The Sunday Panel: What does the Razor sacking mean for NZR?

This week on the Sunday Panel, editor and journalist Jo McCarroll and resident economist at Opes Partners, Ed McKnight, joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more!

The CTU is looking to ensure New Zealand establishes its own 'right to disconnect' laws. Do we think a change is needed?  

Shock among sports fans last week after All Blacks coach Scott Robertson was sacked. Are we in a crisis or is this the start of NZR getting back on track under David Kirk?

Socks and jandals - fashion or just wrong? 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
EDB, and it is time for the panel and joining
me this morning, we have editor and journalist Joe mccarell.
Good morning, Joe, Good morning, Francesca, and we have resident
economists at OPE his partner's Ed mcnight. Welcome itir, Happy
new year.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Happy new Year, Francesca.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Great to be here, Good to have you both.

Speaker 4 (00:28):
Hey.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
At the very beginning of our show this morning, we
spoke to Sandra Gray, the Councilor of Trade Union's president,
about whether we need to legislate here in New Zealand
about the right to disconnect. We've seen Australia do this
and things. The whole idea being that you know, you
have some boundaries around when your boss is allowed to
communicate with you, or other people at work allowed to
communicate with you to give you a bit of time off.

(00:50):
Do you think we need to legislate for this, Joe
here in New Zealand.

Speaker 4 (00:56):
I just wonder if it's a problem that we need
legislation to solve. Really, I mean, I just don't see
how it would be realistically implemented and policed I mean
the right to disconnect laws in Australia. They've been in place,
is it a year now for the larger businesses and
late last year for smaller businesses, But there still seems

(01:16):
to be a real lack of legal clarity about what
constitutes unreasonable refusal. It just seems like something that would
be strictly adhered to, you know, maybe in the public
sector and potentially in strongly unionized workforces, but in the
private sector it just feels I don't I mean, it

(01:37):
doesn't seem to me like it'll make a difference to
work as day to day.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
What are your thoughts there? Do we need it?

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Well, I don't really think so. Even if I think
about the private sector my company, we employ ninety star
for right, and if I think about all of those
team members when they are at home, me and all
of the other managers, we try to make sure they
are at home. We don't want to be contacting them
all of the time, like maybe if it was really
really necessary because something's shut down. But generally speaking, we

(02:03):
try and keep home time to be home time, work
time to be time. So I'm not really sure that
there is a problem here, and certainly not one that
can be solved with a little bit of law.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Sandra did make a really good point, Joe, because I
was thinking about it as being sort of evenings, weekends,
time where you're not sort of normally working and you've
been contacted. She made a really good point though, that
there's people who work part time and then all of
a sudden they've been brought in for a meeting on
a day that they don't normally work, or they've been
contacted outside of the days that they normally work. And
I'm sure that that does happen at times. And if

(02:34):
you do talk to people who work part time, they
say to you, yeah, it kind of bleeds into other time.
Maybe a little bit more clarity for them would be useful.
It just enabled them to, you know, hold on to
that boundary a little bit better and to.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
Be adequately compensated for the work that they do. I mean,
I think we all know that you know, that boundary
between work life and home life has been made thinner
with remote working and technology. But I think these are
things that need to be solved at an individual level
through communication and one hundred percent. I've got friends, especially
friends with young children, who are in those part time roles,

(03:09):
and you know that that is something where you need
to have discussions and set your shared expectations and then
you need to give feedback if you think, you know,
it is bleeding a bit too much into the time
that you're not being compensated for. Potentially you need to
run two phones, keep a phone that's for work at
a phone that is not for work, discuss potentially time
and liu if you're coming in on a day you

(03:30):
wouldn't work. But I mean, it seems a blunt tool
to use legislation to solve that, given how different and
unique every situation will be.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
So they can be awkward conversations to have, can't they
d like some people will be more, you know, more
confident going oh yeah, no, sorry not today, and other
people will be like, well, other people sort of help
out after hours. And you know, there's a little bit
of pressure on some employees as well. The job market's tight.
They want to be seen to be a good employee.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
I do think it goes both ways as well. While
work is bleeding more into home life, home life is
definitely bleeding into work life as well. That's where you
do have to have good conversations with your employer. I'll
give you one example. One of my team at works,
she's got a young child. She's got to nip off early,
you know, three o'clock to go pick her cat up,
but she still works full time well to compensate for that.

