September 12, 2024 • 18 mins
It’s estimated we spend a third of our life at work – with the average worker clocking a staggering 90,000 hours in employment over a lifetime.
Covid lockdowns saw companies adapt to remote and flexible working practices, while schemes like four day weeks have gained traction globally.
Some international companies though are pulling back or restricting employees from working at home, while one CEO has gone as far as to try and stop people leaving the building during work hours.
So what is the best practice, and how do we adapt our workplaces for a changing world?
Today on The Front Page, we are joined by AUT associate professor and organisational psychologist Dr. Rachel Morrison to discuss the changing workforce.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Susie Nordqvist
Sound Engineer: Paddy Fox
Producer: Ethan Sills
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Kyta. I'm Susie Ordquitzt and for Chelsea Daniels. And this
is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the
New Zealand Herald. It's estimated we spend a third of
our life at work, with the average worker clocking a
staggering ninety thousand hours in employment over a lifetime. COVID
(00:27):
lockdowns saw companies adapt to emotion flexible working practices, while
schemes like four day weeks have gained traction globally. Some
international companies, though, are pulling back or restricting employees from
working at home. Our one chief executive has gone as
far as to try and stop people from leaving the
building during work hours. So what is the best practice
(00:51):
and how do we adapt our workplaces for a changing
world today? On the Front Page, we are joined by
aut Associate professor and organizationals psychologist doctor Rachel Morrison to
discuss the changing workforce. Rachel, We've always had this nine
to five culture here in New Zealand, as it still
(01:13):
sits for purpose or is it actually counterproductive for some
people and if so why?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
I think it's.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Become pretty apparent since the pandemic that there are lots
of alternate ways of working.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It worked really well for a lot of.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
People to have the flexibility of working from home, and
then since the pandemic there has been a pretty slow
shift back into the office. Really, it has raised awareness
that suiting work and job designed individuals can be.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Really beneficial to a love of people.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
So no, I don't think it is necessarily fit for purpose,
but that does depend on the type of role that
people are fulfilling.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Recently, The Herald reported on chrono working being the next
big employment trend to come to New Zealand. Can you
tell us a bit about how that works.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
My understanding of chrono working is that people will engage
in work at times of the day that suit them best.
So there's really robust research that has found that at
different times in people's lives, and also for different people,
various times of the day suit them better. So you've
got larks and ours. So generally you have people who
(02:24):
we think of as larks who like to get up
early and are really alert earlier in the day, and
who might find sitting in traffic from eight till nine,
for example, a real waste of time because they've been
up since sex and could be really productive in that time,
whereas you've also got ours who prefer a bit of
a sleep in and find themselves really productive late afternoon
or early evening. And if you can suit work to
(02:45):
suit people's most productive time, you're probably going to get
a lot more out of them.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
I'm thinking working mums. What about teenagers and school start times?
