Balancing the Grind with Jay Munro, Senior Country Marketing Manager ANZ at Indeed.com

Jay Munro is the Senior Country Marketing Manager for Australia and New Zealand at job site, Indeed.com, where he is primarily responsible for product management and marketing.

1) To kick things off, could you tell us a little about your career background and current role?

My current role is with Indeed.com, where I’m a Senior Country Marketing Manager for Australia & New Zealand.

I’ve had a varied career primarily focused around product management and marketing. One thing that has stayed steady for me, however, is the industry I work in, being online recruitment.

2) What does a day in the life look like for you? Can you take us through a recent workday?

With Indeed being a global company, my work hours vary considerably and that’s why flexibility is extremely important to me. I begin each day working my way through emails received overnight from my international colleagues.

The remainder of my daily schedule is usually rather full of meetings with team members in Australia, to keep abreast of what’s happening with the rest of the business, with external vendors and partners, and with local country executives to ensure we’re working cohesively in our market.

3) Does your current role allow for flexible or remote working? If so, how does that fit into your life and routine?

I’m fortunate to have the tools and resources to support flexible and remote working, something I’ve always valued and used in the past.

With the COVID-19 situation, Indeed decided to allow all employees to work from home until July 2021, and we’ve been doing this since March this year. It was difficult to first structure routine around working from home, though as time went on, I’ve managed to become more disciplined, but also work out a routine and schedule that suits me.

My routines always allow time for breaks and exercise, and when I have late-night calls, I simply shift my start-time to later in the day and then have the morning to myself. I found out early on, that if you don’t build that downtime in, it’s very easy to burn-out.

4) What does work-life balance mean to you and how do you work to achieve that goal?

It’s extremely important, and is a key to both physical and psychological wellbeing. Having the ability to build-in time to exercise and also mentally recharge ensures that I can function at my best when working.

I’ve become very routine and schedule based. And I’m disciplined in sticking to those plans. Of course, sometimes, unforeseen things happen, but I’ll quickly reshuffle my schedule to get back on track.

5) In the past 12 months, have you started or stopped any routines or habits to change your life?

I’ve made a real effort to stop procrastinating before making decisions. I feel that a lot of time used to be wasted because of that inefficient habit. It’s made my working life a lot less stressful and helped me to become more productive.

I’ve also reduced my screen time outside of working hours. I’ve held a strong stance that I won’t respond to emails or calls during a certain stretch of hours each day, and this has certainly led to me being re-energised when switching the phone and computer back on to start my new day.

6) Do you have any favourite books, podcasts or newsletters that you’d like to recommend?

The only books I’ve been reading lately are all fictional, I’ve re-discovered the joy of reading and escaping into other worlds, which have no connection to work or business.

I do keep up with a lot of news though, starting with headline updates on Google, and will often have CNN or BBC on the TV during the morning hours.

7) Are there any products, gadgets or apps that you can’t live without?

I’ve found that Blinkist has been a great app to use, that gives me an overview of many business-related books that I would otherwise buy and only read half of before jumping to the next.

8) Do you have any last thoughts on work, life or balance that you’d like to share with our readers?

I sometimes feel there is a lot of pressure to “figure out” your work-life balance, but really, it’s such a personal thing. My best advice is to not listen or feel you have to replicate any one else’s idea of what work-life balance should be, but to determine what is the best fit for you as an individual.

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