Speaker 1: Kyta. I'm Susie Ordquitzt and for Chelsea Daniels. And this
Speaker 1: is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the
Speaker 1: New Zealand Herald. It's estimated we spend a third of
Speaker 1: our life at work, with the average worker clocking a
Speaker 1: staggering ninety thousand hours in employment over a lifetime. COVID
Speaker 1: lockdowns saw companies adapt to emotion flexible working practices, while
Speaker 1: schemes like four day weeks have gained traction globally. Some
Speaker 1: international companies, though, are pulling back or restricting employees from
Speaker 1: working at home. Our one chief executive has gone as
Speaker 1: far as to try and stop people from leaving the
Speaker 1: building during work hours. So what is the best practice
Speaker 1: and how do we adapt our workplaces for a changing
Speaker 1: world today? On the Front Page, we are joined by
Speaker 1: aut Associate professor and organizationals psychologist doctor Rachel Morrison to
Speaker 1: discuss the changing workforce. Rachel, We've always had this nine
Speaker 1: to five culture here in New Zealand, as it still
Speaker 1: sits for purpose or is it actually counterproductive for some
Speaker 1: people and if so why?
Speaker 2: I think it's.
Speaker 3: Become pretty apparent since the pandemic that there are lots
Speaker 3: of alternate ways of working.
Speaker 2: It worked really well for a lot of.
Speaker 3: People to have the flexibility of working from home, and
Speaker 3: then since the pandemic there has been a pretty slow
Speaker 3: shift back into the office. Really, it has raised awareness
Speaker 3: that suiting work and job designed individuals can be.
Speaker 2: Really beneficial to a love of people.
Speaker 3: So no, I don't think it is necessarily fit for purpose,
Speaker 3: but that does depend on the type of role that
Speaker 3: people are fulfilling.
Speaker 1: Recently, The Herald reported on chrono working being the next
Speaker 1: big employment trend to come to New Zealand. Can you
Speaker 1: tell us a bit about how that works.
Speaker 3: My understanding of chrono working is that people will engage
Speaker 3: in work at times of the day that suit them best.
Speaker 3: So there's really robust research that has found that at
Speaker 3: different times in people's lives, and also for different people,
Speaker 3: various times of the day suit them better. So you've
Speaker 3: got larks and ours. So generally you have people who
Speaker 3: we think of as larks who like to get up
Speaker 3: early and are really alert earlier in the day, and
Speaker 3: who might find sitting in traffic from eight till nine,
Speaker 3: for example, a real waste of time because they've been
Speaker 3: up since sex and could be really productive in that time,
Speaker 3: whereas you've also got ours who prefer a bit of
Speaker 3: a sleep in and find themselves really productive late afternoon
Speaker 3: or early evening. And if you can suit work to
Speaker 3: suit people's most productive time, you're probably going to get
Speaker 3: a lot more out of them.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking working mums. What about teenagers and school start times?
Speaker 1: Is that something we should be looking at?
Speaker 3: So yeah, already there are quite a few schools which
Speaker 3: have adopted later start times to suit teenagers. So there's
Speaker 3: a real shift in early teen years for most children
Speaker 3: or teenagers to work better with a bit of a
Speaker 3: sleeping and they really struggle to get up early.
Speaker 2: The shift is about two hours, so if you.
Speaker 3: Had a nine o'clock bed time, for example, that would
Speaker 3: shift to eleven and then you end up with kids
Speaker 3: in sleep there. They still have to get up at
Speaker 3: six thirty or seven in the morning to get to
Speaker 3: school and that works really well for teenagers.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's nine to five culture that we've
Speaker 1: got here in New Zealand could be affecting our mental health?
Speaker 3: What I would say is that having work hours or
Speaker 3: work spaces that are perceived to be a good fit
Speaker 3: to the way that you work and to the type
Speaker 3: of person that you are generally has a really really
Speaker 3: positive outcome. So we think of this as a person
Speaker 3: environment fit and there are lots of things an organization
Speaker 3: can do which are off and quite costless, which would
Speaker 3: enhance the perception that you're fitting well.
Speaker 2: With your work environment.
Speaker 3: So that could be anything as simple as a comfortable
Speaker 3: chair and a desk, aet the right height. All the
Speaker 3: way through to believing or perceiving that the personality and values.
Speaker 2: Of the organization are the same as your own.
