Work-Life Balance Programme

The Department of Labour conducted a broad public consultation on work-life balance in 2004 and found that employers were keen to address work-life balance issues in their workplace but needed practical tools and guidance to support them. The consultation also found that a range of workplace practices and cultures were barriers to work-life balance for individuals.

In response, the Department initiated a broad programme involving further research and policy work as well as an action research project aimed at testing research findings and developing contextualised know-how through interventions in a number of workplaces. This latter component of the programme was referred to as the "Workplace Project."

The "Workplace Project"

The Workplace Project (or the "Project") engaged 14 private and public sector workplaces (the selection process aimed to achieve a spread of size, public and private sector, industry type, location, union density and continuous operation (24 hour, 7 day)) in a five stage process that gathered baseline information relevant to work-life balance issues; identified priorities for addressing them; developed solutions in the form of an action plan; implemented them and evaluated their success. The participating organisations were assisted by specialist consultants paid for by the Department. A full list and brief description of participating organisations is in provided Appendix I.

The Project had three objectives, to:

1. provide practical assistance to the participating workplaces;
2. gather tools emerging from those workplaces, and refine them for wider dissemination; and
3. enable the Department to better understand "what works" to inform both future policy work and practice change.

The Project therefore had highly situation-specific objectives, a futures focus in applying the lessons more generically, and an action research dimension. It was based on:

• principles of active partnership and engagement of employers, employees and unions, and
• developing "win-win" solutions that benefited both employees and businesses.

While the Project used tripartite processes, it nevertheless stopped short of the boundary where a "rights based" imperative might pose statutory obligations on employers to meet various standards as a part of their wider public good obligations (like, say, in paying at least a minimum wage, meeting minimum holidays standards or making compulsory matching contributions to superannuation payments).

This is significant because the Employment Relations (Flexible Working Arrangements) Amendment Act 2007 has recently been passed and will place a more structured statutory obligation on employers to consider requests for more flexible working arrangements in defined circumstances. In that event, lessons from the workplace project could inform the design of materials and resources that might assist employers in meeting any obligations.

Selecting participants

In selecting participants in the Project, the Department sought to apply a number of criteria that were tightly targeted to provide assistance to employers to develop customised work-life balance tools. They therefore tried to get information on different kinds of working arrangements and to test solutions.

Specifically, in the private sector they looked for a range of employers that would:

• Exhibit, as a group, a range of working arrangements where it might be expected that a variety of work-life balance initiatives would be prevalent.
• Enable the project to examine working arrangements known to increase work-life conflict (shift work, inflexible work, 24/7 environments).
• Be somewhat typical of work arrangements and issues to avoid "one-off" or unique cases.
• Be in industries where there were skill shortages and or recruitment and retention issues.
• Reflect industry circumstances where there is some evidence that work-life balance solutions can improve working life (i.e. where non-monetary policies can improve working lives).
• Come from a range of locations and be of varying size.

In the public sector, there would be additional criteria that the selected agencies would:

• Span both policy and service delivery functions.
• Be of a range of agency sizes.
• Be selected to ensure that results are applicable across a range of agencies.

In the event, the project was not overwhelmed for choice, and effectively (albeit with a degree of selection through the organisations that were approached) had to work with those organisations that were willing to participate in the project. Despite this, by accident or design, the organisations that did participate were a reasonable fit with the criteria identified earlier.

The purpose of this evaluation

This report provides an evaluation of the experience of six of the participating organisations involved in the Workplace Project. These are: Christchurch Casino; City Care; the Education Review Office; EziBuy; Indeserve and Tip Top Bread. More detailed organisational demographics are provided in Appendix I. The six organisations were chosen by the Department on the basis that they were furthest along with implementation. The Department intends to evaluate the remaining organisations at a later date.

The evaluation was designed to examine three aspects of the Workplace Project insofar as it operated in the six organisations. These aspects were the:

• process used, including those parts of the process that were successful, intended and unintended outcomes of the process, and an assessment of what parts of the process might be improved or (with the benefit of hindsight) done differently;
• impact of the initiatives, against specific measures set by the organisation, or against expected outcomes, and on factors such as morale, productivity, communications, absenteeism, recruitment, staff turnover, hours worked and so on; and
• sustainability of work-life balance initiatives in workplaces over the longer term.

