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Changing Times

Number 10                                                                                  May 2004

Newsletter of the Work & Age Trust NZ

www.nework.co.nz

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Work-Life Balance Project nearly there

but where are the portfolio workers in it?

By E Clements

The Government's work-life balance project has completed its public consultation exercise. The project set out to gather the ideas of individuals and businesses about work-life balance. About 25 groups are actively involved with the project including the Maori Women's Welfare League, Business New Zealand, the New Zealand School Trustees Association, the EEO Trust and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions.

So far the case studies carried out by the project group suggest that some of the benefits of work-life balance policies are improved recruitment and retention rates with associated cost savings, reduced absenteeism and sick leave usage, and improved productivity.

As well as finding out what people think the project will work with key organisations towards developing some practical ways to ease pressure while boosting productivity.

The project focuses on employers and employees. Portfolio workers also have work-life balance issues as do all self-employed workers - and New Zealand is heavily populated with self-employed workers. If government research workers are to seriously address future of work issues, the needs of portfolio workers and other self-employed workers must also be taken into account.

For Portfolio workers, the term "work-life balance" could be considered to be inappropriate. As PSA National Secretary Paul Cochrane says, "work is a major part of our lives". He suggests that work and life cannot and should not be separated. The belief that work is part of life is a fundamental premise for portfolio workers. Portfolio workers stretch traditional boundaries between work and life to the limit by choosing a set of values that places their paid work alongside their unpaid work, their relationships and their commitments to an ecological lifestyle.

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News in Brief

Wairarapa acknowledges needs of mature adults

A new careers advisory service in the Wairarapa aims to support mature people with workforce experience into work.

Government and local community funding will support the service. A similar service in Wellington will staff the service for one day a fortnight initially.

Give workers a break

The New Zealand government has introduced new laws about workplace stress. According to the Weekend Herald, "giving staff free gym memberships or installing coffee machines won't help them balance work and life pressures. Rather, addressing the fundamental issues of decent work - things like secure employment, decent pay and conditions - offer the real solutions.

"For many of us, all or at least part of the answers to stress rest within ourselves. Not anyone else, nor recourse to legislation. We generate our own stressors when we agree to unreasonable demands or don't put our hands up for help & ."

Good news for older workers

New evidence suggests that attitudes towards older workers may be changing. For the last twenty years older workers have been rejected in favour of younger workers during repeated rounds of restructuring. Slowly, employers are realising that older workers not only have knowledge, skills and a sense of balance often lacking in younger employees, but that older workers are increasing in numbers and younger ones are decreasing. It is time to wake up and make adequate provisions for older workers.

According to an article in the Western News ,"older workers must be encouraged to remain in the workforce through flexible working conditions, phased retirement and more training opportunities. Employers need to have better recognition of their situation, of their experience, of their stability, of their loyalty and also give them opportunities for education and more training."

Study of small New Zealand businesses

The NZ Centre for SME research carried out a survey of the characteristics and attitudes of New Zealand s small businesses. Some of the interesting findings were:

§ Major personal events such as family deaths and divorce are also major business events for small business owners
§ Most find taking on staff burdensome in terms of compliance and management
§ Many small businesses do not want to become big businesses
§ Government assistance programmes are not effective with this group
§ Some choose, and others need, to put a lot of time into their business. Many are happy with the time it takes to run their business and say it does not negatively impact on other parts of their lives.

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Reading

What's a Business for?   -  Charles Handy

Harvard Business Review              Dec. 2002.

Internationally leading thinker on work, Charles Handy, has just been in New Zealand. During one of his talks he said  the challenge for leadership in the 21st century is to prove that capitalism can creat meaningful lives, something other than prisons for the soul .

Anything written by Charles Handy is worth reading when it comes to ideas about work and management. In this article, Handy discusses the nature of capitalism in the wake of corporate scandals in the US in recent times. He believes that  more corporate democracy and better corporate behaviour will go a long way to improve the current business culture but that changes must be  accompanied by a new vision of the purpose of business .

Human capital issues in an ageing workforce  -  Judith Davey

Social Policy            20, June 2003

Davey believes it is  imperative for New Zealand s future is to maximise the  potential of older workers . Judith Davey is the Director of Victoria University s New Zealand Institute for Research on Ageing. In this paper she examines the issues around older workers.

Work and learning: the changing face of the relationship   -  Geof Hawke Training and Development in Australia    Feb. 2004

Hawke says its time we put work and learning back in the same world. He refers to times when learning on the job was the major learning method - for everyone from doctors to mechanics. Research shows that workes continue to learn primarily 'on the job' but that out thinking about work and learning do not match the reality. He thinks work and learning should be more centred on developing the person and to our changing needs and priorities.

