Department of Labour Annual Report 2006

Case Study 5 - Work-life balance at EziBuy

The Department’s work with EziBuy to balance employees’ non-work needs and desires with their working lives, created a happier workforce and better interaction with customers.

Mail-order clothing and homeware company EziBuy has successfully simplified and improved its work-life balance measures, bringing significant benefits to both the company and staff.

EziBuy Human Resource Manager Leonne Goodbehere says the company is New Zealand and Australia’s largest fashion and home catalogue company. EziBuy employs about 650 staff in its contact centre, distribution centre, retail outlets and administrative offices.

“As EziBuy has grown, our business has become more complex and, like all employers, we have faced increasing competition for staff. We also face particular challenges in offering flexibility to contact centre and retail staff.”

“Our company philosophy is about genuinely caring for our employees and providing a workplace that supports work-life balance. A positive flow-on effect is that by looking after our staff, they pass this on and look after our customers. We are always looking at how we can improve our workplace for our staff,” she says.

“We saw this as a great opportunity to work with the Department of Labour, while continuing to improve the flexibility we offer our staff,” Leonne says.

In 2005, EziBuy became one of the pilot organisations in the Department of Labour’s Workplace Project, which aims to develop tailored work-life solutions for New Zealand employers and employees.

At that time, the company offered a number of flexible work arrangements including:

• Part-time work
• Flexible starting and finishing times in some business areas
• The ability to use sick leave to look after family members
• Shift times set up to appeal to particular groups, such as parents and students.

However, these initiatives were not consistently communicated across the organisation. EziBuy saw the Workplace Project as an opportunity to take a systematic approach to work-life balance in order to improve recruitment and retention, and help manage overtime and workloads.

The pilot project began with a working group, which included representatives from staff, management and the one union to which staff belong. This group used staff surveys, focus groups and interviews with management and staff to identify work-life balance issues from employee and business perspectives.

As a result, a number of initiatives were offered across the business – including the ability to swap shifts in the contact centre and staggered shifts in the retail outlets. This gives staff more certainty about their hours while better meeting the needs of customers.

“It has been a win for everyone,” Leonne says. She says EziBuy believes the pilot is working well due to:

• Management commitment
• Good communication
• Initiatives being offered across the organisation, but tailored to individual work groups
• An enthusiastic partnership approach to developing and implementing initiatives
• Acknowledgement from everyone that initiatives need to work for the business and employees.

The next stage for EziBuy is to further promote work-life balance internally, including through its induction process. EziBuy is also exploring how it can include work-life balance measures in its performance management programme.

“Our company philosophy is about genuinely caring for our employees and providing a workplace that supports work-life balance.” LEONNE GOODBEHERE

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