Because the Project had the objectives of gathering tools emerging from those workplaces, and refining them for wider dissemination, and of enabling the Department to better understand "what works" to inform both future policy work and practice change, we (the evaluation team) also sought to synthesise the lessons that emerged across workplaces.

This was not simply to produce "tools" for use in workplace specific circumstances, but also to develop insights that would inform process, timing, scope and content of future work-life balance initiatives, whether taken by government agencies, social partners or on the initiative of a key change agent within an organisation or workplace.

Evaluation methodology

The evaluation reconciled insights gained from a "top down" specification of what success would look like with those gained from "bottom up" interviews with various direct participants in the projects.

The success case impact model sought to reconstruct a picture of what success would look like by reading the Cabinet papers and officials' briefing documents, by studying the contracts for the supply of services to participating organisations, by reviewing the file notes on meetings held to refine the project, and, significantly, by interviewing leading project sponsors and drivers, and participating consultants.

This goes beyond listing objectives and specifies some anticipated outcomes.

We then compared what would be "nice to have delivered" with what existed on the ground after the intervention. This involved reading the consultants' progress and final reports on each organisation, and conducting field interviews in each workplace. The purpose of the fieldwork was to get different perspectives so that we could "triangulate" them around what appeared to be generally shared assessments of what worked (and what didn't), and to identify residual areas where perceptions diverged.

The triangulation exercise sought to interview a cross section of individuals (vertically in the organisational hierarchy, and horizontally across functions and departments). Typically we sought interviews with senior executives (ideally CEO, Operations Manager(s), Human Resources, mid-level supervisors or a mix of them); union delegates; (if the site was unionised); participants on the work-life balance working group(s), and a selection of employees who were not actively engaged in the project. Within the latter group, we tried include employees who had been in the organisation since before the project began (to get a "before and after" perspective and to see if it made a perceptible difference at the workface), and some who had joined after it concluded ("what is it like to work here?").

A key focus of the methodology was to identify what had been left behind: especially in relation to any momentum around on-going processes to improve work-life balance. Once the dynamics of change had been isolated, it would be possible to address the question of what conditions are required (and if they are absent, can they be created) to ensure that work-life balance issues are addressed over the longer term in each organisation.

Success case impact model

At the simple level, it could be assumed a priori that "success" would equate with meeting the formal project objectives outlined above. However, our investigations highlighted that there are different contextual values and imperatives that sit behind a set of objectives that a variety of parties can agree to. It is not what is being sought, but why it is being sought, because these differences in motivation can have material impact on how results are interpreted in relation to success. More fundamentally, the perspectives shape how the different stakeholders view what needs to happen next as policy is refined, tools and processes are developed, and new programmes are rolled out.

It may be over-simplifying, but for presentational purposes it is possible to isolate three perspectives on success, which at times coincide but at times diverge or at least sit in isolation. These are success from the perspective of:

1. refining policies and intervention instruments (toolkits etc);
2. the business (increasing productivity, reducing staff turnover etc); and
3. the individual (less stress, enhanced enjoyment of life, greater control over reconciling competing demands on time).

These perspectives (at least conceptually) generate a cubic matrix. The dimensions on each axis are outlined below.

Perspectives on "success"

The business imperative

Business New Zealand is concerned with the proliferation of partially overlapping and largely disjointed structures addressing workplace issues, especially productivity, labour market flexibility and work-life balance.

The key for them is for the Project to stress and reinforce an integration of flexibility, productivity and work-life balance and to "de-brand" them as concepts in their own right. The main risk is that work-life balance is the one concept that can separate out: being seen as consistent with workplace flexibility, but disconnected from increased productivity. However, if flexibility is not tied in to the productivity agenda the work-life balance agenda will not be sustainable.

Business New Zealand accepts that in the first instance, "branding" work-life balance is probably needed to raise its profile and to focus attention on it, and was not opposed to the emphasis given to the brand in this exercise. However, the long-term objective of fusing it into the broader productivity agenda needs to be kept in mind.

From this perspective, lifting productivity is the fundamental challenge for the New Zealand economy, and the work-life balance agenda can only be sustained if it contributes to meeting that challenge.

