Ways of working

Enhancing our value proposition to attract and retain talent through GROW

Growth Teaming

In PwC, everyone works in teams; so we wanted to reimagine how we help our people develop as PwC Professionals as they work together.

We designed a programme called Growth Teaming, inspired by research done at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the powerful learning environment they created where teaching and learning are a way of life. Rather than taking teams into a classroom, the Learning & Development team worked with project teams at client sites to discuss goals, ways of working and learning, in order to enable better habits and routines in the project lifecycle.

Outcome for teams which have completed a Growth Teaming session:

#GetHomeSafe

#GetHomeSafe was introduced in Assurance to improve work culture, specifically in addressing the long working hours during the audit peak season. This pilot initiative was driven by the Assurance leadership team and led by a taskforce to create awareness and encourage teams to minimise late nights at the office or at client premises, from January 2019 to April 2019. Practical advice was also shared to encourage greater adoption.

We ran a survey in May 2019 to measure adoption rates and gather feedback. We are pleased to share that there has been a positive start to the #GetHomeSafe initiative as approximately half of respondents managed to leave the client's office/our office on or before 9.00 p.m. However, we recognise that some teams face challenges in doing so and we will continue to look into how we can address them.

flex+

Our firmwide flex+ programme forms part of our wider Diversity & Inclusion initiative which aims to support work-life integration to make PwC a more attractive place to work.

The programme comprises various forms of flexibility initiatives and benefits to enable our people to operate at their best at work, better manage their commitments outside work, rejuvenate for the start of the new year or juggle the responsibility of parenting.

Flex+ is divided into three main categories: flex@work, life@work and parents@work.

Flex @ work

Our Reduced Work Week programme helped retain some of our working mothers. Here’s what our people had to say about being on the programme: video

flexSpace: The option to work from outside the office, when the situation calls for it.

flexFridays: The flexibility to leave work at 12.30pm every second Friday of the month. Follow us at #flexfridayspwc

Parents @ work

flexMum: New mothers can opt for a shorter maternity leave period and 'flex' the remaining days to flexMum leave, which can be taken throughout the newborn’s first year of life.

Paternity and adoption leave of 5 days compared to the industry average of 2 days.

Room and facilities for breastfeeding mothers.

Reserved parking bays for pregnant ladies.

Life @ work

flexCare: Additional leave, should an unfortunate event occur, or to care for immediate family members.

flexMed: Medical leave without the need for a medical chit

flexPoints: A real-time recognition programme that allows our people to express appreciation and/or recognise the contributions of their colleagues through a webpage and mobile app.

flexMobile: Allowance for calls, data and broadband subscriptions, helping our people work anywhere.

flexWear: Our people can dress down in jeans if they are not meeting clients.

Rest & Refresh: Since 2016, the firm closes for a week or more at the end of the year to encourage our people to take well-deserved breaks to rejuvenate. #PwCWellbeing

Birthday leave: Managers and above can take time off on their birthdays (on top of their yearly leave allocation)

Lifestyle subsidy: Reimbursement for gadgets, travel, office wear, personal development and wellbeing expenses for Managers and above.

Corporate Responsibility Fund: Monetary assistance for our people who are in financial need due to family circumstances, or who are victims of natural disasters.

Interest-free study loan: Financial assistance for non-graduates to pursue a degree or professional qualification, which is relevant to the respective person’s job.

Great Place to Work programme (GPW): Consists of initiatives planned with our people in mind, such as discounts from department stores and wellbeing workshops that focus on topics such as safety, fitness, finance, image/dressing right and health checks.

Employment for people living with disabilities: We have three people who are visually impaired, two who use a wheelchair, and a person of short stature.

#PwCWellbeing

Across the PwC network, our leaders have highlighted our people's wellbeing as a People Priority. In an effort to live up to this, we've implemented various initiatives over the last four years that make our people's wellbeing central to how we work here at PwC Malaysia.

	2018	2017
Number of #PwCWellbeing participants	2,212	1,916
“We can be healthy and have a successful career at PwC” Global People Survey statement	51%	47%

FY19 progress :

FY19 target:1,000

Global People Survey 2019 (FY19 target: 50%)

#PwCWellbeing provides a safe and healthy environment for us to keep ourselves fit and healthy especially for those who do not have time to work out after work. Thank you to the team. Well done!