Is that something we should be looking at?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
So yeah, already there are quite a few schools which
have adopted later start times to suit teenagers. So there's
a real shift in early teen years for most children
or teenagers to work better with a bit of a
sleeping and they really struggle to get up early.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
The shift is about two hours, so if you.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Had a nine o'clock bed time, for example, that would
shift to eleven and then you end up with kids
in sleep there. They still have to get up at
six thirty or seven in the morning to get to
school and that works really well for teenagers.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Do you think there's nine to five culture that we've
got here in New Zealand could be affecting our mental health?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
What I would say is that having work hours or
work spaces that are perceived to be a good fit
to the way that you work and to the type
of person that you are generally has a really really
positive outcome. So we think of this as a person
environment fit and there are lots of things an organization
(03:59):
can do which are off and quite costless, which would
enhance the perception that you're fitting well.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
With your work environment.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
So that could be anything as simple as a comfortable
chair and a desk, aet the right height. All the
way through to believing or perceiving that the personality and values.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Of the organization are the same as your own.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Personality and values and those perceptions of fit is very
robust findings in almost all of the organizational psyche literature
that would say that when we have that perception of
a well fitting work environment, your mental health will improve,
your well being will improve, your productivity will improve, you'll
be more likely to stay with the organization.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
And your job satisfaction will improve.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
So anything an organization can do to enhance the perception
of a well fitting work environment will probably have good outcomes.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So some clear benefits there for individuals, but these different
ways of working could actually have flow on effects to
other parts of society too, no doubt.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
So if you think about nine to five start times
and traffic congestion. If you could have start time staggered
through the day for people to suit them, but also
to suit the organization and to suit customers, then traffic
congestion would be lessened.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
You know, rush hours might be a thing of the past.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
What I think you're now seeing is people recognize that
the five day week isn't it the purpose for the
twenty first century? And whether it be our solution four
days or reduced tiles working or another, certainly, now I
think we've got a whole environment where people are questioning
how work is structured.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Remote working or flexible working hours have become a popular
thing in recent years since COVID. What research have you
seen around the benefits of this type of working.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
So yeah, remote and hybrid working is generally really beneficial
in terms of things like work life balance and stress,
and it gives people a sense of control an agency
across their day. There is also, though quite robust research
that says that when we share space and time with others,
(06:10):
we are more likely to collaborate with them, We're more
likely to have positive workplace relationships, We're more likely to
have a feeling of inclusiveness and enhance cooperation so I
don't think that working entirely remotely as a working population
is necessarily feasible or functional for organizations. Really there needs
(06:30):
to be a happy medium, and if that is something
like chrono working, where everyone's expected to be in the
office by early afternoon, but some people come early and
some people stay late, then that's great. Or if it's
something like hybrid working, where everybody has one or two
days a week where they can feasibly work from home,
then that's great. I think mandating that people be in
(06:51):
the office at really set hours, and this is a
really genuine reason for it, is probably not going to
be very appeal for people who are job seeking.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
There's recently been some pushback from employers though, to remote working,
with companies like Deloitte and PwC announcing new policies to
monitor their employees. Why is this and what do you
make of this change?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
So intensely monitoring employees really suggest that the organizations don't
trust their workers. Whether you are closely monitoring your employees
or not, I don't think that there's going to be
a positive outcome. Feeling that you're not trusted is quite unpleasant,
and there are a lot of other things that you
can do as an organization to get genuine engagement from
(07:38):
employees other than just watching them closely.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
So, if you think about things like meaningful work and opportunity.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
For growth and improvement, for example, acquiring new skills, there
are elements of work that are intrinsically quite rewarding, and
building those features into work is a much better way
of getting people engaged than just them feeling monitored the
whole time. I think kind of alongside that is this
element of control and agency. So what the stress research
(08:07):
tells us is that the feeling of personal control and
agency is one of the biggest buffers to burn out
in stress. So feeling that you have control over the
way that you do your work, the hours that you
do it, the approach you take to work, it increases creativity,
increases productivity, and it decreases stress. Yeah, I would recommend
(08:27):
against intense monitoring of.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Employees speaking to that lack of trust and control. Last month,
a Kiwi mining boss in Australia said he didn't want
his workers to go out for coffee because they would
be less productive. Do workers really get more done when
they chain to their desks?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I'm not an employment law expert, but I'm pretty sure
that's not actually even legal, because when people are on
their own time, I don't think that organizations can or
should control.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Where they go.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
But I think what his kind of angle was about
was that he was everything that they would need at work.
So there's coffee machines at work, and there was lunch
provided and a creation on campus on site so that
people could drop their kids and never have to leave.
So there are some really genuinely appealing things about that
for some workers, and I think this again comes down
(09:17):
to that notion of fit and individual differences. There definitely
will be some people who find that situation pretty appealing
that they can just turn up to work and everything's
there for them. They can just be there for the
whole eight nine hours and then leave with the convenience
of not having to go outside for food or coffee.