Given this emphasis, Business New Zealand sees it as important for the programme to deliver workable results in the private sector. It is also important to then locate initiatives that improve personal and family well-being in a context that raises productivity, specifically through:

1. team-based approaches, that avoid handing problems at work onto someone else; and
2. a recognition of the integrated and linked nature of production processes with the attendant requirement to avoid knock-on effects: delays, defects etc, which in turn complicate the quality of the work experience for others.

Productivity is the driver, but capital is not the answer (rosters etc are the key).

A successful project would identify opportunities from the pilots for quick and widespread dissemination. "Speed to value" should be a guide: releasing useful lessons for quick distribution through the Business New Zealand network. This is a strongly action-orientated perspective on success.

Business New Zealand has extensive reach and quick communications facilities, and prefers to be positive about promoting productivity messages as opposed to simply being reactive in resisting additional labour market regulation initiatives. This perspective implies that the "policy refinement" dimension of the matrix is dominated by the pragmatic application of the lessons dimension, especially in relation to productivity improvement. In this context there is a closer alignment with some of the complementary initiatives envisaged in the Cabinet paper (responses to skill and labour shortages and Workplace Productivity initiatives).

Benefits to the individual

The mechanics of the project design - led by the Department, overseen by the social partners, implemented through bilateral contracts between the Department and participating organisations - meant that by definition, the perspectives of the individual employees were not "at the table" when the elements of success were envisaged.

A proxy for this perspective was therefore provided by the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU), but it must be accepted that the proxy is indirect. There are no unions (or low levels of union density) in some workplaces, and while NZCTU would have direct links to participating affiliate unions, the links in the chain - union, organiser, delegate, member - impact on how closely representative a NZCTU perspective is of the diversity of individual employee views of what "success" might look like. On the other hand, the tripartite and partnership processes envisaged for project mechanisms mean that the perspective of NZCTU is a valid picture of success in its own right.

The NZCTU considers that the terms of reference for the Project would have established a basic understanding of the roles of the different parties in the process of developing initiatives to improve work-life balance, at least at union organiser level if not at delegate level in the first instance.

In a success case, there would be a broader understanding among union linked participants (organisers, delegates) that they were not alone but were aware of what was happening on other worksites. Consultants would have been seen as neutral and not engaged by, or working on behalf of, employers. Sufficient resources would have been made available to sustain a wider view of progress with the pilots, beyond the specific work sites.

Work-life balance activities would develop in parallel with collective bargaining and industrial relations processes, not being either entirely separated from nor intimately part of them.

From a union responsibility angle there would be more consistency of organiser support for delegates involved in the projects.

From the Department and employer responsibility angle there would be a broad understanding and acceptance of the union as a positive force in such projects, including embedding the delegates' role.

The projects would have been continuous and sustainable: successes would have become embedded, and if initiatives did not work other options would have been sought out. Initiatives should connect with a range of broader NZCTU objectives such as quality of working life, workplace learning, increased productivity, a widening role for unions, building union capacity and increasing familiarity with the use of partnership processes. At a workplace level it is important to 'mainstream' work-life balance initiatives just as it is to integrate work-life balance into everyday union work. In this respect NZCTU and Business New Zealand perspectives converge: work-life balance is "de-branded", or at least integrated, although the obvious differences of scope of the wider agenda remain.

The programmes should have built support for work-life balance and avoided the development of cynicism. The provision of information and education on the experiences of the pilots would have spun out other initiatives in other workplaces without necessarily having to rely on formal structures and assistance from consultants. The initiatives undertaken should be sustainable beyond the life of the particular intervention/project. The evaluation should contribute to building sustainability. These perspectives align with the expectation of the Department that in an ongoing context these initiatives can stand alone and not rely on an externally funded consultant resource.

Employers involved would have become more aware of the value of the process and developed some improved ability to do something about it, including a greater willingness to invest in it to capture these returns. This partially aligns with the "speed to value", use of networks, and business return emphasis that Business New Zealand placed on the project.

Going forward, there would be sufficient resources and the provision of training to allow the process to spread and be sustained. This is partially consistent with the Cabinet paper view of alignment with complementary measures.