Feedback from a #FitPwC participant

I enjoyed the basic breathing awareness techniques that we learned in mindfulness class - I've been able to use it in my daily life to help me manage stressful situations and be mindful of my emotions.

Feedback from a #PwCWellbeing participant

Our journey to lead a healthier lifestyle through #PwCWellbeing continues to grow since we began in 2015. This has been one of our flagship programmes, inspired by our inaugural Fun Run in 2014, as we wanted a year-long, integrated programme (instead of just a one-off event) that could positively impact our people's lives. When we expanded our wellbeing programme in 2017, by adding mind and heart, to go beyond just physical health (#FitPwC), we realised that it opened doors to initiatives that cover a person’s total wellbeing better and to remind our people to ‘Be Well, Live Well’.

The reason for the increase in the number of participants from FY18 is because of two additional programmes - World Mental Health Day and Fuel for Leaders. Read about these programmes below.

An overview of our #PwCWellbeing programmes

Body _(#FitPwC)	Mind _{(Mental and emotional health)}	Heart _{(Purpose, values, motivation and contributing to a bigger cause)}
KakiJalan Our people compete to get the most steps weekly, from April to November. Stairathon An hour-long weekly stair challenge at the office (7 flights of stairs), from April to November. Get Fit Classes Weekly fitness classes (Zumba, yoga, self-defence, mindfulness). #UrutPwC Monthly 15-minute head and shoulder massage by blind masseuses from Nuri Wellness Centre, in the office. Our people pay a minimum of RM10 as donation to the National Council for the Blind, Malaysia (NCBM). This will fund future projects, such as those that focus on the development of knowledge in order to create more opportunities for blind masseuses in Malaysia. 7 sessions, RM2,400.00 collected in 2018. Just the Weigh you Are A weight loss programme to help people achieve a healthy weight. Training for external race events/games Participation in the Edge Rat Race, Bursa Bull Charge and the Inter-Accounting Firm Games.	Employee Assistance Programme A free and confidential counselling hotline for our people. This provides them an avenue to share their problems (work or personal) with external professionals, if needed. EAP Utilisation: 2% which is slightly lower than the industry average of 3%. Mindfulness Class An hour-long mindfulness class conducted by a certified meditation teacher that focus on basic muscle tension release and the practice of conscious relaxation. 53 participants, 8 classes over 2 months.	Participating in our Corporate Responsibility activities where our people can learn skills beyond their normal job scope and gain a sense of fulfillment from giving back. Our people receive recognition and practice gratitude through the flexPoints app where they can give and receive recognition through badges and flexpoints. flexFridays where our people can take time to run errands or to do things that are meaningful to them.
Programmes covering Body, Mind and Heart Total Wellbeing Challenge A series of challenges covering the body, mind and heart aspects to inculcate healthy habits in teams at work. Teams compete to collect points based on challenges given. The challenge ran for a month. The teams came from different lines of service, with each team led by Senior Managers. 5 teams from the Kuala Lumpur office and 1 regional office participated in the challenge. #PwCWellbeing challenge for Assurance team The wellbeing challenge for the Assurance team took place during peak season (January - April), and was piloted in 2019. This initiative encourages the adoption of wellbeing habits as a team to sustain them through the busy period. The winning team received flexPoints. Fuel for Leaders Comprised wellbeing and resilience workshop for leaders to encourage healthy habits, allowing them to refuel and re-energise to give their best throughout the day, not just for themselves but to their teams.

Body

_(#FitPwC)

Mind

_{(Mental and emotional health)}

Heart

_{(Purpose, values, motivation and contributing to a bigger cause)}

KakiJalan

Our people compete to get the most steps weekly, from April to November.

Stairathon

An hour-long weekly stair challenge at the office (7 flights of stairs), from April to November.

Get Fit Classes

Weekly fitness classes (Zumba, yoga, self-defence, mindfulness).

#UrutPwC

Monthly 15-minute head and shoulder massage by blind masseuses from Nuri Wellness Centre, in the office. Our people pay a minimum of RM10 as donation to the National Council for the Blind, Malaysia (NCBM). This will fund future projects, such as those that focus on the development of knowledge in order to create more opportunities for blind masseuses in Malaysia.
7 sessions, RM2,400.00 collected in 2018.

Just the Weigh you Are

A weight loss programme to help people achieve a healthy weight.