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The New Zealand workforce is changing

The government's future of work website contains information about the changing nature of the New Zealand workforce. For portfolio workers this information suggests that there will be increasing numbers of us in times to come as the changing shape of families, cultural diversity and the shift to an older population increasingly impact on how we work. Here is some information from the future of work website:

Family structures are changing
One-parent families are becoming more common. During the 1980s, the proportion of children under 15 years of age who were currently living with just one parent almost doubled, from 12 per cent in 1981 to 22 per cent in 1991 (Statistics New Zealand, New Zealand Now: Children). This results both in pressure for the custodial parent in the workforce in juggling work, parenting and household chores, and arranging childcare, as well as challenges for non-custodial parents in arranging time to spend with their children.

The population is ageing
Older workers may need or want to continue in paid work but more flexible conditions may enable a better transition to retirement.

An ageing population will provide challenges for communities in provision of unpaid caring work, particularly as women who have traditionally performed this role are increasingly in the paid workforce. It is important that people trying to combine paid work and support of older relations have the scope to do so.

The labour force is more varied

Women are participating in the paid workforce more and older workers are participating until higher ages.

Women are having fewer children and many delay child bearing till later in life. Age of youngest child is still a key indicator of labour force participation. "In 1996, women whose youngest child was less than a year old had a participation rate of just 36.5 per cent. In contrast, when the youngest child in the family was aged between 13 and 17, women s rate of participation more than doubled to 78.1 per cent" (Statistics New Zealand, New Zealand Now:Women).

Migrants with diverse cultural backgrounds are a growing part of the population and Workforce
Cultural awareness and understanding may be a key attribute of tomorrow s employers, judging by the changing makeup of our workforce. New Zealand s population  and workforce  now have a wider range of ethnic groups than ever before.

Consider the following:

§ Nearly one in five New Zealand residents was born overseas. That compares with one in six in 1991.
§ The number of multilingual people has increased by 20% since the 1996 Census to nearly one in six people.
§ One in seven people are of Maori ethnicity.
§ While the number of European-born residents has dropped slightly over the last five years, there have been large increases in resident populations from Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

What's more, there have been some key changes in the Asian populations within New Zealand.

§ The number of people of Asian ethnicity more than doubled between 1991 and 2001, partly due to a large increase in students.
§ The number of people of Asian ethnicity in New Zealand is almost identical to those with Pacific ethnicity: around 235,000 of each. The 2001 Census counted 238,200 people of Asian ethnicity and 231,800 of Pacific ethnicity.
§ The term "Asian" obscures a great diversity of countries and ethnicities. The Census notes that "Asians" in New Zealand come from Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, Laos, China, Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan  as well as other countries.

Our population: what's expected to happen
While care is needed when making population projections, it's likely that:

§ Maori, Pacific and Asian ethnic groups will make up an increasing proportion of the New Zealand population.
§ The importance of Maori and Pacific people in the workforce is likely to expand more quickly than for the population as a whole
§ The proportion of the young workforce (those under 30) of Maori and Pacific ethnicity is likely to be greater still. Statistics New Zealand projects that Maori will make up 22.2% of the population aged 15 to 29 by 2021 (compared with 17.1% for all age groups). Similarly, Pacific people are expected to make up 11.7% of the population aged 15-29 in 2021 (compared with 8.1% for all age groups).

Implications for the workforce

So what does this mean for the future of our workforce? It means, for starters, a need for better awareness and understanding of different cultures.

Different cultures, and the social and economic opportunities they offer in terms of social enrichment, skills and capital, can help to foster trade and economic growth. Acceptance of cultural differences will enable us to capitalise on the enormous resource of different skills, perspectives and networks that diversity brings.

Join Nework

Being a member of NEWORK gives you

a) access to other Portfolio workers and people interested in the future of work
b) the ability to use the office at Level 2, Willbank House, 57 Willis St, Wellington (opposite the central library) for work and meetings
c) The opportunity of having your business on the NEWORK website.

To find out more go to www.nework.co.nz.

"The challenge for leadership in the 21st century is to prove that capitalism can create meaningful lives, something other than prisons for the soul".

Charles Handy

 This newsletter is produced by

 Work & Age Trust NZ Inc.

The NEWORK Centre

Level 2/57 Willis St, Wellington

Ph. 04-499-1048

Email workage@xtra.co.nz

 
 
   
© 2003 The Nework Centre   |   email neworknz@yahoo.co.nz
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