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Changing Times

Number 2

July 2001

Newsletter of the Work & Age Trust

• The Missing National Vision
• Employers need to change their attitude
• Life/work in 2001
• Seminar
• The Future of Work
• Book Reviews

The Missing National Vision

The Work and Age Trust is all about  connection to the larger whole . Our mission is to  re-educate people about our particular issues of work transformation and population aging. Many of the complexities of 21^st century life are deeply connected, especially but not exclusively, work and age.

Too often the  silo effect gets in the way of the appropriate allocation of resources required to solve the big issues of the day. That is, there is increasing upward specialisation as opposed to coordinating the making of broad linkages.

An issue of current concern is that of youth employment and the skills development required for the  knowledge society . Very little debate has arisen about the contribution of massive de-layering /downsizing of New Zealand organisations over the past decade. The coaches and mentors of most large organizations have been shed. Is the problem then underemployment of the middle aged or lack of work development opportunities for young people? Or are they connected?

Rather than  disconnect many of these big issues, we must  find the connections . Over the past year there have been consultative documents and policy statements across many areas of government activity. Very few seem to look for the links.

At a recent Savings and Retirement symposium, a speaker commented that it was hard to assess different models of sustainability, when no-one has stated the goal, the vision we as a nation are trying to reach out to. We would suggest that such a national vision is required not only for the aging population, but for all New Zealanders.

The Mayor s Taskforce for Jobs is another group that has included some very positive goals into its leadership initiatives. It focuses on getting all young people into work by 2005. They have done this in the vacuum of  a national vision on how we wish as a nation to participate in work and wider society.

The Work & Age Trust plays a role in this debate. We don t value older workers over young, 9-5 work over flexibility, voluntary work over paid work, working for the market over working for civil society, or forced participation at all levels over a work/life balance. All these issues need to be debated by New Zealanders. There are no single answers.

From a personal prospective, three keys to the future are 

• A national vision on citizen participation,
• Collaborative approaches across sectors (this is in complete contrast to the proliferation of new start ups being encouraged by government funders), and
• Solutions  outside the market receiving as much attention as those within it.

Employers need to change their attitude

A conference in west Auckland has heard that when it comes to hiring 40-somethings, employers need to change their attitude. Waitakere City Council s recent economic development summit revealed a bias against older workers.

Enterprise Waitakere business facilitator, Brian Saipe, says employers are frequently wowed by seemingly savvy young "techies .

He says the perception that older people lack computer skills is incorrect. R Saipe says, ironically, some employers end up hiring younger people with high-tech skills despite the fact their company does not actually use those skills.

He says more effort must be made to stop age discrimination.

From http://bzone.co.nz/employment

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Life/work in 2001

Some say I am the classic portfolio worker. As I ve not managed even one visit to the Nework Centre* this year, despite being one of the very first to pay a membership, I m not too sure!

Am I doing what I want to do? Yes. Do I miss the old career and job environment? Yes.

Do I make a lot of money? No. But is this still the way to go? Yes.

So where does this bundle of contradictions come from?

Probably the only proper job I had was with the Wellington City Council, where I was in communications and media work for four years. I left in the wake of a darkly humorous re-structuring in 1998. I had begun training for a new career path while still at the Council, but found myself chucked in at the deep end rather sooner than planned.

Notwithstanding, I gave in to one of the main currents, politics, of my life and instead of carefully knuckling down to lay the foundations of my new life, I bowled into the 1998 local body elections and came within just a few whiskers of winning a seat on the current Council.

Having been spared a fate worse than death, perhaps, I had no option but to start the knuckling down for real. Or, when one door closes with a bang, another gets jolted open just a peep.

So in early 1999 I started training in the Feldenkrais Movement Method, which requires two months a year in Auckland for four years. In the between times I started to develop a massage practice, with the thought that any kind of new venture like this takes as much as five years to get going satisfactorily, and telling myself to look at the big picture and not get too downhearted at the vicissitudes of cancellations, postponements, empty diary dates, mates rates charged to all and everyone - anyone else been in this situation?!!!!

The general idea was to build up a portfolio of massage practice on one hand (well, both really) and freelance my writing experience on the other, while gaining the basic grounding in the Feldenkrais method that has such a lot to offer in this day and age.