Self-assessment

The formal record of evaluations by participants in the project (feedback in meetings held by the Department, written reports) tends to accentuate the positives that were achieved. These include:

• commitment to the aims of the exercise;
• enhanced awareness of issues;
• persistence and perseverance;
• development of a strong database from which plans could be implemented;
• the achievement of a number of small additive changes; and
• building work-life balance into workplace cultures.

For example, at the EziBuy call centre there is a shift-swapping facility and a "leave early board". Both are self-select flexibility arrangements. Shift swapping is seldom used: perhaps one or two a month. The leave early board is, on the other hand, actively used, perhaps by 10 - 15 people a day. If workflows reduce, staff can leave early in the order they have put their names up (even though they lose the pay they would otherwise have got).This suggests that short-term "real time" flexibilities can be just as important as those that are organised around predictable lifestyle commitments (sports training, after school care etc).

Issues that kept arising (and which may be seen to be sources of frustration and barriers to success) were:

• communications problems, with the workforce and with key partners, both before and during the process;
• identification and selection of key personnel (who would make the difference);
• continuity of participation;
• finding time for engagement beyond normal work duties; and
• confusion of roles and separation of work-life balance initiatives from formal bargaining over conditions of employment.

Factors identified that could be regarded as detracting from success were:

• implementation: producing a "plan" often being seen as the end point of the exercise; and
• the narrow focus of work-life balance practice on hours, shifts and leave, and not on the wider agenda of the content of work or the structure of workplace supports for better balance.

Qualifications to the self-assessment

Our fieldwork would add some qualifications to this self-assessment by key participants in the project.

• "Commitment" is patchy and potentially transient. The projects did tend to depend on a key sponsor or patron within each organisation, and progress usually needed to be "driven". The process, as might be expected, was not a naturally occurring phenomenon. The Department's trouble-shooting role and its wider perspective were seen as very valuable to individual workplace projects. This does raise some questions about the extent to which there is likely to be a broadly based and self-contained initiation of work-life balance investigations across the labour market or whether some external catalyst is necessary.
• Awareness of work-life balance issues was definitely enhanced in the workplaces that participated in the project. (Of course we have no way of knowing whether that enhanced awareness is more generic). One consequence, though, was that awareness was of work-life balance in its own right, which might detract from the conceptual preference for "de-branding" and incorporating it into a broader workplace agenda in a seamless way.
• The databases in each workplace reflected very different experiences with both the survey and the working group processes. These processes tended to reflect an implicit assumption of literacy and familiarity with survey type methodologies and with participation in working group activity. That was totally comfortable in (say) ERO and totally alien to (say) TipTop Bread. There was a general feeling that the survey was too complex, fell short of being fit-for-purpose and was more aligned with a research as opposed to an action agenda. [Note: the focus of the survey was hours, shifts and leave, and not on the wider agenda of the content of work or the structure of workplace supports for better balance].
• Small additive changes were the strongest feature of the responses. In fact, at times, some of the greatest successes did not even require change: they simply required clarification of what existing entitlements were. Knowing what employees can ask for and knowing why some requests for flexible work arrangements cannot be accommodated are hugely important. Establishing where the boundaries are contributes to certainty, which in and of itself is a substantial component of achieving "balance".
• There is very little evidence that the projects achieved culture changes in workplaces. At times there were structural changes (such as appointing an Human Resources Manager at Indeserve, or introducing staggered start and finish times at EziBuy), and these changes became embedded in the operation of the organisations. They were permanent and directly attributable to the project, but fall short of reflecting a change in culture.
• Communications within workplaces can always be improved, and it was difficult to judge whether communication breakdowns were specifically a problem with work-life balance procedures (or even with this particular project) as opposed to being more systemic in the organisation. Communications difficulties seemed to be particularly problematic with defining the role of a union in setting up the project, getting information out about the expected contribution from a union organiser, and involving unions in working group activities.

For example, Christchurch Casino convened a leave seminar for middle management to discuss options for better management of leave applications. This was a standout success, because it addressed a key issue, but even more importantly, because it highlighted how improved communications can lead to sharing of ideas across departments and reflect an ability to listen, learn and respond.