The other side to that is removing control and agency. Again,
(09:38):
it's removing the opportunity for people to make choices about
how they spend their own leisure time and how they
spend their day, and I think long term that.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Would be a pretty abusive work experience.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
How should employers be responding to these ideas being pitched
about new ways of working.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
There are a lot.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Of kind of new fads that seem to be coming out,
and that it's tricky sometimes as an organization or an
employer to figure out which ones are going to be
truly valuable.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
I think that there are some.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Which are really evidence based, and I would say that
something like chrono working would be one of those where
there is decades of robust evidence that does show that
some people are more productive in the morning and other
people are less productive in the morning.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So something like that within kind of reason where.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
You do still have an expectation caps for most people
to be on site in particular times if working together
as part of your role is really reasonable.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I think mandating that people never leave your.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Offers for an entire day is probably quite unreasonable. But
that said, people will drift in and out of organizations
that fit or don't fit. So there's theory called selection attrition,
which basically says that organizations will select workers who they
think will fit the role. Workers will apply for jobs
(11:11):
that they think suit them, so that's selection and attraction.
But then if you find that that fit isn't really there,
you have attrition. People will leave, so you do tend
to find that over time people self select into organizations
that suit them, that organizations will make an effort to
select workers who they think will suit and people that
(11:31):
aren't fitting will leave, So you may end up finding
that there will be workers. Maybe you know mothers of
small children who find that a crash on site is
worth more to them than the choice of going out
for lunch and will stay there at least for the
time that that's convenient for them. So again, I just
think it's really important to acknowledge that there are individual differences.
(11:52):
You're never going to have a situation where a way
of working is going.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
To suit all or even most people.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
So offering choices and being flexible to the people that
work within your organization is usually going to be the
best way of having increased well being and productivity.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
In your opinion, Could employers be excluding a massive pool
of talent if they aren't open to these new ways
of working.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Certainly when you have a whole population of workers, So
for example, parents of young children will be a really
good example who aren't necessarily work forty fifty hour weeks
and be at the office by seven thirty because they've
got to get their kids to school, or they're going
to pick them up, or they just simply want to
spend more time with their children, which is a valuable
way of spending your time as well. Having strict mandates
(12:40):
of forty fifty hour work weeks is basically excluding that
really really valuable talent from.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
The pool of people who you can recruit from. So
including things like job sharing.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
And flex time and part time work within an organization
is a really good way of making sure that can
kind of get the best people in your organization as
opposed to just the most you know, the people that
have the most hours free.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
I think we have seen this kind of massive change,
you know, and we've just experienced things where we think, gosh,
I can do my job better from home. I personally
like a mixture of both. I'm way more productive at home.
But it's also way better to make social interactions in
person than it is. You know, the whole zoom call
thing we are smiling at people pales in comparison to
(13:31):
real life.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Some of these ways of working, though, require a high
level of trust from organizations. Our boss is right to
be wary of some of these concepts.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
I mean, so so before I think that there will
always be people who try and get out of, you know,
doing difficult.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Or onerous elements of their work.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
I think having good performance management processes within an organization
is a much more effective way of man than just
watching people and insisting that they'd be at work. There's
a little saying which is what gets rewarded gets repeated,
and I think organizations need to be really careful.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
About what it is that they're rewarding.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
And an organization that is ensuring that people be physically
present is rewarding presentism.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
It's rewarding people to just be at work.
Speaker 6 (14:26):
If instead you reward results and your reward achievements, it
doesn't really matter how long those things take or where
those activities take place.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
They will be the things that get repeated.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
And I think that that's much more valuable to an
organization than just having someone be in one physical location.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Rachil, you've probably seen the headlines about the huge numbers
of Kiwis who are leaving New Zealand. Isn't it a
good idea for employers here to be adaptable so they
can keep talent in this country.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I think a lot of the reason a lot of
the people are leaving because of higher pay, And there
are a lot of people who value other parts of
their work life more than money. Once you paid somebody enough,
generally all the other things about work become much more salient.
So what that does kind of mean is that if
an organization can't afford to pay more and more and
(15:22):
more to keep employees, they can change policy in a
way that doesn't cost the organization anything but still adds
value to workers. So things like, for example, the ability
to start late and finish late might be more valuable
to someone than earning an extra you know, five or
ten thousand a year that they could get in Australia.
