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Changing Times

Number 5                                                           September 2002

Newsletter of the Work & Age Trust NZ

• Working flexibly is in!
• IN CALM SEAS YOU DON T THINK ABOUT LIFEBOATS
• There and back again  an adventure
• BOOKS
• Resources
• And what do you think of the following??

Working flexibly is in!

The first checklist is suitable for medium to large size businesses. The second one is suitable for smaller businesses.

Checklist One  for medium/large size businesses To be completed by applicant or used by employer as check list

• Working option requested (select which): part-time, job-sharing (must find own partner); telecommuting, compressed work week; flexitime; other
• Describe your current schedule and hours/schedule requested
• How will your proposed schedule sustain or enhance your ability to get the job done?
• What potential barriers could your changed schedule raise with: a) external customers, b) internal customers, c) co-workers, d) your manager, and e) others?
• How do you suggest overcoming any challenges with these groups?
• (If applicable) Describe any additional equipment/expenses that your arrangement might require. Detail any short or long term savings that might result from your new schedule to offset these expenses.
• What reasonable deliverables and measurements would you propose for you and your manager to assess how your performance is meeting or exceeding expectations? Be as quantitative as possible.
• What review processes do your propose for constructive monitoring and improvement of your flexible work option? Are there measureable outcomes to use in the review process?
• Section for manager to approve or decline (giving reasons). Both sign.

Whoever initiates the idea, whether it is the employer or the employee, they work together to answer the following questions:

• What is the arrangement requested?
• Effects for employee  positive and negative
• Effects for employer  positive and negative
• What will let everyone know it is working?
• How will anyone tell if it is not working and what will each party do about it?
• How often will it be reviewed, by whom, and by what measures?

The site also lists the keys to successful flexible employment:

• Human resources management personnel processes that are competent to deal with the flexibilities
• Support from the top level of the organization
• An arrangement that is appropriate for the size of the organisation
• An arrangement that is clear to all the people affected by it. In writing is best
• Trust and respect from all parties to all other parties
• A culture that supports flexibility
• Doing it

Feedback welcomed  we are aiming to make info more using friendly and in Q & A format.

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IN CALM SEAS YOU DON T THINK ABOUT LIFEBOATS

Seen from a detached viewpoint there seem to be four groupings in our society.

1. Those who know where they are and where they are going and are busy getting on with it.
2. Those who have accepted things as they are and adapted their patterns of living to go with the flow.
3. Those who for some reason have had their pattern and standard of living either challenged or disrupted and are now seeking better alternatives.
4. A concerned few who are aware of the factors impacting on and influencing those in (3), who are aware of the possible economic and social changes which are likely to affect people in the near future, and who are seeking to offer assistance where they can (e.g. Age Concern, RPA, Nework).

And if seeking to offer assistance becomes proactive it is likely to make little impact on the second of these groups which does not really see the evidence of their concern.

One is reminded of a reported conversation with a Boy Scout 

"Did you do a good turn today?"

"I did. I helped three old ladies to cross the street. But it was tough work  two of them didn t want to go".

All of which makes one wonder whether the concerned fourth group should first focus more strongly on identifying the rocks already visible ahead and the hidden reefs already apparent (e.g. the likely inability of a significantly smaller working population being able to maintain a superannuation fund to sustain a much numerically greater older age group  the money may well run out.)

This suggests that rather than the concerned group concentrating on promoting the availability of their support services they would generate far greater attention and response if they were to produce convincing evidence that the second and third groups should be planning now to prepare for a future which offers no assurance of continuity of a lifestyle they now take for granted. God may choose not to defend New Zealand as it now is  but they can if they are sufficiently aroused.

Marketing means meeting the expectations of clients or of creating expectations to which they will respond  merely trying to sell an established product cannot compete in this day and age. Then and only then may the support agencies design and offer their products and services to meet new and heavy demands.

