Work-life balance

Slowing down the treadmill

10 June 2008

Engaging the challenge

• Changing demographics

• Tight labour market

• Productivity squeeze

Labour force participation rates

Source: Household Labour Force Survey: December 2007 Quarter

Labour force participation rates (55+)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Labour force participation rate forthose aged 55 years and over

% of working-age population

NZ

Sweden

US

Australia

Source: OECD Factbook 2007

New Zealand’s productivity

How can productivity be increased?

Why is employee engagement important?

- Only 25% of employees are full engaged- 17% were actively disengaged. - Earnings per employee - engaged $88, 581

- disengaged $34, 577- Older people tend to be more engaged

Productivity and employee engagement

The impact of low employee engagement

Employee engagement pilot study

• Work-life balance• Work-life initiatives• Workplace culture• Employee engagement• Discretionary effort• Productivity

Employee engagement and work-life balance

Employee engagement by work-life balance

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

good work-life balance neutral work-life balance notgood

per

cen

t o

f em

plo

yees

high engagement medium engagement low engagement

Importance of culture

Work-life culture by employee engagement

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

bottom 20% culture middle culture Top 20% culture

work-life culture

Top 20% engagement Middle engagement bottom 20% engagement

Building a work-life culture

Use of work-life initiatives is assisted by:

• Supportive managers• No career consequences• Reasonable time expectations• Gender neutral• Supportive co-workers

Limits on positive culture

• Hostile organisational culture or working environment

• Resistance of managers• Recruitment for similarity

• Poor communication

Creating organisational action

• Communication

• Implementation

• Measurement

• Middle management training

• Involving line managers

Franklin Kindergarten Association

• Inflexible classroom hours• Tight funding• Dispersed staff – 25

kindergartens

Work-life solutions

• Ask staff what they need• Allocate enough time for paperwork• Ring-fence holiday time• Support training and professional

development

The results

• Committed, motivated, trained staff• Staff turnover at 8% pa• 70 teaching positions are all filled• Savings of $300,000 in three years due

to teachers returning to work after parental leave

Steelbro – product knowledge critical

• Specialised product - 30%-40% of the global market in its niche

• Emphasis on retaining wealth of knowledge

• Reduced and flexible hours available, particularly for older employees

Meredith Connell – skilled staff, demanding work

• Winner of 2006 EEO Trust Work & Life Awards

• Specialised employees required for demanding work

• High rates of return from parental leave

• Individualised work-life solutions

• Older workers hold valuable corporate knowledge/history

Getting the best from people - consistency

Prior to this position, I averaged about 4 years in a job before moving. I have been here 12 years now with no plans to change. The reason – this is the first and only employer, whether public or private sector, I have worked for who has always done what they have said they would do, and that applied to all of my terms and conditions of employment, not just work-life balance. I therefore trust them and reward that trust with loyalty.

Getting the best from people – supporting them

Talking about having children is seen as a

weakness, having children is seen as

something that will hold you back and makes

you inflexible. There is no compensation or

reimbursement for additional childcare costs

incurred when travelling, and high

expectations of travelling up the night before

rather than being say one hour late for the

meeting start time.

www.eeotrust.org.nz