And these are the types of things that maybe don't
(15:44):
necessarily cost.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
The organization anything.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Also, things like, you know, the ability to acquire new skills,
to move forward in your career, to have a wide
variety of tasks.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
In your job.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
If organizations can kind of create ways that those parts
of work are offered to those people that want it,
then that could be a benefit and also not necessarily
cost the organization.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Rachel, when I started working a number of years ago,
there was a certain way we were expected to work.
We're already seeing now that gen Z wants to work differently.
They're a bit anti shift work. When my children into
the workforce, how might things have changed.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Further, I'm always a bit reluctant to make sweeping generalizations
about generations, because what we really do know is that
twenty three year olds are always pretty similar to other
twenty three year olds.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
So I'm generation X.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I remember when I was in my twenties, the boomers
would kind of roll their eyes and say that we're
a bit directionless, and it's exactly the same, I think
is what people who are in their fifties now are
talking about when they look at twenty three year olds.
You know, there are still people who quite like or
expect an office or even just an office sheets one
or two people. I think that they really, whether we
(17:01):
like it or not, is disappearing.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
There are schools now.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
My own children at a school which is completely open plan,
and that really is setting them up probably better than
small classrooms, which again I don't want to kind of
stray from my laying too much, but I think small
classrooms probably.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Are beneficial to more children.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
But being in a big, open plan space is setting
these kids up for working in the real world when
they do come into the workforce, because you know, quiet
officers are probably going to be quite rare, So there
are going to be sort of ways of working that
will shift through these generations.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
It's impossible to know, but I do think.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
That artificial intelligence is going to be the biggest disruptor
for this next generation.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Just finally, what would your message be to employers about
the need to be open to different ways of working?
In a nutshell, I suppose.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
In a nutshell it would be to make sure that
your responsive to the individual needs of workers. That there
isn't going to be a policy that's going to fit everybody,
and that being able to offer a smallers board of
job design to suit as many people as possible will
be the best way of keeping in value and staff.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Thanks for joining us, Rachel. That's it for this episode
of The Front Page. You can read more about today's
stories and extensive news coverage at Inzet Herald dot co
dot enzet. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sells.
Patty Fox is a sound engineer. I'm Susie Nordquist. Subscribe
(18:33):
to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get
your podcasts, and tune in on Monday for another look
behind the headlines.
Kyta. I'm Susie Ordquitzt and for Chelsea Daniels. And this
is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the
New Zealand Herald. It's estimated we spend a third of
our life at work, with the average worker clocking a
staggering ninety thousand hours in employment over a lifetime. COVID
(00:27):
lockdowns saw companies adapt to emotion flexible working practices, while
schemes like four day weeks have gained traction globally. Some
international companies, though, are pulling back or restricting employees from
working at home. Our one chief executive has gone as
far as to try and stop people from leaving the
building during work hours. So what is the best practice
(00:51):
and how do we adapt our workplaces for a changing
world today? On the Front Page, we are joined by
aut Associate professor and organizationals psychologist doctor Rachel Morrison to
discuss the changing workforce. Rachel, We've always had this nine
to five culture here in New Zealand, as it still
(01:13):
sits for purpose or is it actually counterproductive for some
people and if so why?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
I think it's.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Become pretty apparent since the pandemic that there are lots
of alternate ways of working.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It worked really well for a lot of.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
People to have the flexibility of working from home, and
then since the pandemic there has been a pretty slow
shift back into the office. Really, it has raised awareness
that suiting work and job designed individuals can be.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Really beneficial to a love of people.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
So no, I don't think it is necessarily fit for purpose,
but that does depend on the type of role that
people are fulfilling.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Recently, The Herald reported on chrono working being the next
big employment trend to come to New Zealand. Can you
tell us a bit about how that works.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
My understanding of chrono working is that people will engage
in work at times of the day that suit them best.