Training for external race events/games

Participation in the Edge Rat Race, Bursa Bull Charge and the Inter-Accounting Firm Games.

Employee Assistance Programme

A free and confidential counselling hotline for our people. This provides them an avenue to share their problems (work or personal) with external professionals, if needed.
EAP Utilisation: 2% which is slightly lower than the industry average of 3%.

Mindfulness Class

An hour-long mindfulness class conducted by a certified meditation teacher that focus on basic muscle tension release and the practice of conscious relaxation.
53 participants, 8 classes over 2 months.

Participating in our Corporate Responsibility activities where our people can learn skills beyond their normal job scope and gain a sense of fulfillment from giving back.
Our people receive recognition and practice gratitude through the flexPoints app where they can give and receive recognition through badges and flexpoints.
flexFridays where our people can take time to run errands or to do things that are meaningful to them.

Programmes covering Body, Mind and Heart

Total Wellbeing Challenge

A series of challenges covering the body, mind and heart aspects to inculcate healthy habits in teams at work. Teams compete to collect points based on challenges given.

The challenge ran for a month. The teams came from different lines of service, with each team led by Senior Managers. 5 teams from the Kuala Lumpur office and 1 regional office participated in the challenge.

#PwCWellbeing challenge for Assurance team

The wellbeing challenge for the Assurance team took place during peak season (January - April), and was piloted in 2019. This initiative encourages the adoption of wellbeing habits as a team to sustain them through the busy period. The winning team received flexPoints.

Fuel for Leaders

Comprised wellbeing and resilience workshop for leaders to encourage healthy habits, allowing them to refuel and re-energise to give their best throughout the day, not just for themselves but to their teams.

Highlights:

	2018	2017	2016
KakiJalan	238.7 million steps 746 participants	140.2 million steps 302 participants	68.6 million steps 220 participants
Stairathon	14 participants (average)	11 participants (average)	10 participants (average)
Get Fit class	9 participants (average)	17 participants (average)	18 participants (average)
#UrutPwC	201 participants	202 participants	128 participants (average)
Just the Weigh You Are	44 participants	17 participants	-

#FitPwC

The number of #FitPwC participants continues to increase over the past four years - a good indication that we are on track with our goal to make a positive impact on our people’s wellbeing.

To track the success of #FitPwC, we send a yearly survey to all our participants, asking them if #FitPwC had helped improve their fitness, and whether it encouraged them to exercise more and lead a healthier lifestyle. In 2018, we estimate our active and unique participants to be 133 people (an increase from 84 people in 2017). Of this pool, 39% (equivalent to 52 people) said that participating in the various #FitPwC programmes helped them reduce sick leave by one day a year. A day less of sick leave for 52 people is estimated to generate about RM21,181* in increased productivity for the firm.

We recognise that we have to invest more time and effort to impact our people on a wider scale. This led us to expand #PwCWellbeing to our regional offices (Penang, Ipoh, Melaka, Johor Bahru). We appointed one champion for each regional office to organise programmes locally so that they, too, can benefit from the initiative. We have reimagined how to engage our people who are based at clients' offices as well and leveraged technology to include them.

^{*Based on PwC Malaysia’s average salary. Calculation excludes other impact such as profits generated and personal health improvements.}

Active leaders: Setting the tone

Fuel for Leaders
- It is important for leaders in the firm to practise good wellbeing habits and resilience in order to set a good example for their teams.
- In FY19, we ran two wellbeing and resilience workshop called Fuel for Leaders for 37 PwC Malaysia and PwC Vietnam partners which focused on how we can be well and live well. In September 2019 (FY20), we ran another session with 28 partners.
- This workshop was facilitated by The Energy Project.
- The workshop comprised an energy audit based on 4 energy quadrants (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual (motivation, meaning and values)), emotional resilience and the art of building specific behaviours to get more done in less time with higher focus, in a more sustainable way. Other than personal energy, partners also learned about sustaining high performing teams and building a culture of renewal.

Standard Chartered KL run
- Since 2016, PwC's Partners and Directors participate in the annual marathon organised by Standard Chartered Kuala Lumpur. In 2018, a total of 42 partners and directors signed up - 22 people for the 10KM category and 20 people in the 5KM category. Their commitment to fitness is key to making our wellbeing initiative a reality at PwC.