Dialogue: Back to the future in staff relations

What a pleasure it was to read alongside this column last week the three articles on the ground-breaking deal made for its employees by Woolworths, in consultation with the union which covers some of its staff.

And to discover that a number of other firms, large and small, have rediscovered the benefits of so structuring their workplaces as to provide for their staff a better balance between the demands of the job and the requirements of family and leisure.

What gives these reports added piquancy is that these mutually beneficial arrangements have been made while the Employment Contracts Act, the demon of the unions, is still in force and the Employment Relations Act, the demon of the bosses, is still to become law.

Which only goes to show that good workplace relations, of real benefit to both employer and employee, do not depend on legislation. Irrespective of the law, if there is goodwill on both sides, then both can benefit.

The trouble is, of course, that there has rarely been goodwill on both sides. There wasn't much of it about even before the Employment Contracts Act. The unions in their Neanderthal arrogance brought that piece of legislation on themselves.

But they didn't deserve the fallout, for what the Government that passed it must have realised, but chose to ignore, was that in the new atmosphere of laissez faire capitalism too many bosses would themselves become Neanderthal and revert to policies and practices not far removed from those of the Industrial Revolution.

It was an era in which the dreadfully dehumanising term "human resources" replaced "personnel" in describing departments charged with the responsibility of hiring and firing and industrial negotiations. And the denizens of those human resources units quickly developed an arcane language of their own.

If you want to read some of the most pitiful drivel ever penned, take a look at the Situations Vacant columns, particularly the big ads seeking people for executive positions.

But to get back to the good news. The Woolworths deal was struck in cooperation with the National Distribution Union, over which still presides that battle-scarred veteran warrior of the workers, Bill Andersen.

I have never met Mr Andersen, and his bright red politics have always been anathema to me, but I have long admired him for a man who has stuck to his principles, irrespective of the colour of Government, and whose devotion to the good of the working man and woman has never flagged.

Another thing that made the story of Woolworths and others embracing the principle of balancing work and life such an uplifting read was that there wasn't an ounce of altruistic motive in any of it.

Woolworths, for instance, has seen its staff turnover cut drastically since 1996 and has saved itself $6 million. It and the other firms report much happier and more productive workplaces and, as a bonus, a raft of new customers impressed by what they have heard about how these firms treat their staff.

The workers, women and students in particular, are more content and secure in their often boring and repetitive work, knowing that if something goes wrong at home, a spouse, child, parent or relative gets sick, or someone close dies, paid time will be available to do what is necessary.

And this, of course, has generated a huge amount of goodwill and loyalty in the staff, evidence of which is that productivity has increased and fears of staff rorting the system have proved groundless.

The irony of all this is that none of it is new. Two of the most extraordinary success stories in Auckland business were built on two principles: (1) that the customer is always right; and (2) that staff are a firm's most valuable asset and must always be looked after.

The late Robert Laidlaw built the vast and trendsetting Farmers Trading Company from a one-room mail-order house in Fort St; and David Levene parlayed a little paint shop in K Rd into the pioneering Levenes string of paint, wallpaper and furniture supermarkets, the first in New Zealand to provide off-street parking.

Robert Laidlaw's biography, Robert Laidlaw Man for Our Time, by Aucklander Ian Hunter, should be required reading for every human resources practitioner. And it's a damn shame that David Levene's biography, by the same author, was pulled almost at the moment of publication.

Stephen Tindall's phenomenal success with The Warehouse is witness to the enduring power of those principles, and now it appears that other big and not-so-big employers are reawakening to the fact that staff are an asset to be treasured.

This is good-faith bargaining writ large.

garth_george@herald.co.nz