• Continuity of participation was a mixed bag. At times even churn at senior management level didn't seem to impact on the project in some organisations but in others it was fatal.
• Finding time for engagement beyond normal work duties is fundamentally a management responsibility. Participatory processes are only likely to work if they are on paid time, and this extends even to data gathering like filling out a survey questionnaire. If management does pay for participation, employees tend to put up with significant personal inconvenience to attend working group meetings and similar activities (the working group at Christchurch Casino is the exemplar).
• Role clarity is an ever present problem, and it might be that at the end of the day all parties need to accept that in the final analysis management has the ultimate authority to determine if any workplace practice changes are implemented. The inescapable fact is that work does involve resources and routines, and these are supplied or authorised by managers.
• The "plan" being the end of the project, and a narrow focus on hours of work are recurring themes that need to be addressed if the goals of dynamic and sustained change are to be achieved.
• In addition, there was significant concern about whether there are education resources and explanatory materials that are sufficient to underpin wider work-life balance activity, even if awareness and commitment is generated by the social partners. The question of who will "spread the message" remains unanswered.

Insights from the project

Any project is undertaken in an environment where other factors intrude, but because these factors may not remain constant, it is important to identify them and to comment briefly on their possible impact on the evaluation. There are also other insights that are inevitably gained during an evaluation, and these are recorded for completeness.

State of the labour market

The extremely tight labour market may have been a strong motivator in getting organisations "to the wire". Retention of staff and reducing staff turnover were often cited as the main reason for improving work-life balance. While this can be a generic reason for improving the attractiveness of the workplace (to avoid the costs of staff churn and to capture the productivity benefits of deeper institutional learning), it is possible that it has a cyclical element.

We were not able to assess how enthusiastic and accommodating employers might be in the future if unemployment rises and jobs become less scarce.

Degree of readiness

Different organisations were in different states of readiness to engage with work-life balance issues. That was reflected in the amount of effort needed to get a project going and keeping it going, and in the degree of change that the organisation was prepared or able to implement as a result of it.

This means that the cost-effectiveness of any intervention is substantially impacted by awareness and receptiveness at the start, and suggests that if other interventions are contemplated, a threshold needs to be set as a precondition of participation.

Quantitative measures of performance

There were relatively few baseline quantitative performance measures extracted at the start of the exercise (i.e. in addition to the data on opinions coming out of the staff surveys) so it is difficult to evaluate the impact of the project in hard cost-benefit dollar terms.

However, when some indicators were used (overtime hours worked, staff turnover rates etc), they tended to show little change before and after the project, and/or were explained by other factors in the operating environment of the organisation. This is understandable: work-life balance is only a small part of the overall operation of any organisation; many of the benefits expected to flow from it are intangible (reduced stress, improved personal well-being) and changed outcomes would emerge slowly over a number of years.

All of this implies that while particular performance results might be desirable, it is not realistic to base an evaluation of the benefits of work-life balance on hard data changes over short periods of time. This needs to be kept in mind in promoting participation in such projects to employers.

For example, EziBuy addressed unplanned overtime caused by late customers by having store managers go around shortly before closing time to tell remaining customers that the store will be closing soon and staggering start/finish times so that they had better coverage. There has been a reduction in unplanned overtime of 1,200 hours in the past year.

Value of the "free" resource

The resources provided to the participating organisations were often essential (they would not have got started without them, particularly the free consultant time), but in many cases because they didn't pay for the service they didn't "value" it. The input fitted in around the operational convenience of the organisations, scheduled activities were cancelled, consultants were at times used in more of a secretarial than an expert capacity, and so on.

The best results seemed to come in workplaces where the employers were prepared to make additional contributions thereby demonstrating their commitment. This does raise the issue of whether the provision of resources should be conditional on the organisations committing some additional resource (i.e. not just meeting time) to any project.

General observations

As noted above this evaluation covered six of the 14 organisations that participated in the Project, and there is a risk that it might not have captured all of the lessons that could have been extracted.

We do not think that this is likely because:

• The six organisations were extremely varied by size of organisation, sector (private/public), industry, geographical location, degree of unionisation, ownership structure and workforce characteristics (see table 2).
• While there were some major and many nuanced differences between the sites, our experience was that new insights and contradictions of earlier lessons were subject to diminishing returns, and we are confident that a more extensive evaluation would only have made a marginal difference to these conclusions.

