By Bridget Gourlay
“Take our 20 best people away, and I will tell you that Microsoft would become an unimportant company,” Bill Gates once said.
For many businesses it’s no secret what their most valuable asset is — it’s the staff. No sales would be made, no order filled, no product designed if not for the staff hard at work. But getting the best from your employees sometimes needs a bit of creative thinking.
Bigger corporations could snap up your right-hand man with a higher salary. The demands of home and family could cause your once amazing accountant to get distracted at work or resign altogether to become a full-time parent.
Then there’s the staff that aren’t leaving, but aren’t engaged either. Unmotivated, distracted or ill, these employees cause just as many headaches as retaining and recruiting the best.
So how can businesses get the health tick? How can they be vibrant friendly places staff work hard at, unswayed by offers of more money somewhere else? Studies show that overwhelmingly people look for jobs that make them feel happy and satisfied, respectful of the work/life balance.
So firstly, when figuring out how to retain, recruit and keep staff engaged, think outside of the square. In many jobs, work doesn’t just have to be done behind a desk from 9-5. There are plenty of options for staff to work in different ways as they go through different patterns of life. Here are some examples:
Job-sharing
This is when a full-time job is shared by two or three colleagues. Often it happens when two parents are wanting to combine maintaining their careers while raising a young family, or when an older person is in the process of retiring and is handing over responsibility to another younger colleague.
Do:
■ Treat job sharing teams as single employees and reward their collective effectiveness. That way, each partner is likely to hold themselves accountable for the partnership
■ Develop an effective communication programme
■ Define the duties.
Don’t:
■ Go into it without prior thought. How this will work needs to be well-established.
Flexi-hours
This can mean a myriad of different things. It often happens when a worker is juggling care-giving and work, or study and work. They work a certain number of hours per week from the office, which could mean starting early and finishing early, or doing some longer hours earlier in the week so they can work shorter hours or have a day off later on.
Do:
■ Have a clear arrangement so no boundaries get overstepped
■ Communicate how well this is working.
Don’t:
■ Forget about safety. If employees are starting work early or finishing late make sure they will be safe.
Teleworking
Teleworking is when a staff member works from home for all or some of the week. This arrangement is typically for care-givers but could be for anyone — for example, an employee who lives far from the office. It allows an employee to work the hours which suit them. There are usually arrangements in place, ie the worker must do a required amount of work, or be available for phone calls and emails during business hours.
Teleworking, flexi-time and part-time working or job sharing can be combined. For example, a parent could work two days a week from the office and two days a week from home.
Do:
■ Have a discussed, well-planned arrangement in writing
■ If employees have to be online or able to take phonecalls at certain times (ie 9-3) then make that part of the plan
Don’t:
■ Use teleworking as a cheap form of childcare. To work fulltime you will need childcare for some of these hours.
Paid and unpaid leave
This is when a company allows an employee to take leave other than what is legally required. It may be for further study or for a longer holiday/sabbatical. This is usually because the current legislation isn’t enough for what they need. For example, a new father might request two months leave to care for his wife and newborn, but is only legally entitled to two weeks unpaid paternity leave. An employee wanting to complete a qualification might ask to work part-time, or take study leave. Whether or not this leave is paid is completely up to the company. If the new father was a valued member of staff who would be expensive to replace, the company might chose to give him some paid leave. If the employee would be a greater asset to the company once she finished her study, the company might pay her for study leave and qualification.
Do:
■ Talk about how this will work — exactly what work deadlines need to be met while the employee is on leave?
■ Think outside the square in terms of work hours. If it all gets done well, then go with it.
Don’t:
■ Think about the short terms benefits only. Company loyalty from excellent staff members is a great asset.
A case study in success — ANZ
In 2008, ANZ decided to do something quite radical. It changed its mindset about flexibility, deciding to have the philosophy that flexibility is a business imperative — not special treatment.
It implemented a new programme called MyFlexitime where employees sorted out working arrangements which suited them, depending on their individual sets
of circumstances. It covered options such as leave without pay, study leave, armed forces voluntary services leave and sports, cultural and community services leave and applied to every one of the 9000 employees, irrespective of how long they had been with the company.
For example, a mother could return from maternity leave to work one day a week. As her children got older, she could build up her hours and return to full-time when ready.
ANZ won the Work & Life Award at the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust’s (EEO) 2010 award. ANZ says that while flexitime makes staff lives easier and better, it also benefits the company hugely. Since 2007, parental leave return rates have increased — now a staggering 83 percent of employees who return from parental leave stay for more than 12 months, well above the target of 50 percent. The percentage of part-time workers increased from 14 to 24 percent, bucking the general New Zealand trend. Sick leave, absenteeism and turnover all decreased. The average length of staff service is now eight years.
