Indradi Soemardjan: balancing caring responsibilities and work

Indradi Soemardjan is Senior Consultant, CSCC, South & East Asia, Singapore office, Account Manager for Microsoft in APAC, ERG PACE Lead in APAC.

Indradi is part of the Corporate Sustainability and Climate Change team that develops opportunities in the emerging Indonesian markets.

Like so many at ERM, I manage a busy work schedule, with the additional commitments of a very busy family. My wife and I have two teenage boys and we have been living in Singapore since 2002.

My wife is currently on a posting overseas, so I am primary carer for the family. As many people will know, doing this takes a schedule that runs like clockwork (!), but in addition to that, it also takes flexibility.

At ERM, I am an Account Manager for a key client, which involves collaboration across geographies. Thankfully, I have found the right time to make all my meetings work with colleagues overseas, whilst still allowing for the right balance with home life. I am typically working by 7.30am Singapore time, as I am usually awake by 5:00 am to practice my Vipassana meditation. I am quite lucky that my boys are now old enough to take care of household matters in the morning, so I enjoy the flexibility of starting work earlier and finishing earlier, so that I have the evenings to relax and catch up with my family. It also means I can walk our 3-year old Golden Retriever boy, Kona, and cycle to work before it gets too hot.

ERM offers a lot of opportunities for me to challenge myself intellectually so that my career continues to develop and grow. Not many companies in Singapore would offer such flexible working arrangements and for this I have to thank ERM. As long as I am willing to communicate my needs openly with the Line Manager and the team members, it is all very manageable - they have been very supportive day in and day out. As I said before, flexibility really matters.

I have also been entrusted to be an APAC PACE (Parents and Carers ERG) Lead and I feel very fortunate that I get to interact and share my parenting experience with my colleagues across the region. There’s a huge cohort of people with caring responsibilities at ERM and the ERG helps us all to connect on related subjects as well as leaning on each other for guidance and support. Our next project is to introduce a regional toolkit to help provide easy to access resources for those in the APAC region.

Outside ERM, I also do volunteer work for WOMAG, which is a professional network of women & men championing inclusion in the food and agriculture ecosystem based in Singapore. I help organize their mentoring program in ASEAN region. It’s a huge passion of mine and having the support from ERM management will allow me to continue volunteering with WOMAG for years to come.

You might ask how I manage to fit it all in, so I will close with my top tips for balancing work life and personal life:

1. Go to bed early
2. Wake up early
3. Morning walks are always the best way to prepare yourself to think and to make decisions better during the day when you have to manage projects and to deliver results.