Lisa Yeoh

My Work-Life Experience

Lisa Yeoh is the CEO and founder of a coaching and business consultancy firm. Her career spans more than two decades at global healthcare companies including senior business leadership positions helming organizations across countries in Asia.  

Inspired to make a difference to the broader community, Lisa believes that shifting workplace culture and mindsets is fundamental to improve work-life harmony sustainably. She shares that as social norms, individual aspirations, and technology evolve, work-life harmony is increasingly relevant for working individuals. “As a society, we have come to view success at work as more than just filling one’s rice bowl”. 

“While the traditional cultural concept of prioritising hard work has been imbued in us since young, today’s working adults also want to invest time in personal relationships and find creative ways to work more effectively with the technological tools available. ”

For those seeking better personal work-life effectiveness, Lisa shares three core ideas they should embrace. First, identify what brings personal meaning at the specific life stage you are at, such as focusing on career progression, caring for elderly parents or starting a family, to name a few examples. “This requires us to take a broader view and be attuned to what is important rather than just what is urgent”. Secondly, connect with a social network that can be tapped on for support as we juggle our different responsibilities. For Lisa, this has meant building a support network of colleagues, family and friends. Finally, working individuals need to be adaptable and regularly re-evaluate priorities as we progress. 

Lisa has found that providing employees with autonomy over where and when they work can have a positive impact on the business as well – when employees are able to work flexibly, organisations can also have greater agility in how they manage business operations. Thus, she encourages senior management to begin a flexible work arrangement pilot with an individual or small group of employees, and assess these ‘micro-experiences’ to understand what has worked well, what can be done better, and how the organisation needs to fine-tune their processes to scale up effectively.