(04:19):
She will surprise to me, but she does say, and
she's happy with it. She'll sometimes work at nine o'clock
ten o'clock at night to make up those hours while
her child's in bed. Now I personally wouldn't do that,
but that really works for her. And so I do
think there's got to be a bit of negotiation between
employers and employees so that when homework home bleeds into
work life and work bleeds into home life, we're all happy.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Because flexibility is very much, very attractive these days, isn't it,
especially if we're not necessarily getting the pay rises that
we're all we want. Well, I'm sure you afer very
good you know pay rises a lot implying you don't,
but but you know, for some businesses it is. It's

(05:03):
another negotiation tool.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah, that's right, and employees really care about it. We
tried one experiment where we really wanted people to not
work from home as much and be in the office,
and then what turned out to be the case is
everybody had separately negotiated with their managers to have flexible
working arrangements, because that seems to be what employees really
care about today, especially in Auckland where there's a lot

(05:27):
of traffic and people are trying to negotiate around that
as well as school pickups.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Okay, let's move on to one of the biggest stories
of the week that took us a little bit by surprise,
and that is Scott Robertson's sacking. I was quite intrigued
by the world Meter and their reaction to it. You know,
they described it as a super power and decline and
another slip from the summit, and I would suggest, actually
it's a sign of New Zealand Rugby getting their ducks

(05:53):
in a row. We've seen some decisive leadership. They've got
quite a few issues to deal with. There's short of
a lot of management and I just think it's great
to see David Kirk is just stepping up and prepared
to make the hard decisions.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yet Yeah, well, I don't give a toss about Rugby,
but I do care about statistics, and so I've dug
out the statistics today, and I was really fascinated on
social media by people saying, yeah, but Scott Robertson, he
had a seventy four percent win rate. The All Blacks
won seventy four percent of the time under his leadership,
and so I wanted to know, well, is that particularly

(06:25):
good or is that particularly bad? And actually, even though
we'd all be happy with that win rate, the average
coach of the All Blacks has an eighty three percent
win rate. That's going back over one hundred and twenty
one years of data. And if we think about some
of the great coaches Steve Hanson, Graham Henry, Steve Hanson
had an eighty seven percent win rate and Graham Henry
in eighty five percent win rate. And so even though

(06:47):
the All Blacks are still dominating the game, that Scott
Robertson was underperforming the average coach. And so I see
this is more of a search for renewal. We've had
some really good leadership in New Zealand rugby with Steve Hanson,
Graham Henry also Richie mccare. Now they're looking for their
next great leader.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Pretty relaxed. If I got seventy four percent in anything, Joe,
But but ACG, it was more about the way they
were losing as too, as opposed to that statistic.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
But Joe, your thoughts quite that same, hed gone into
the deep analysis, said but that's why we have two
of you, That's what we have. But what I would
say was performance Really the issue? Was it more about
the team culture under Raiser's leadership, and that is what
they're trying to draw a real line under.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, I think that definitely played a part in it,
But I think it's about how well the coach might
identify that there was an issue with the culture and
the environment and then been able to tack a it
and deal with it. And I think that that was
what was that.

Speaker 4 (07:49):
That is leadership, though, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (07:51):
You know?

Speaker 4 (07:52):
And I think Kirk has shan a real decisive move now.
But I also think to an extent that I mean said,
are you really were almost forced to hire him in
the first place, So maybe they should have held their
ground at that stage, at the hiring stage.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Okay, moving on to the very serious stuff here. Ed
socks and Jendles fashional just.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
Role Well, do you know what I think we're all
guilty of wearing socks at home, needing to take the
bins out one hands full of the rubbish, so you
slip into your jendles even though you're wearing socks. But
what I think, Fantasca is what we all choose to
do in the privacy of our own homes. That's up
to us. But wearing socks and jendles outside of the home,

(08:33):
for me, it's a no, no, no, not for me, Joe.

Speaker 4 (08:38):
Look, I think everyone should wear whatever they want. I'm
not going to judge, I'm not going to care, but
I would say socks with sandals, you know, you do
your boo, but I mean socks with like jandles, They're
just really uncomfortable. It's like you've got a widgi in
your toes.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
I'm a little bit with it here. There was a
lot of conversation over the summer about bare feet and
where it's appropriate to be barefoot or not. And it's
a bit like togs and undies. You know, it's fine
to wear to be barefoot at the beach, in parks
and things like that, but minute you hit a restaurant, okay,
don't want to see.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
Your think for more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin.
Listen live to News Talks A B from nine am Sunday,
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