So there's really robust research that has found that at
different times in people's lives, and also for different people,
various times of the day suit them better. So you've
got larks and ours. So generally you have people who
(02:24):
we think of as larks who like to get up
early and are really alert earlier in the day, and
who might find sitting in traffic from eight till nine,
for example, a real waste of time because they've been
up since sex and could be really productive in that time,
whereas you've also got ours who prefer a bit of
a sleep in and find themselves really productive late afternoon
or early evening. And if you can suit work to
(02:45):
suit people's most productive time, you're probably going to get
a lot more out of them.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
I'm thinking working mums. What about teenagers and school start times?
Is that something we should be looking at?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
So yeah, already there are quite a few schools which
have adopted later start times to suit teenagers. So there's
a real shift in early teen years for most children
or teenagers to work better with a bit of a
sleeping and they really struggle to get up early.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
The shift is about two hours, so if you.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Had a nine o'clock bed time, for example, that would
shift to eleven and then you end up with kids
in sleep there. They still have to get up at
six thirty or seven in the morning to get to
school and that works really well for teenagers.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Do you think there's nine to five culture that we've
got here in New Zealand could be affecting our mental health?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
What I would say is that having work hours or
work spaces that are perceived to be a good fit
to the way that you work and to the type
of person that you are generally has a really really
positive outcome. So we think of this as a person
environment fit and there are lots of things an organization
(03:59):
can do which are off and quite costless, which would
enhance the perception that you're fitting well.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
With your work environment.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
So that could be anything as simple as a comfortable
chair and a desk, aet the right height. All the
way through to believing or perceiving that the personality and values.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Of the organization are the same as your own.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Personality and values and those perceptions of fit is very
robust findings in almost all of the organizational psyche literature
that would say that when we have that perception of
a well fitting work environment, your mental health will improve,
your well being will improve, your productivity will improve, you'll
be more likely to stay with the organization.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
And your job satisfaction will improve.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
So anything an organization can do to enhance the perception
of a well fitting work environment will probably have good outcomes.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So some clear benefits there for individuals, but these different
ways of working could actually have flow on effects to
other parts of society too, no doubt.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
So if you think about nine to five start times
and traffic congestion. If you could have start time staggered
through the day for people to suit them, but also
to suit the organization and to suit customers, then traffic
congestion would be lessened.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
You know, rush hours might be a thing of the past.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
What I think you're now seeing is people recognize that
the five day week isn't it the purpose for the
twenty first century? And whether it be our solution four
days or reduced tiles working or another, certainly, now I
think we've got a whole environment where people are questioning
how work is structured.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Remote working or flexible working hours have become a popular
thing in recent years since COVID. What research have you
seen around the benefits of this type of working.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
So yeah, remote and hybrid working is generally really beneficial
in terms of things like work life balance and stress,
and it gives people a sense of control an agency
across their day. There is also, though quite robust research
that says that when we share space and time with others,
(06:10):
we are more likely to collaborate with them, We're more
likely to have positive workplace relationships, We're more likely to
have a feeling of inclusiveness and enhance cooperation so I
don't think that working entirely remotely as a working population
is necessarily feasible or functional for organizations. Really there needs
(06:30):
to be a happy medium, and if that is something
like chrono working, where everyone's expected to be in the
office by early afternoon, but some people come early and
some people stay late, then that's great. Or if it's
something like hybrid working, where everybody has one or two
days a week where they can feasibly work from home,
then that's great. I think mandating that people be in
(06:51):
the office at really set hours, and this is a
really genuine reason for it, is probably not going to
be very appeal for people who are job seeking.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
There's recently been some pushback from employers though, to remote working,
with companies like Deloitte and PwC announcing new policies to
monitor their employees. Why is this and what do you
make of this change?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
So intensely monitoring employees really suggest that the organizations don't
trust their workers. Whether you are closely monitoring your employees
or not, I don't think that there's going to be
a positive outcome. Feeling that you're not trusted is quite unpleasant,
and there are a lot of other things that you
can do as an organization to get genuine engagement from
(07:38):
employees other than just watching them closely.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
So, if you think about things like meaningful work and opportunity.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
For growth and improvement, for example, acquiring new skills, there
are elements of work that are intrinsically quite rewarding, and
building those features into work is a much better way
of getting people engaged than just them feeling monitored the
whole time. I think kind of alongside that is this
element of control and agency. So what the stress research
(08:07):
tells us is that the feeling of personal control and
agency is one of the biggest buffers to burn out
in stress. So feeling that you have control over the
way that you do your work, the hours that you
do it, the approach you take to work, it increases creativity,
increases productivity, and it decreases stress. Yeah, I would recommend
(08:27):
against intense monitoring of.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Employees speaking to that lack of trust and control. Last month,
a Kiwi mining boss in Australia said he didn't want
his workers to go out for coffee because they would
be less productive. Do workers really get more done when
they chain to their desks?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I'm not an employment law expert, but I'm pretty sure
that's not actually even legal, because when people are on
their own time, I don't think that organizations can or
should control.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Where they go.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
But I think what his kind of angle was about
was that he was everything that they would need at work.