Implications of different perceptions of "success"

As already noted, our conversations with stakeholders revealed some significant and some nuanced differences between them about what "success" would have looked like if the pilot projects had delivered on expectations.

This should be seen as a strength. It means that while it is unlikely that everyone will be happy with the outcome of the projects, it is likely that there will be enough in it for each participant/stakeholder to conclude that the project was worthwhile.

It also means that there are a sufficient number of distinct "motivators" to push on with work-life balance initiatives to create some confidence that if there was a push to spread uptake it is likely to resonate with different audiences for different reasons, with an overall effect of expanding uptake.

Going forward, there is probably value in an explicit recognition and, hopefully, reconciliation before the event, of different expectations, priorities and specification of roles, rights and responsibilities.

This is particularly important if the next stage involves the preparation of something akin to a toolkit or manual, because if that does not happen, there is a risk of several rounds of restructuring of any resource around sequencing, emphasis and even content, which would not be efficient from a process point of view (and can be fraught from a relationship management point of view!).

Reconciling expectations of success with the findings

Set out below is a table comparing the common themes about what high level project success would look like shared by the three main stakeholder groups, with the results of our fieldwork.

Lessons: building up a resource

One of the objectives of the Project was to sift out "best practice" to develop toolkits to use in workplaces, to help develop customised solutions and to assist with a wider dissemination of resources. The projects generated a number of positive outcomes that can be incorporated into more generic resources.

In practice, because of delays in concluding some of the projects, the Department commissioned a toolkit: "Making it work for your business: work life balance" (June 2007).

For completeness, we have carried out an exercise that looked at what lessons may have emerged for the preparation of resource guides if this evaluation had been used to inform a "blank sheet of paper" exercise. This is presented in Appendix II.

We have also compared the lessons that we thought the evaluation identified with the content in the "Making it work...." toolkit. This is presented in Appendix III.

Our assessment is that overall, the resource is comprehensive. There were no insights, tips, examples, process suggestions, warnings or checks that we came across that have not been covered in the material.

The toolkit is also careful to stress that any process needs to be aligned with the particular characteristics of the work being done, and the workers doing it (literacy, familiarity with formal structures for participation and decision making). It therefore avoids the trap of prescribing processes that will only be relevant within a particular segment of the labour market.

It's a good resource.

Much of our comment, then, relates to emphasis. There are aspects of the resource that might have been given more prominence if the weight of our conclusions had been reflected in the resource. This does not mean that we are right and they are wrong!

It does imply that the resource should be left as is and used as is for the foreseeable future. The items of emphasis that we highlight can be kept as a reference source to see if practical experience with the use of the resource exposes the need for more assistance to be provided in bolstering some dimensions of work-life balance, or if other aspects are laboured.

Issues identified

By management:

• Need to change the culture towards more trust and confidence
• Staff retention/reduction of turnover
• Improve morale.

By staff:

• Rosters (predictability, flexibility, frequency of changes)
• Leave (not being able to take it, short notice of confirmation)
• Communications (especially information on entitlements)
• Skills and attitudes of managers and supervisors.

Actions recommended for implementation

• Develop an agreed work-life balance policy
• Management training to encompass work-life balance issues
• Agree principles for managing leave
• Engage employee advisors on work-life balance matters.

Actions taken

• Substantially improved communications of entitlements and processes through Intranet, Kiosk, brochures
• "Principles for managing leave" agreed (stressing joint responsibilities and importance to both the individual and for casino operations)
• Leave seminar for supervisors held
• Committee to oversee ongoing work and implementation of improvements established.

Issues identified

• Flexible working hours
• Working from home
• Organisation of work
• Shorter working week and/or year.

Actions recommended for implementation

• Ability to adjust working hours to reflect work flows and seasons according to the needs of each division (eg 40 hours work over four and a half-days)
• Managers having the ability to work from home
• Integrating these provisions into recruitment and employment packages (in a tight labour market)
• Assisting employees returning to work after parental or sick leave to re-engage with workforce and balance family commitments
• Reorganise work processes.

Actions taken

• Divisional managers have discretion to offer more flexible work arrangements (only two have acted on this)
• One division has significantly streamlined work processes to enable a strict finishing of work at 5pm each day with no work to be taken home
• The Parks and Reserves division is working longer hours in the summer and taking time off in winter months to reflect different work demands in different growing seasons.