Speaker 3: Personality and values and those perceptions of fit is very
Speaker 3: robust findings in almost all of the organizational psyche literature
Speaker 3: that would say that when we have that perception of
Speaker 3: a well fitting work environment, your mental health will improve,
Speaker 3: your well being will improve, your productivity will improve, you'll
Speaker 3: be more likely to stay with the organization.
Speaker 2: And your job satisfaction will improve.
Speaker 3: So anything an organization can do to enhance the perception
Speaker 3: of a well fitting work environment will probably have good outcomes.
Speaker 1: So some clear benefits there for individuals, but these different
Speaker 1: ways of working could actually have flow on effects to
Speaker 1: other parts of society too, no doubt.
Speaker 3: So if you think about nine to five start times
Speaker 3: and traffic congestion. If you could have start time staggered
Speaker 3: through the day for people to suit them, but also
Speaker 3: to suit the organization and to suit customers, then traffic
Speaker 3: congestion would be lessened.
Speaker 2: You know, rush hours might be a thing of the past.
Speaker 4: What I think you're now seeing is people recognize that
Speaker 4: the five day week isn't it the purpose for the
Speaker 4: twenty first century? And whether it be our solution four
Speaker 4: days or reduced tiles working or another, certainly, now I
Speaker 4: think we've got a whole environment where people are questioning
Speaker 4: how work is structured.
Speaker 1: Remote working or flexible working hours have become a popular
Speaker 1: thing in recent years since COVID. What research have you
Speaker 1: seen around the benefits of this type of working.
Speaker 3: So yeah, remote and hybrid working is generally really beneficial
Speaker 3: in terms of things like work life balance and stress,
Speaker 3: and it gives people a sense of control an agency
Speaker 3: across their day. There is also, though quite robust research
Speaker 3: that says that when we share space and time with others,
Speaker 3: we are more likely to collaborate with them, We're more
Speaker 3: likely to have positive workplace relationships, We're more likely to
Speaker 3: have a feeling of inclusiveness and enhance cooperation so I
Speaker 3: don't think that working entirely remotely as a working population
Speaker 3: is necessarily feasible or functional for organizations. Really there needs
Speaker 3: to be a happy medium, and if that is something
Speaker 3: like chrono working, where everyone's expected to be in the
Speaker 3: office by early afternoon, but some people come early and
Speaker 3: some people stay late, then that's great. Or if it's
Speaker 3: something like hybrid working, where everybody has one or two
Speaker 3: days a week where they can feasibly work from home,
Speaker 3: then that's great. I think mandating that people be in
Speaker 3: the office at really set hours, and this is a
Speaker 3: really genuine reason for it, is probably not going to
Speaker 3: be very appeal for people who are job seeking.
Speaker 1: There's recently been some pushback from employers though, to remote working,
Speaker 1: with companies like Deloitte and PwC announcing new policies to
Speaker 1: monitor their employees. Why is this and what do you
Speaker 1: make of this change?
Speaker 3: So intensely monitoring employees really suggest that the organizations don't
Speaker 3: trust their workers. Whether you are closely monitoring your employees
Speaker 3: or not, I don't think that there's going to be
Speaker 3: a positive outcome. Feeling that you're not trusted is quite unpleasant,
Speaker 3: and there are a lot of other things that you
Speaker 3: can do as an organization to get genuine engagement from
Speaker 3: employees other than just watching them closely.
Speaker 2: So, if you think about things like meaningful work and opportunity.
Speaker 3: For growth and improvement, for example, acquiring new skills, there
Speaker 3: are elements of work that are intrinsically quite rewarding, and
Speaker 3: building those features into work is a much better way
Speaker 3: of getting people engaged than just them feeling monitored the
Speaker 3: whole time. I think kind of alongside that is this
Speaker 3: element of control and agency. So what the stress research
Speaker 3: tells us is that the feeling of personal control and
Speaker 3: agency is one of the biggest buffers to burn out
Speaker 3: in stress. So feeling that you have control over the
Speaker 3: way that you do your work, the hours that you
Speaker 3: do it, the approach you take to work, it increases creativity,
Speaker 3: increases productivity, and it decreases stress. Yeah, I would recommend
Speaker 3: against intense monitoring of.
Speaker 1: Employees speaking to that lack of trust and control. Last month,
Speaker 1: a Kiwi mining boss in Australia said he didn't want
Speaker 1: his workers to go out for coffee because they would
Speaker 1: be less productive. Do workers really get more done when
Speaker 1: they chain to their desks?
