Striking a balance between work, family and recreation

The EEO Trust Work and Life Awards 2002 last night recognised organisations that want to help their staff achieve a balance between their working and personal lives.

Twenty-six companies entered for the awards, some in several categories, and judges made site visits.

LARGE ORGANISATION AWARD
(more than 50 full or part-time employees)

Winner: Auckland University of Technology. Runner-up: The Treasury.

Auckland University of TechnologyTwo staff members who started work this year but were given leave during term time to support their daughter as she competed in the Manchester Commonwealth Games were among those who have benefited from AUT's philosophy of meeting employee needs.

Although AUT, with 1352 full-time equivalent staff, is required by law to stick to EEO responsibilities and measure their effectiveness, judges said the university went much further than that.

Among the initiatives commended were the alignment of its terms and semesters with primary school holidays, despite the management difficulties that could cause.

A "four for five" scheme allows staff who work full-time for four years at 80 per cent of their salary to take the fifth year off. Leave without pay of up to two years is possible.

Flexible working policies include a compressed working week and teleworking.

Extended sick leave is offered, and there is a $250,000 fund to cover replacement costs of staff with serious illness.

A long list of practical plans includes a contracts monitoring committee that reviews the workloads of staff with concerns, a childcare facility on each campus, space and time for breastfeeding mothers, a school holiday programme, and a study time allowance of five days for general staff and 10 for academics.

Staff are also offered career counselling and free enrolment on AUT courses.

Classes before 8am are not scheduled for lecturer Roanne Birch because she lives in Papakura and has a dependant "who I would need to drop off by 6.45am if I was to guarantee to be in the city by 8am given the heavy early morning traffic".

AUT's staff turnover is 8.75 per cent. It is generally accepted that the average attrition rate for an organisation should fall between 8 and 14 per cent.

A consistent feature of staff comment is that AUT head John Hinchcliff often invites staff facing personal stress or crisis to a morning tea so he can reassure them, or makes personal phone calls to them.

Judges said that staff expressed a lot of gratitude for the educational opportunities they thought they would never have, the individual flexible work options that allowed staff to meet family commitments, the flexibility to manage cancer treatment and recovery with job security guaranteed, the year-long sabbaticals to meet family commitments overseas, the extra sick leave as required to enable a recovery from a life-threatening illness, and the flexibility to be with a sick child in hospital.

AUT has acknowledged that "no organisation will one day 'get it right' and be able to tick work and life policy off as a task completed".

Contact: Doug Stevens, 307-9999, doug.stevens@aut.ac.nz

The Treasury

The Government's Wellington-based economic and financial advisory body has come a long way from 1997, when a survey aimed at redressing staff turnover of 25 per cent overall and 35 per cent for women found that the culture tended to the aggressive, exclusive and masculine. Women and skills outside economics were undervalued.

This was despite the fact that the State Sector Act 1988 required all Government departments to run EEO programmes. The Treasury was a "face time"culture.

Desire for change led to a number of plans to create a more welcoming, supportive and responsive culture, known as the "Mauri" initiatives - mauri meaning "life principle" or "special character".

These focused on reviewing managers' skills and ensuring that they had training in coaching and feedback, and also on improving performance assessments, promotion and pay systems.

The tasks of ensuring a work-life balance are more difficult for the Treasury than most corporates. Ministers make requests at short notice and sometimes outside work hours. Timeframes are often tight, raising stress levels, and security and confidentiality requirements are high.

Given the specialised economics and accounting skills required (70 per cent have tertiary qualifications) and the relative youth of the workforce (the average age is 37), diversity is sometimes hard to achieve.

Demand is higher for study-related projects while working rather than for, say, childcare: just 23 per cent of staff have children.

The Treasury now offers a wide range of staff support, including an employee assistance programme, flexible working arrangements, remote computer access, a quit smoking programme, a childcare allowance for staff who take parental leave and then return to work, payment for childcare when travel is required, leave without pay, study assistance, an EEO management programme and EEO networks, and Maori and Pacific Island scholarships.