Has it worked? A little. Being a boy means I m not that brilliant doing zillions of things at once. Going flat tack with a new health career has meant I have barely shown my head above the communications parapet. Courses, training, promotion, the actual doing - it takes a lot of energy. My running went downhill all the way as soon as the massage kicked in. The literal energy demands of life had changed completely. I now needed my share to keep going in the most basic sense, given that I was professionally passing heaps on to others and having to find new sources for my own needs.

But I do have some regular writing jobs and every now and again I get a hint that there could be more in the wind. But I adamantly refuse to learn some skills that could actually improve my chances - like basic desk-top work, even though Pagemaker sits patiently in my system. I ve sort of drawn a line and want to be a thoroughbred, not a hack. I can do amazing words. Not many can. But lots can do simple newsletter design. Good on them.

I hate computers and always will. We get so wrapped around and dependent on them.

Instead my instrument is the human body and my passion is helping people make theirs sing better for them, especially as the combinations get creaky with age - though its idleness, ignorance and misuse that s the problem, not time.

Which, speaking of instruments, brings us to other dimensions that are at the heart of portfolio working as Charles Handy paints it. The community side, and the artistic soul, in some shape or sound. In my case the latter. I put a lot of energy into music.

Once I thought I should be a compulsory busker just to get out there and push my quieter, introverted self into view, as a kind of therapy (standing for the Council had done that to a degree, but you have to keep going with these pushing the boundaries personality things). It hasn t come to that - yet. But when I play - currently in local orchestras and chamber groups as the chance comes - I feel I m a cultural volunteer helping our community play more harmoniously with the gods. But mainly I have a bloody good time!

Isn t that what it s all about?

* The Nework Centre is the Work & Age Trust s drop in centre for its members.

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Coming up& Working Smarter Expo, Christchurch 21-22 November.  www.smartnet.co.nz

Book Reviews

This new edition of Jeremy Rifkin s 1995 book is a classic. Rifkin traces the increase in global unemployment and suggests this trend is disastrous unless we make some changes. He suggests we expand the non-profit sector, cut the working week and share out the goodies.

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A practical book for the New Zealand context, Working On outlines ways in which employers can implement policies that are not ageist. As fewer people have babies and more people live longer, we have an increasing number of older people. However, employers tend to think older people do not perform as well as younger people. Trew and Sargent argue there are poor and good performers in all age groups. They make suggestions for how employers can make best use of older workers.

If the title appeals to you, the book might too. Written in an almost flippant style, it carries a serious message. When Jesus was born, people could expect to live to age 25. If you were born in a western country in the year 2000 you can expect to live for 80 years.

Combined with this fertility rates have dropped dramatically, creating rapid aging of western populations. China has a one-child policy, which will change the balance of ages in its population in the next 20 years. Other countries are beginning to also slow their growth rates. Wallace suggests that western countries might use immigration to try to keep their workforce numbers up.

The World Summit on Sustainable Development will take place in Johannesburg from 2-11 September 2002 and will aim to review the past 10 years and reinvigorate world commitment to sustainable development.

Work and age issues need to be part of the discussions. Development will not be sustainable if we do not take into account the effects of the changing age structure of the population, its effects on employment and the shift in what people want from work.

But he predicts that the western world will decline and the balance of power will shift to India and China as their populations stablilise.

As the New Zealand government argues yet again over pensioner funds, we know we must find new ways to address this shift in the average age of our population. The problem is worsened by the current trend of students collecting large debts to pay for their education then having to carry this debt through child raising years while also sometimes having to support elderly parents and relatives  not a happy picture. These people are less likely to buy houses and, if they do, they will buy them later than the older generation did. This means the housing market is likely to decline.

Wallace suggests we can make money out of finance and leisure services but fails to address the bigger issues.

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The New Zealand NGO response is being coodinated by Teri Calder (tericalder@clear.net.nz). To get involved, contact Teri Calder. For more information check the following websites.

For a copy of the WSSD Meetings Timeline see http://www.dev-zone.org/links/Sustainable_Development/UN_World_Summit_Timeline/

New Zealand must provide a Country Profile Report, a Leadership Statement on Commitment to Sustainable Development and National Competitive Initiatives. All must have NGO input. The 4 competitive initiatives are:

1. collecting the best case studies of sustainable development actions
2. inspiring visions of citizens about sustainability
3. action oriented competition for posters among children
4. national commitments to specific actions to be taken in the near future.

Changing Times is edited by Elizabeth Clements. If you would like to contribute send your experiences of portfolio work, book reviews, articles on these issues or comments on matters in this edition to portfoli@paradise.net.nz or to PO Box 9826, Wellington.

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

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