Speaker 3: I'm not an employment law expert, but I'm pretty sure
Speaker 3: that's not actually even legal, because when people are on
Speaker 3: their own time, I don't think that organizations can or
Speaker 3: should control.
Speaker 2: Where they go.
Speaker 3: But I think what his kind of angle was about
Speaker 3: was that he was everything that they would need at work.
Speaker 3: So there's coffee machines at work, and there was lunch
Speaker 3: provided and a creation on campus on site so that
Speaker 3: people could drop their kids and never have to leave.
Speaker 3: So there are some really genuinely appealing things about that
Speaker 3: for some workers, and I think this again comes down
Speaker 3: to that notion of fit and individual differences. There definitely
Speaker 3: will be some people who find that situation pretty appealing
Speaker 3: that they can just turn up to work and everything's
Speaker 3: there for them. They can just be there for the
Speaker 3: whole eight nine hours and then leave with the convenience
Speaker 3: of not having to go outside for food or coffee.
Speaker 3: The other side to that is removing control and agency. Again,
Speaker 3: it's removing the opportunity for people to make choices about
Speaker 3: how they spend their own leisure time and how they
Speaker 3: spend their day, and I think long term that.
Speaker 2: Would be a pretty abusive work experience.
Speaker 1: How should employers be responding to these ideas being pitched
Speaker 1: about new ways of working.
Speaker 2: There are a lot.
Speaker 3: Of kind of new fads that seem to be coming out,
Speaker 3: and that it's tricky sometimes as an organization or an
Speaker 3: employer to figure out which ones are going to be
Speaker 3: truly valuable.
Speaker 2: I think that there are some.
Speaker 3: Which are really evidence based, and I would say that
Speaker 3: something like chrono working would be one of those where
Speaker 3: there is decades of robust evidence that does show that
Speaker 3: some people are more productive in the morning and other
Speaker 3: people are less productive in the morning.
Speaker 2: So something like that within kind of reason where.
Speaker 3: You do still have an expectation caps for most people
Speaker 3: to be on site in particular times if working together
Speaker 3: as part of your role is really reasonable.
Speaker 2: I think mandating that people never leave your.
Speaker 3: Offers for an entire day is probably quite unreasonable. But
Speaker 3: that said, people will drift in and out of organizations
Speaker 3: that fit or don't fit. So there's theory called selection attrition,
Speaker 3: which basically says that organizations will select workers who they
Speaker 3: think will fit the role. Workers will apply for jobs
Speaker 3: that they think suit them, so that's selection and attraction.
Speaker 3: But then if you find that that fit isn't really there,
Speaker 3: you have attrition. People will leave, so you do tend
Speaker 3: to find that over time people self select into organizations
Speaker 3: that suit them, that organizations will make an effort to
Speaker 3: select workers who they think will suit and people that
Speaker 3: aren't fitting will leave, So you may end up finding
Speaker 3: that there will be workers. Maybe you know mothers of
Speaker 3: small children who find that a crash on site is
Speaker 3: worth more to them than the choice of going out
Speaker 3: for lunch and will stay there at least for the
Speaker 3: time that that's convenient for them. So again, I just
Speaker 3: think it's really important to acknowledge that there are individual differences.
Speaker 3: You're never going to have a situation where a way
Speaker 3: of working is going.
Speaker 2: To suit all or even most people.
Speaker 3: So offering choices and being flexible to the people that
Speaker 3: work within your organization is usually going to be the
Speaker 3: best way of having increased well being and productivity.
Speaker 1: In your opinion, Could employers be excluding a massive pool
Speaker 1: of talent if they aren't open to these new ways
Speaker 1: of working.
Speaker 3: Certainly when you have a whole population of workers, So
Speaker 3: for example, parents of young children will be a really
Speaker 3: good example who aren't necessarily work forty fifty hour weeks
Speaker 3: and be at the office by seven thirty because they've
Speaker 3: got to get their kids to school, or they're going
Speaker 3: to pick them up, or they just simply want to
Speaker 3: spend more time with their children, which is a valuable
Speaker 3: way of spending your time as well. Having strict mandates
Speaker 3: of forty fifty hour work weeks is basically excluding that
Speaker 3: really really valuable talent from.
Speaker 2: The pool of people who you can recruit from. So
Speaker 2: including things like job sharing.
Speaker 3: And flex time and part time work within an organization
Speaker 3: is a really good way of making sure that can
Speaker 3: kind of get the best people in your organization as
Speaker 3: opposed to just the most you know, the people that
Speaker 3: have the most hours free.