The Treasury reimburses the cost of a staff member's gym or sports club memberships to the tune of $360 annually, and pays full medical insurance costs for staff at senior analyst level and above.

The entry says: "We no longer reward people who work the longest hours; we reward people for their achievements."

A study in 1998, which garnered a remarkable 91 per cent response rate, found that 85 per cent of staff believed the Treasury was a better place to work.

In the past two years, 88 per cent of women who took parental leave have returned to work.

The number of staff who take leave without pay and then return is now 40 per cent, against 24 per cent and 13 per cent in the previous two years (15 staff are on leave without pay at present).

Treasury chief executive Alan Bollard says the process is "on-going. We are continuing to make progress".

Contact: Karen Taylor, (04) 471-5120, karen.taylor@treasury.govt.nz.

SMALL TO MEDIUM ORGANISATION
(under 50 full or part-time employees)

Winner: Netball New Zealand. Joint runners-up: Bakers and Pastrycooks Union, SC Johnson

Netball New Zealand

Auckland-based Netball New Zealand, led by chief executive officer Shelley McMeekin, has 18 full-time and three part-time staff, all women, and relies heavily on volunteers.

It has a range of initiatives to support staff. Glide time allows a worker with early morning sport training to start work late and make up the hours at her discretion. Another starts and finishes earlier to avoid peak-hour traffic.

Staff can work from home and laptops are available. If staff need time out at work there is a room where they can put up the "do not disturb" sign.

A volunteer policy allows staff to take three days leave to do volunteer work of their choosing. That includes helping out with a family member's own sport.

Each employee has a "buddy" from another department and they are able to go out for coffees and breaks at company expense to chat about work-related issues.

There is a training and development fund and study leave is available before exams. A fitness allowance can be spent in any area of sport or recreation, and self-defence training is free. Staff who represent their province in sport are able to take a week's leave to compete.

Netball New Zealand aims to be family-friendly. Marketing manager Jeanette Paine, who works four and a half days a week, taking a full day every second Friday so she can spend a three-day weekend with her 3-year-old.

Judges were impressed at the development of a policy for pregnant players.

Players made their own choices about whether to play while pregnant, which enabled a player to travel with her baby in order to breastfeed.

The player's mother came on the tour to care for the baby and the player attended her baby separately from the team's accommodation and other activities.

Contact: Kerry Manders, 623-5779, kerrym@netballnz.co.nz

The Bakers and Pastrycooks Union

The union began life in 1889. It promotes for its three full-time - and long-serving - staff what it terms the "unending mutual circle": by providing work-life balance staff perform better, which saves money, which allows the union to provide those benefits.

The union's executive management committee authorises all initiatives, which include unlimited paid sick and domestic leave, unlimited paid bereavement and tangihanga leave following the death of wider family members and close friends; flexible hours, no restriction on parental leave, extra paid holidays when statutory days off fall on a Tuesday or Thursday; interest-free loans, paid time for family functions, and the payment of fees for quit-smoking programmes. Staff get a paid day off before Christmas.

The last departure from the union was seven years ago, and the shortest-serving staff member has been at the union for 18 years. The last time the union did hire, for a fixed three-year contract, there were 21 applicants.

"Employees need a stable, secure and enjoyable working life and one that dovetails with home and family life," says the union. "Family needs mostly take precedence over work and employees must be able to attend to personal and family needs."

Contact: Ian McGovern, (09) 376-1151, bakersunion@clear.net.nz.

SC Johnson

Household goods company SC Johnson, which has 38 workers, has remarkable staff retention: from 77 per cent for the year ended June last year to 93 per cent a year later, representing a saving, says the company, of $200,000.

The family-owned company's global slogan is "enjoy the difference", and its strategic plan notes its desire to be a leader in work-life balance.

A total of 95 per cent of employees use a compressed work option so they can leave at 1pm on Fridays, something managers make sure they emulate.

