Dialogue: Now they're working to live, not living to work

By TRUDIE McNAUGHTON*

Why do already busy organisations take the time to work differently? Partly to meet the human needs of employees and partly to meet business goals.

Increasingly, employees are experiencing real pressure to balance their paid work and the rest of their life commitments and interests. Demographic and social changes challenge the way workplaces have traditionally operated.

There are more women in paid work, increasingly diverse family types, including more sole parents, more men wanting to be involved in family responsibilities, an ageing population and delayed childbearing.

Long hours of work, cultures that reward visibility rather than results, inflexible conditions, pressure to put paid work before family - such requirements risk health, well-being and families as well as communities from which many feel increasingly marginalised.

In his annual study, Professor Cary Cooper, of the Manchester School of Management, revisits 5000 managers from chief executives to junior managers. He finds them growing increasingly anxious about their lives: half work most evenings and one-third work most weekends. Many express deep unhappiness and nearly all think that their working habits damage relationships with their spouses and children and harm their health.

What's more, most think that these working practices damage their company's productivity.

However, business as well as personal costs are reduced in workplaces that commit to a work-and-life balance. Business benefits include improved recruitment and retention of talent, positive client response, improved work quality, productivity, discretionary effort and loyalty.

Woolworths (NZ) has measured significant benefits both to team members and to the business from its work-and-life policies. Its employees in Woolworths, Big Fresh and Price Chopper have responded positively to measures such as domestic leave, paid parental leave, a broad interpretation of bereavement leave and a student transfer scheme.

Customer response has also been positive. After the announcement of its new domestic leave provisions, a first in the supermarket industry, Woolworths customers commented favourably.

Another winner with a very different client base, law firm Heaney and Co, also reported positive feedback from clients after it developed flexible work and family policies, and also attracted new clients.

Both recruitment opportunities and retention are enhanced when workplaces have policies that support a balanced life. A senior manager at Woolworths has been approached three times by headhunters wanting him to return to Australia. He has resisted, not just because New Zealand has a great quality of life, but because Woolworths has a workplace culture that allows him to balance work and family.

Woolworths' staff turnover has been cut dramatically. Since 1996 team turnover has reduced by 7.94 per cent. At an average cost of $8609 a person, this has saved the company $6 million.

Career development opportunities also improve with good equal employment opportunities (EEO) policies. There has been a 70 per cent increase in Woolworths' female store team leaders from 1995, and the company has attracted students who have previously worked part-time while studying into its leader development course. Winning law firm Hesketh Henry reports men and women seeking flexibility are being attracted to the firm from its competitors.

Award-winners have several features in common: senior commitment, listening to employees' needs and ideas, monitoring the effectiveness of work-and-life practices and a commitment to broader equal opportunities.

They are not perfect workplaces but they share a commitment to create a culture that sustains what is important to the people who work there. They want to create workplaces where people work to live, not live to work.

*Trudie McNaughton is the executive director of the EEO Trust.