So there's coffee machines at work, and there was lunch
provided and a creation on campus on site so that
people could drop their kids and never have to leave.
So there are some really genuinely appealing things about that
for some workers, and I think this again comes down
(09:17):
to that notion of fit and individual differences. There definitely
will be some people who find that situation pretty appealing
that they can just turn up to work and everything's
there for them. They can just be there for the
whole eight nine hours and then leave with the convenience
of not having to go outside for food or coffee.
The other side to that is removing control and agency. Again,
(09:38):
it's removing the opportunity for people to make choices about
how they spend their own leisure time and how they
spend their day, and I think long term that.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Would be a pretty abusive work experience.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
How should employers be responding to these ideas being pitched
about new ways of working.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
There are a lot.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Of kind of new fads that seem to be coming out,
and that it's tricky sometimes as an organization or an
employer to figure out which ones are going to be
truly valuable.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
I think that there are some.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Which are really evidence based, and I would say that
something like chrono working would be one of those where
there is decades of robust evidence that does show that
some people are more productive in the morning and other
people are less productive in the morning.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So something like that within kind of reason where.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
You do still have an expectation caps for most people
to be on site in particular times if working together
as part of your role is really reasonable.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I think mandating that people never leave your.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Offers for an entire day is probably quite unreasonable. But
that said, people will drift in and out of organizations
that fit or don't fit. So there's theory called selection attrition,
which basically says that organizations will select workers who they
think will fit the role. Workers will apply for jobs
(11:11):
that they think suit them, so that's selection and attraction.
But then if you find that that fit isn't really there,
you have attrition. People will leave, so you do tend
to find that over time people self select into organizations
that suit them, that organizations will make an effort to
select workers who they think will suit and people that
(11:31):
aren't fitting will leave, So you may end up finding
that there will be workers. Maybe you know mothers of
small children who find that a crash on site is
worth more to them than the choice of going out
for lunch and will stay there at least for the
time that that's convenient for them. So again, I just
think it's really important to acknowledge that there are individual differences.
(11:52):
You're never going to have a situation where a way
of working is going.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
To suit all or even most people.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
So offering choices and being flexible to the people that
work within your organization is usually going to be the
best way of having increased well being and productivity.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
In your opinion, Could employers be excluding a massive pool
of talent if they aren't open to these new ways
of working.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Certainly when you have a whole population of workers, So
for example, parents of young children will be a really
good example who aren't necessarily work forty fifty hour weeks
and be at the office by seven thirty because they've
got to get their kids to school, or they're going
to pick them up, or they just simply want to
spend more time with their children, which is a valuable
way of spending your time as well. Having strict mandates
(12:40):
of forty fifty hour work weeks is basically excluding that
really really valuable talent from.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
The pool of people who you can recruit from. So
including things like job sharing.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
And flex time and part time work within an organization
is a really good way of making sure that can
kind of get the best people in your organization as
opposed to just the most you know, the people that
have the most hours free.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
I think we have seen this kind of massive change,
you know, and we've just experienced things where we think, gosh,
I can do my job better from home. I personally
like a mixture of both. I'm way more productive at home.