"Employees are not ridiculed or thought of negatively by other employees for leaving work at 1pm. In fact, most employees become very focused on Fridays to ensure they get their work done to leave early."

This is complemented by flexible hours, telecommuting up to one or two days a week and job-sharing. Leave without pay and sabbaticals of up to six months after five years' service are available. Nine weeks of paid parental leave is offered.

Sick leave is unlimited, 4 per cent of staff use the employee assistance programme, and staff can put muscle behind the company's association with Auckland Zoo to spend half a day a year to help a zookeeper.

Polytechnic and undergraduate study is paid for in full, and MBAs subsidised to the tune of 60 per cent.

Nick Hill, a key account manager, makes good use of the flexible hours policy. "I have two kids and another on the way. I use the flexible hours policy to start and go home earlier and share the parenting so I can support my wife in her career."

"Thanks to SC Johnson I can consciously organise my working life to be involved in my children's lives."

Contact: Colin O'Callaghan, (09) 573-2868, cgocall@scj.com.

FIRST STEPS AWARD
(for companies in the early stages of implementing work-life practices)

Joint winners: Kapiti Coast District Council, Methanex New Zealand.

Kapiti Coast District Council

The council's head, Mark Dacombe, says it feels the need to be a role model for employer behaviour in its community. "The value in being a role model cannot be underestimated."

But a lack of women in senior management, a lack of diversity - 90 per cent of staff are Pakeha - and an ageing workforce - 42 per cent of the staff are over 50 - were among the concerns which led to the employment of an EEO co-ordinator in 1998 and then the establishment of an eight-person EEO committee.

Policies and practices were reviewed, and staff were asked what work and life initiatives they saw as crucial.

Today, those initiatives include flexible work practices, including flexible hours, job-sharing, part-time work, staged returns to work after parental leave, teleworking and working from home, and time off in lieu.

The council says its workplace culture encourages balance. Family-oriented social activities are offered, including a free school holiday programme, and staff newsletters are sent to those on maternity leave.

Workers are given assistance with childcare when business outside the office interferes with looking after children.

Maori language and tikanga classes are offered, and all staff can go on overnight marae stays.

All staff have equal access to training and between 1998 and last year, says the council, "satisfaction with the training and development programme rose from 43 per cent to 100 per cent".

Contact: Leeann Morgan, (04) 298-2888, leeann.mor gan@clear.net.nz.

Methanex

"There is no major financial cost to the company of being flexible," says methanol supplier Methanex, New Zealand's eighth-largest exporter and employer of 230 staff between Taranaki and Auckland.

Surveys in New Zealand, prompted by similar investigations by Methanex' Canadian owners, indicated that while staff appreciated benefits they were getting, they were interested in exploring greater flexibility and non-monetary recompense.

At the end of last year, staff visited companies in Auckland and Wellington which had entered the 2000 Work and Life Awards to learn from their experiences.

"The companies visited were very open," says Methanex, "and [we] were impressed with the fact that in instances where flexibility had been introduced, in both work hours and leave, they had not been abused."

A year later the company has introduced flexible working options for all staff - as individuals or as a group or shift.

They have to apply following a list of guidelines, proving that the change will not have a bad impact on internal and external customers, and seek feedback from colleagues.

Staff in the maintenance department are now testing a nine-day fortnight, something they had been requesting.

Among the more interesting innovations is that staff can sell unwanted leave, provided they take the three weeks they are given by law. Staff can also "purchase" additional leave to take longer breaks.

Paid maternity leave is 14 weeks and domestic leave is broader than before. There is a paid volunteer day for charity which had a slow start, but is "gradually being taken up by staff".

And the benefits? Morale is up, says Methanex. Job-sharing, for example, has meant that some 12-hour shifts can be split between two people. And, says the company, "staff perform better with balance in their lives".

Contact: Gerry Kennedy, (06) 754-9821, G.Kennedy@methanex.com.