Issues identified

• Problems with scheduling reviews, causing longer hours being worked by some reviewers, extended periods of travel away from home, back to back reviews and the coordinating role falling on the same people
• Managers working excessive hours
• Difficulty in raising work-life balances issues with managers
• Inconsistent approaches to working from home requests
• Requirement to garage ERO cars at work requiring staff to give up personal time to collect them for reviews.

Actions recommended for implementation

• Review of scheduling, explore technological options
• Review work from home policy and practice
• Review car garaging issue and any obstacles to staff having cars at home (Fringe Benefit Tax etc).

Actions taken

• Working group review of all issues raised
• External consultant engaged to scope scheduling software. Not successful because of cost. Still being explored
• Increased individual awareness and input into scheduling
• Discussion has resulted in improved communication between managers, and staff feeling more empowered to raise issues with their manager
• Car policy changed
• Working from home policy rewritten and promulgated.

Issues identified

• Inflexible shifts in call centre
• Distance from town, resulting difficulty attending to personal business in town
• Unpredictable finishing times in retail, resulting in unplanned overtime
• Extra demands in retail caused by peaks linked to catalogues coming out
• Work overload in design, support and finance areas
• Childcare, health and fitness not being manageable
• Inadequate awareness of basic entitlements.

Actions recommended for implementation

• Allow shift swapping
• Introduce time off rewards; work longer hours one day, and leave early another day
• Enhance customer awareness of closing time; research shift patterns
• Increase use of shop fillers and night fillers during busy times
• Record hours worked to assess workload; examine use of technology, work processes and communication; explore time management options
• Explore childcare and fitness centre options
• Raise awareness of entitlements.

Actions taken

• Shift swapping introduced, guidelines agreed, voluntary go home early board established
• Flexibility is provided where possible to allow employees to attend personal appointments, managers have been encouraged to take a flexible approach
• Proactive management of hours worked in newly opened distribution centre, increased awareness of measures to support stressed employees
• Monthly focus groups of staff convened, suggestions put forward to management
• Opening hours advertised, managers take responsibility for telling customers store will be closing
• Changes in shift patterns; meetings planned well in advance; limiting staff working all weekend
• Shop fillers and weekend staff employed during peak times
• Work overload identified, work processes reviewed to reduce overwork, additional staff employed as required
• Terms and conditions workshops held; managers updated on outcome of negotiations; human resources resource stands introduced; internal newsletters and intranet improved
• Childcare and health & fitness options researched, partner arrangements made, information on stands; wellness programme introduced.

Issues identified

• Too much overtime
• Rostered on-call
• Need for more training with new technologies
• Need for sales training
• Stress in meeting customer satisfaction standards
• Perception of some unequal entitlements to sick and annual leave.

Actions recommended for implementation

• Engage specialist company to design job ads
• Develop Employee Wellness Programme
  • Flu vaccines
  • Revitalise social club
  • Fresh fruit
  • Leave bank
• Restart company-wide meetings
• Engage part-time human resources specialist.

Actions taken

• General comfort that the survey showed an 87% level of satisfaction with work-life balance
• Part-time human resources specialist engaged: now almost exclusively overseeing implementation of recommendations and driving progressive improvements
• Recommendations being implemented where practical and cost effective (eg social club, professional assistance with design of job ads)
• Codification and communication of policies, processes and entitlements improving general levels of satisfaction
• Personal development plans to enable more individual control of management of work-life balance being gradually extended
• Ideas from working group that have been tried before not being progressed (eg time bank).

Issues identified

• Shift work with some shifts working a lot of overtime (although in this organisation, paid overtime means long hours delivering more income)
• Poor communication between departments and between shifts
• Need for better work planning and processes to reduce errors and waste.

Actions recommended for implementation

• Flexible start and finish times
• Managers and supervisors being more understanding of individual needs
• Staff knowing they could leave work in the event of a family emergency.

Actions taken

No actions have been taken that are directly attributable to this project. However, wider GWF-level management changes and a cultural survey which confirmed the findings of the work-life balance survey, have led to a new and broader agenda for change that is getting underway. This includes some major reductions in working hours and the beginnings of a cultural change starting at management level.