"The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run"
Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

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There and back again  an adventure

Returning to the classroom at 50+

Taking up full time studies in my fifties was difficult, frightening and a lot of hard work. I m glad not to have missed it.

I did the National Diploma in Journalism at Whitireia Polytechnic in Porirua last year. I enrolled, after a lot of soul-searching because, after several frustrating years, every other employment path seemed closed to me.

Why journalism? My previous jobs in the policy/analysis research area had always involved lots of writing and I like to think I am reasonably good at it. It also helped that I always rather enjoyed getting my thoughts down on paper, even those replying to a ministerial enquiry or discussing the significance of the patterns in a statistical survey.

It probably also helped that I am a nosy bugger.

A pleasant surprise when I started was the number of grey heads among the Whitireia students generally  my observation is that not all tertiary institutions welcome students who are really mature. Apart from one person who was older than me (!) the class ranged from 18 to about 40.

I did not find the theoretical parts of the journalism course particularly challenging. I did enjoy taking a bunch of facts and opinions and turning it into a structured, legally safe story with a good angle, all under  newspaper-like conditions. I particularly remember the outrage that greeted the tutor s 45 minute deadline for our first written exercise. Within a few weeks, however, most of the class thought 45 minutes a luxuriously long time in which to do a story.

As a  mature , uncoordinated, mechanical duffer, I am proudest of passing the practical sections of the course - particularly shorthand, the bane of all journalism students. Even more so that I was  just - in the first half of the class to achieve the required 80 words per minute.

Was it all worthwhile? Yes. I got a recognised diploma, a tighter writing style, a better understanding of what a  good story is, and a good understanding of media law. And I can still write shorthand at 80 words per minute. And it improved my morale.

But it hasn t, so far, brought me a job. It helps to be free to move anywhere in the country to a job. Younger people do have a real advantage, generally having fewer constraints such as spouses, children, houses and long-standing friends.

Employers may baulk at taking on an oldie like me for whatever prejudiced reason, but I now find it a lot easier to think that s their problem, not mine.

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BOOKS

Peter Nares writes about self employment in the Canadian book called Employment Policy Options (ed. Ken Battle and Sherri Torjman). Nares is the Executive Director of Self Employment Development Initiatives in Toronto. In this book he discusses the contribution self-employment can make to self sufficiency and the barriers to self employment. Even more importantly, he goes on to discuss how these barriers can be overcome.

The book includes chapters on the relationship between employment and wages, ways to distribute work more fairly and economic, training, and economic policy. Find out more on www.caledoninst.org.

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Resources

The Jobs Newsletter  a New Zealand publication that describes research in the jobs area. Issued every 2-3 weeks. Subscribe by emailing sendpdf@jobsletter.org.nz.

The FutureWork Network  an email discussion forum on  how to deal with the new realities created by economic globalisation and technological change.

The FutureWork website says:

 Basic changes are occurring in the nature of work in all industrialised countries. Information technology has hastened the advent of the global economic village. Jobs that workers at all skill levels in developed countries once held are now filled by smart machines and/or in low-wage countries. Contemporary rhetoric proclaims the need for ever-escalating competition, leaner and meaner ways of doing business, a totally  flexible workforce, and jobless growth.

What would a large permanent reduction in the number of secure, adequately-waged jobs mean for communities, families and individuals?

How, they ask, do we turn technological change into the opportunity for a richer life?

For more information, visit the -

FutureWork website: www.fes.uwaterloo.ca/Researcher/FW/

And what do you think of the following??

 With the cost of New Zealand Superannuation now consuming 40% of welfare spending and 14% of total government expenditure, the Ministry cautions the government against spending more on older people. It says that young people are the more urgent need, but concedes that they traditionally lack political clout. "We have a window of opportunity to make progress before the full effect of an aging population starts to bite from 2010 onwards...

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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 portfolio@paradise.net.nz or to PO Box 9826, Wellington.

Ph. 04-499-1048 Email nework@xtra.co.nz

Web site www.nework.co.nz

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

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