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Work-life balance - or the lack of it - will be on many people's minds this long weekend. And one expert says that despite recent policies, New Zealand has a way to go before achieving it.
AUT public policy professor Marilyn Waring, who co-edited a new book on the topic, Managing Mayhem, told the Herald on Sunday "there's a great deal of rhetoric but not a huge amount of delivery".
Labour minister Ruth Dyson said recent government moves making it easier to juggle work and life included introducing four weeks annual leave, 14 weeks paid parental leave and 20 hours free early childhood education.
Labour also supports Green MP Sue Kedgley's Flexible Working Arrangements bill, which would allow parents, guardians and people looking after an adult dependent to apply for flexible working hours. Employers would have grounds for declining a request if it would create serious problems for their business.
The department's Work Life Project is trying other work-life initiatives in real workplaces. Its website lists case studies and measures for improving balance such as flexitime, working from home, and scheduling meetings within school hours and graduated return to work after parental leave.
However, Waring said many recent policies have been designed to encourage women - especially mothers - into paid work. "For a lot of women, those interventions have simply made them more efficient at doing two or three jobs." She said work-life measures written into employment agreements and company policy, such as provisions for leave for professional development, often don't materialise in the workplace.
Business groups have pinpointed productivity as our biggest area for improvement, yet executives have been slow to recognise that measures that promote work-life balance also lift productivity. "We know from the research that happy people do better quality control and produce more.
"Smart companies understand that if you've had excellent workers for a period of time it's much easier to work with them around cultural needs, parental needs, and things like illness, and be flexible and humane around that because it's a better investment than having to hire someone new and train them up."
Tina Reid, executive director Federation of Voluntary Welfare Organisations, said despite the stresses of work, volunteering is "alive and kicking, much more than people realise. People volunteer in order to get more of a balance, to be involved in things outside their ordinary experience."
A Ministry of Social Development report released last week suggested New Zealanders are better off overall, with employment levels at record highs. But, Ros Rice, of Council of Social Services, says we need to look behind the figures. "Things are better for people but people working now, including the working poor, are still under huge income and work stress just to put a roof over their heads."
Statistics show about 81,000 New Zealanders hold more than one job.