MANAKI TANGATA INNOVATION AWARD
(for organisations which have implemented a unique work-life policy)

Winner: Te Utuhina Manakitanga Trust Addiction Resource Centre. Highly commended: Ama School.

Te Utuhina Manakitanga Trust

Rotorua-based Te Utuhina, which offers a kaupapa Maori substance abuse treatment centre, lives by te whare tapa wha - the need to balance the four health cornerstones of tinana (physical), hinengaro (mind), wairua (spirit) and whanau (family-social).

It deals with between 550 and 650 clients a year, 80 to 83 per cent Maori and the rest a mix of Pakeha, Pacific and Asian people.

Working in addiction services and counselling extracts a large personal toll, says the trust, the sole provider of such services in Rotorua. In 1999, it decided to start work and life initiatives.

Now embedded in the 14-year-old trust's culture are flexible work hours, a staged return from parental leave, teleworking, tangihanga leave for up to three days on each occasion, paid jury service, a monthly cooked breakfast, breakfast foods and fruit available in the staff room, clinical, cultural and personal supervision, long-service leave of a week after 10 years, and initiatives aimed at employing older people.

There is a shortage of qualified alcohol and drug counsellors, and retention is one of the pluses of the move. Says counsellor Anaru Bidois: "I had an offer of employment for one-third more money but you have to weigh up remuneration against what you can't buy."

Contact: Dr Nelson Sucgang, (07) 348-3598, addictioncentre@clear.net.nz.

Ama School

The school - its name, "ama" means the outrigger of a waka - deals with up to 36 children at a time that other schools will no longer touch: the alienated and the at-risk in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

When set up in 1999 it was staffed largely by volunteers - "non-monetary rewards", it says, "were the principal motivators" . It now has 10 salaried staff working a four-day week, two full-time volunteers and two specialist contractors, but much of the flexible, volunteer-driven culture remains.

Among the work and life initiatives in the Maoritanga-focused school - 70 per cent of staff are Maori - are a compressed working week, one day a week for staff training and development, time off in lieu, and part-time and job-sharing.

Others are flexible working hours and days, working from home, parental leave beyond the legal requirements, unlimited sick leave, emergency leave without permission, and health and wellbeing plans.

There is no limit on tangihanga leave and on one occasion, the entire organisation made two 10-hour return trips to support a colleague at the funeral of her father.

Contact: Tony Jones., (07) 312-5459, asap.tonyjones@xtra.co.nz

WALK THE TALK AWARD
(for senior managers)

Joint winners: Donella Parker (R Cubed Global Ltd), Gary Allis (Waikato District Council).

Donella Parker

When working mother Donella Parker set up a market research and consultancy firm in 1996 with two others, she was firm about what its culture would be and that she would role-model work and life balance.

The "rules" of life at RCubed live in every team member's folder, and they refer to three goals for the team: that they are recognised for the quality of their results, that they are rewarded for them, and that they have time for reflection.

Balance includes education budgets for each staff member, unlimited holidays as long as targets are met, and profit-sharing.

Staff set their own base salary but collectively decided each must achieve three times their annual salary in productivity.

The company pays for partners to travel on overseas work trips.

Contact: Donella Parker, 366-6880, donella@rcubed.co.nz.

Gary Allis

Gary Allis, the community assets group manager for the Waikato District Council, has an "accountability relationship" - something like work and life balance mentoring - with a friend, Peter.

They meet every Wednesday for breakfast to talk about work and life issues, set goals and, says Allis, "challenge behaviours". His staff know not to schedule meetings before 8.30am on those days.

The council's chief executive refers to Allis, who has 35 staff, as his "social conscience". Allis, a father of three teenagers who has worked for the council since leaving school, says he has applied a philosophy of balancing work and life to his own life for a decade, sets personal goals, and applies those principles when dealing with staff.

Work-free weekends and no evening meetings unless absolutely necessary are two of them.

Contact: Gary Allis, (07) 824-8633, Gary.Allis@waidc.govt.nz.