A comment on the Department of Labour toolkit: "Making it work for your business - Work-Life balance"

This comment on the toolkit is provided from the perspective of the insights gained from our consultations with key stakeholders, and the evaluation of the six Workplace Project sites.

It is difficult to criticise any resource like this on the grounds of structure, sequence, tone and style: any other authors would have an idiosyncratic way of approaching the resource and the resulting product could just as easily be criticised for a difference of approach.

We have therefore taken these basic design features as a given.

Overview

Overall, the resource is comprehensive. There were no insights, tips, examples, process suggestions, warnings or checks that we came across that have not be 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.

The template survey questionnaire is shorter and more manageable (from the perspectives of both filling it out and of processing it) than was the survey used in the Workplace Project, and this anticipates and responds to the feedback that we got that the original survey was too complex, particularly for some workplaces.

This is a toolkit for "your business", and so the immediate target is the organisation that is capable of supplying the resources to carry out a work-life balance project, and that has the authority to make the changes that may come out of one. It therefore avoids the role and authority confusion that can arise if there is a suggestion that particular projects need to have tripartite partnership sponsorship and oversight. (Even if the wider labour market initiative does). It does this whilst retaining the necessary reminders to involve the relevant union and workplace representatives where appropriate.

It's a good resource.

Questions of emphasis

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.

There are four areas where our experience would suggest more emphasis might be needed.

Responsibility of the individual

The toolkit notes that "deciding on and maintaining an appropriate balance between our work life and our personal life is an individual responsibility."

This is totally correct, but apart from that mention, most of the specific actions outlined in the processes tend to focus on what the organisation has to do to promote work-life balance.

Reinforcing both the responsibility of the individual, and the capacity of the individual to take charge ('it's okay to ask') needs to be woven through the outcomes of work-life balance processes in a more emphatic and explicit way.

In addition, there are some skills that the individual may need in order to assume personal responsibility (such as time management skills, assertiveness training etc) that can be provided through the workplace.

Predictability of work patterns

The importance of predictability of:

• finish times (even more than start times, because pick up and other responsibilities are more prone to disruption if the end of the work span is uncertain);
• rights to attend to urgent off work calls (sick child etc);
• ability to schedule personal appointments within standard access hours (dentist, doctor, consultations with lawyers, teachers etc);
• the way annual leave applications will be processed;

rank alongside flexibility in hours in creating either peace of mind, or improved planning to deal with out of work responsibilities. For example if it is certain that some releases will not be granted, arrangements can be made for other family members to respond to these appointments.

This is covered in the material, but is not given the same prominence as flexibility as the answer to work-life-balance issues. Where operational imperatives restrict flexible work arrangements, it is important not to brand the workplace as "unfriendly", but to steer the process towards redefining and clarifying where the boundaries are, and explaining why they need to be there. This is in itself often sufficient to dispel a sense of grievance and tension.

Shifting the problem

The resource does talk about all workers having some reason for wanting to pursue out-of-work interests, but there is always a risk that some flexibilities are only used by those who qualify for them in line with existing criteria (sick child, school holidays etc.) This can then mean that the burden of providing the cover is not absorbed by the employer, but shifted on to other employees.

Our experience from other studies is that there is a strong culture in New Zealand workplaces of 'cover and resent', without complaining, which can be debilitating for the individual and for workplace morale in general. This is most pronounced with regard to tolerating and covering for poor performance, (and then resenting that poor performance), but organisations need to be sensitised to the fact that more flexibility for some can, unless other things happen, translate into less flexibility for others.

Those warnings are there in the toolkit. Experience with its application will establish if they need to be highlighted, repeated, and accompanied by some tips on how to ensure that unintended side-effects are avoided.

The quality of the in-work experience

The toolkit does identify that job satisfaction and a feeling that the work being done is valued is a central element of work-life "balance". However, it is fairly light in emphasising that throughout the processes that are recommended.

There is a much stronger emphasis on "dividing" time and energy "between paid work and all the other things they need and want to do" than in improving the quality of life at work.

This is not the place to detail how the in-work experience might be improved, but examples are assistance with personal skills such as time management; regular internal communications on the state of the business (to offset rumours of redundancy etc.); periodic group celebrations when performance targets are met; and strong personal feedback to enable the individual to both receive praise and (if necessary) seek to improve personal performance. (New Zealand workers are notoriously bad at giving and sometimes receiving praise!).

This might be an area for the "next generation" of work-life balance resource development.

Comments on process

There were two process issues that might similarly be considered afresh in the light of experiences with the use of the toolkit.

Organisational structure: Who is "you"?

The process guides tend to talk in the abstract about what "you" need to do at each step, with some fungibility around just who the "you' is that is doing things at different stages.

The risk is that actions fall between the cracks because responsibilities for particular actions are not assigned or clearly allocated. We can see the rationale for leaving organisational design issues to the separate bodies that are seeking to improve work-life balance, because any set prescription is unlikely to be universally fit-for-purpose.

If this does prove to be problematic, some guidelines about how to pull a structure together can be lifted out of the Partnership Resource Centre's "Workplace Partnerships Diagnostic Toolkit" (see Appendix I of that toolkit).

Distribution channels

It is not clear how this toolkit finds its way into workplaces. If it is left to individuals to become both motivated to do something, and then sufficiently informed to locate the toolkit, penetration and use might grow slowly.

During our consultations with stakeholders, Business New Zealand stressed the importance of the concept of "speed to value" (getting the value out of a resource as soon as possible), and suggested that its own distribution and communication networks could be used to good effect.

If this is seen as a valuable dissemination/distribution channel, the packaging of the toolkit might need to be revised. This is because Business New Zealand sees value in "de-branding" "work-life balance" and promoting it as but one element of the measures needed to boost productivity.

That, though, is a bilateral matter for the Department and Business New Zealand.