Intercity commute fair trade for bank man

Angus Veitch lives in Napier and drives to Wellington for a weekly three-day working stint. Picture / Mark Mitchell

Angus Veitch spends eight hours commuting every week - but he believes it's a fair trade-off for being able to live in the city of his choice while doing a job he loves.

Mr Veitch works two days a week from ANZ Bank's office in Napier, where his family live, and on the three other workdays he can be found in the main office in Wellington with the rest of his team.

When the Briton moved to New Zealand in December 2011 with his Kiwi wife and young son, they settled in Napier for the relaxed lifestyle and to be closer to her family, but the manager of wholesale credit metric risk soon realised it would be a struggle to get a job there.

"The sort of roles I was looking for just didn't exist there or were very, very scarce, and secondly, it felt like you had to know people before you would be accepted or put forward to things."

So he started looking in Wellington and landed a job at ANZ, where his bosses agreed to a flexible deal where he works from the Napier branch on Mondays and Fridays and spends Tuesdays to Thursdays in Wellington.

"I have a four-hour drive on a Monday night and a four-hour drive on a Thursday night. So that's eight hours in total. I was probably doing more hours of commuting when I was in London each week than I am now. It's just now it is all lumped into two big trips."

Mr Veitch has been doing the job for two years and said it was a good compromise. He believed the key to teleworking was both the employer and employee being flexible.

"My line manager has always been very encouraging."

Mr Veitch said flexible employers were also rewarded with staff who were happy and doing their job because it suited their circumstances.

Nikki Preston