
I won't stick to the same company for a long time.
Jeffrey: I think this all depends on the benefits. Like
good pension, citizenship, good sponsorship, good
holidays. Then I'll be there. Like better pay, of course then
I will be there. For me, I'm looking for more stable and
more future oriented.
Innovation
Eric: Looking at Amazon where everyone is encouraged
to innovate, is this something that you would aspire to in
your future working lives?
Hans Josef: I think what Jeff Bezos is doing has value
and you just look at the value chain model. Different
areas of the business can add value to whatever service
or product you're giving. So, if you're for example a
warehouse worker, you're in the front line. You have
more idea of what can be efficient in the warehouse.
Jeffrey: I think innovation is a must. To adapt to the
trend, to adapt to the market you have to change. I
think hybrid mode is also an innovation, how people are
treated at work. Because if more of the employees are
more satisfied, they tend to have better loyalty, better
productivity and stuff.
Janet: I agree, in the Hong Kong context we often talk
about ESG, so in order to catch up with these practices,
a lot of companies implement a lot of policies that
encourage us to innovate and try to reduce the use of
the resources in different ways. They try to allow staff to
think of new ways in order to achieve the ESG goals. And
try to let the Hong Kong culture be more flexible and
creative.
Igor: Yeah, I think it's better to give the space to your
employees to be able to innovate. We've heard about
companies like Google for example, where they maybe
have 20% of the work time dedicated to peer projects.
Everyone says innovation, innovation, but when do we
have time to think about it?
Entrepreneurship
Eric: Are any of you considering being entrepreneurs?
Many: That's the goal!
Sam: If you own something like a website domain or
a system, then for the first few years maybe it's very
difficult for you to have work life balance, but the
outcome is you can have the whole system, you can earn
money, you can gain passive income. So, I think it's kind
of a must or a trend in our generation that we want to
work for ourselves. We need side hustles.
Hans Josef: To be an entrepreneur it's a must to be
innovative. It's a struggle as well because it is hard to find
new ideas which are better than what is currently out
there.
Maria: As you have seen, we had brick and mortar stores
for DVDs, but then Netflix came in and it was a disruptor
of the industry. So like, we can also be a disruptor, we
can offer the same product, but differently. Business
environments change over time. You may have a sneaker
store with flying drones coming in with the sneakers.
People look for experience, not just product.
Quentin: I feel being an entrepreneur is not hard at all
if you want to be one. There's a saying that once you
get to enjoying your job, it's not a job anymore. And I
believe that. For example, when I play sports I enjoy it.
The people that do it professionally, I don't feel it's like a
job for them. That's pretty much the same if you're an
entrepreneur. Working 14 hours a day is hard, but if you
really want to do it and you have a goal, I don't feel it's
really your job. It's a mindset, your goal, and a lifestyle
choice.
ChatGPT
Eric: How do you think ChatGPT or similar variations are
going to affect the workplace?
Sam: I think it will be a tool for the people to brainstorm
their ideas.
Jeffrey: I think it will eliminate all the dirty work going
through all the proposal looking for proofreading, help
us to be more precise and be more accurate. I think it's
going to change the whole workplace, I think it also
helps us like to reinforce, like brainstorming, to think
about better ideas. Then we can just focus on innovation.
Quentin: Jobs are going to disappear and others are
going to come up. The only problem with this is that the
jobs that are going to come up are more specific jobs and
need more qualifications, so workers who are not really
qualified are going to have more and more problems. For
us, if we're being honest, we're going to have a job. The
gap between qualified workers and workers that are not
really qualified is going to get bigger.