But it's also way better to make social interactions in
person than it is. You know, the whole zoom call
thing we are smiling at people pales in comparison to
(13:31):
real life.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Some of these ways of working, though, require a high
level of trust from organizations. Our boss is right to
be wary of some of these concepts.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
I mean, so so before I think that there will
always be people who try and get out of, you know,
doing difficult.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Or onerous elements of their work.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
I think having good performance management processes within an organization
is a much more effective way of man than just
watching people and insisting that they'd be at work. There's
a little saying which is what gets rewarded gets repeated,
and I think organizations need to be really careful.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
About what it is that they're rewarding.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
And an organization that is ensuring that people be physically
present is rewarding presentism.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
It's rewarding people to just be at work.
Speaker 6 (14:26):
If instead you reward results and your reward achievements, it
doesn't really matter how long those things take or where
those activities take place.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
They will be the things that get repeated.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
And I think that that's much more valuable to an
organization than just having someone be in one physical location.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Rachil, you've probably seen the headlines about the huge numbers
of Kiwis who are leaving New Zealand. Isn't it a
good idea for employers here to be adaptable so they
can keep talent in this country.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I think a lot of the reason a lot of
the people are leaving because of higher pay, And there
are a lot of people who value other parts of
their work life more than money. Once you paid somebody enough,
generally all the other things about work become much more salient.
So what that does kind of mean is that if
an organization can't afford to pay more and more and
(15:22):
more to keep employees, they can change policy in a
way that doesn't cost the organization anything but still adds
value to workers. So things like, for example, the ability
to start late and finish late might be more valuable
to someone than earning an extra you know, five or
ten thousand a year that they could get in Australia.
And these are the types of things that maybe don't
(15:44):
necessarily cost.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
The organization anything.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Also, things like, you know, the ability to acquire new skills,
to move forward in your career, to have a wide
variety of tasks.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
In your job.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
If organizations can kind of create ways that those parts
of work are offered to those people that want it,
then that could be a benefit and also not necessarily
cost the organization.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Rachel, when I started working a number of years ago,
there was a certain way we were expected to work.
We're already seeing now that gen Z wants to work differently.
They're a bit anti shift work. When my children into
the workforce, how might things have changed.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Further, I'm always a bit reluctant to make sweeping generalizations
about generations, because what we really do know is that
twenty three year olds are always pretty similar to other
twenty three year olds.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
So I'm generation X.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I remember when I was in my twenties, the boomers
would kind of roll their eyes and say that we're
a bit directionless, and it's exactly the same, I think
is what people who are in their fifties now are
talking about when they look at twenty three year olds.
You know, there are still people who quite like or
expect an office or even just an office sheets one
or two people. I think that they really, whether we
(17:01):
like it or not, is disappearing.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
There are schools now.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
My own children at a school which is completely open plan,
and that really is setting them up probably better than
small classrooms, which again I don't want to kind of
stray from my laying too much, but I think small
classrooms probably.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Are beneficial to more children.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
But being in a big, open plan space is setting
these kids up for working in the real world when
they do come into the workforce, because you know, quiet
officers are probably going to be quite rare, So there
are going to be sort of ways of working that
will shift through these generations.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
It's impossible to know, but I do think.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
That artificial intelligence is going to be the biggest disruptor
for this next generation.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Just finally, what would your message be to employers about
the need to be open to different ways of working?
In a nutshell, I suppose.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
In a nutshell it would be to make sure that
your responsive to the individual needs of workers. That there
isn't going to be a policy that's going to fit everybody,
and that being able to offer a smallers board of
job design to suit as many people as possible will
be the best way of keeping in value and staff.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Thanks for joining us, Rachel. That's it for this episode
of The Front Page. You can read more about today's
stories and extensive news coverage at Inzet Herald dot co
dot enzet. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sells.
Patty Fox is a sound engineer. I'm Susie Nordquist. Subscribe
(18:33):
to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get
your podcasts, and tune in on Monday for another look
behind the headlines.
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