Cooking up ways to keep workers

By JO-MARIE BROWN

If you were in charge of 20 employees who were working in an emotionally, mentally and physically demanding industry, would you offer them unlimited sick leave?

Would you pay for them to go to the gym, allow them to work from home, or babysit their children during work hours?

Would you don an apron and cook them pancakes and eggs for breakfast once a month?

Many employers would envisage their profits eroding so fast that such practices would not be contemplated.

But for Dr Nelson Sucgang, executive director of a drug and alcohol counselling centre in Rotorua, ensuring his staff are happy in both their work and personal lives has proven to be the key ingredient for the success of the business.

"Only through achieving a healthy and balanced workplace environment can we expect to be effective in providing a healthy and balanced clinical service to our clients and their whanau," Sucgang says.

The Te Utuhina Manaakitanga Trust Addiction Resource Centre has been running since 1987 and has over 5000 people on its books, with 500 new clients being seen each year.

A counsellor's job is stressful: dealing with people who won't admit they have a problem, people who have lost control of their lives, and those who have hurt themselves and those around them.

"Every single hour there's a different problem that you have to deal with," Sucgang says.

"You have to be able to deal with all of that, empathise with them and try to do something about it, and then have enough energy at the end of the day to go home and look after your family."

The risk of staff burnout combined with low salaries (a counsellor typically earns $28,000 to $33,000) pushed Sucgang to look for other ways of retaining employees and increasing productivity.

In 1999 he introduced initiatives to help staff achieve a balance between their work and personal lives - initiatives which last year won the trust an Equal Employment Opportunity Trust Work and Life Award.

But in offering benefits such as flexible working hours, paid study leave, and use of the trust's vehicle, lawnmower and other equipment, Sucgang was told by financial auditors that he was being irresponsible.

"An unlimited amount of sick leave is something that's almost unheard of, but it's never been abused because there's a stronger sense of commitment to the job and the trust," he says.

"It comes down to 'you look after me and I'll look after you' and we do that.

"They look after the trust and they have been very, very productive."

Counsellor Anaru Bidois says it was only through the trust's support and flexibility that he was able to help his wife beat breast cancer last year.

During a six-month period when his wife had several operations and radiation therapy, Bidois was told to take as much paid leave as he needed to help his family through the ordeal.

"If I was working any other job I wouldn't have been able to do a lot of the things to be able to support my wife because the reality is, being knocked down to one income, I would have had to work."

In total, Bidois had about eight weeks off to travel with his wife to appointments at Waikato Hospital. His colleagues helped cover his clients while he was away.

Sucgang, a former trauma surgeon who was born in the Philippines and moved to New Zealand in 1995, says the trust's philosophy has always been based around the Maori concept of te whare tapa wha - the need to balance the four cornerstones of health.

Clients, 70 per cent of whom are Maori, are taught that the tinana (physical), hinengaro (mind), wairua (spirit) and whanau (family/social) aspects of their lives needed to be in check for them to succeed.

"The trust believes it's the same when it comes to our employees," Sucgang says. "If there's something wrong in the family, then they're not working right for me."

Since the introduction of work/life initiatives at the centre, productivity has doubled and employee stress has declined significantly.

Recruitment and training costs have also dropped, as the trust has successfully retained highly qualified senior staff.

Sucgang believes all employers have the ability to implement such initiatives without going bankrupt.

"The trust views its employees as the single most valuable asset that it has.

"These are the people who bring in the money. Ask yourself: how much value you put into them, and how much are you prepared to give out to them?"

The trust's employees strive to reduce power, telephone bills and stationery costs, the savings from which are then re-invested into work/life initiatives.

"It's got a lot to do with efficient financial management," says Sucgang. "There's always a way."

He believes 90 per cent of employers would assume such privileges would be abused, but the trust's staff are kept informed about the centre's financial position and know that wastefulness can't be tolerated.

"This place runs on a very strong spirit of whanauatanga [family] and you don't [take advantage of] your mum or your dad."

Gym membership for staff and other perks are closely monitored and Sucgang says the trust has never run into any problems.

Simple morale-boosters like cooking the staff breakfast once a month are also effective ways of increasing loyalty and opening up lines of communication between employee and employer.

"It's probably one of the only times they get to see their boss not come in in a suit, and when they get to order me around ... it just takes a lot of barriers away," Sucgang says.

The result is a relaxed, supportive working environment where employees are able to cope with the stress and demands of their job.

Sucgang says the benefits that work/life initiatives have brought to the trust means they will continue to develop new practices as ideas arise.

"The single main positive thing about it is that it has bonded us a lot more," says Sucgang. "There's no excuse not to look for more initiatives to make life easier."