Speaker 5: I think we have seen this kind of massive change,
Speaker 5: you know, and we've just experienced things where we think, gosh,
Speaker 5: I can do my job better from home. I personally
Speaker 5: like a mixture of both. I'm way more productive at home.
Speaker 5: But it's also way better to make social interactions in
Speaker 5: person than it is. You know, the whole zoom call
Speaker 5: thing we are smiling at people pales in comparison to
Speaker 5: real life.
Speaker 1: Some of these ways of working, though, require a high
Speaker 1: level of trust from organizations. Our boss is right to
Speaker 1: be wary of some of these concepts.
Speaker 3: I mean, so so before I think that there will
Speaker 3: always be people who try and get out of, you know,
Speaker 3: doing difficult.
Speaker 2: Or onerous elements of their work.
Speaker 3: I think having good performance management processes within an organization
Speaker 3: is a much more effective way of man than just
Speaker 3: watching people and insisting that they'd be at work. There's
Speaker 3: a little saying which is what gets rewarded gets repeated,
Speaker 3: and I think organizations need to be really careful.
Speaker 2: About what it is that they're rewarding.
Speaker 3: And an organization that is ensuring that people be physically
Speaker 3: present is rewarding presentism.
Speaker 2: It's rewarding people to just be at work.
Speaker 6: If instead you reward results and your reward achievements, it
Speaker 6: doesn't really matter how long those things take or where
Speaker 6: those activities take place.
Speaker 2: They will be the things that get repeated.
Speaker 3: And I think that that's much more valuable to an
Speaker 3: organization than just having someone be in one physical location.
Speaker 1: Rachil, you've probably seen the headlines about the huge numbers
Speaker 1: of Kiwis who are leaving New Zealand. Isn't it a
Speaker 1: good idea for employers here to be adaptable so they
Speaker 1: can keep talent in this country.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of the reason a lot of
Speaker 3: the people are leaving because of higher pay, And there
Speaker 3: are a lot of people who value other parts of
Speaker 3: their work life more than money. Once you paid somebody enough,
Speaker 3: generally all the other things about work become much more salient.
Speaker 3: So what that does kind of mean is that if
Speaker 3: an organization can't afford to pay more and more and
Speaker 3: more to keep employees, they can change policy in a
Speaker 3: way that doesn't cost the organization anything but still adds
Speaker 3: value to workers. So things like, for example, the ability
Speaker 3: to start late and finish late might be more valuable
Speaker 3: to someone than earning an extra you know, five or
Speaker 3: ten thousand a year that they could get in Australia.
Speaker 3: And these are the types of things that maybe don't
Speaker 3: necessarily cost.
Speaker 2: The organization anything.
Speaker 3: Also, things like, you know, the ability to acquire new skills,
Speaker 3: to move forward in your career, to have a wide
Speaker 3: variety of tasks.
Speaker 2: In your job.
Speaker 3: If organizations can kind of create ways that those parts
Speaker 3: of work are offered to those people that want it,
Speaker 3: then that could be a benefit and also not necessarily
Speaker 3: cost the organization.
Speaker 1: Rachel, when I started working a number of years ago,
Speaker 1: there was a certain way we were expected to work.
Speaker 1: We're already seeing now that gen Z wants to work differently.
Speaker 1: They're a bit anti shift work. When my children into
Speaker 1: the workforce, how might things have changed.
Speaker 3: Further, I'm always a bit reluctant to make sweeping generalizations
Speaker 3: about generations, because what we really do know is that
Speaker 3: twenty three year olds are always pretty similar to other
Speaker 3: twenty three year olds.
Speaker 2: So I'm generation X.
Speaker 3: I remember when I was in my twenties, the boomers
Speaker 3: would kind of roll their eyes and say that we're
Speaker 3: a bit directionless, and it's exactly the same, I think
Speaker 3: is what people who are in their fifties now are
Speaker 3: talking about when they look at twenty three year olds.
Speaker 3: You know, there are still people who quite like or
Speaker 3: expect an office or even just an office sheets one
Speaker 3: or two people. I think that they really, whether we
Speaker 3: like it or not, is disappearing.
Speaker 2: There are schools now.
Speaker 3: My own children at a school which is completely open plan,
Speaker 3: and that really is setting them up probably better than
Speaker 3: small classrooms, which again I don't want to kind of
Speaker 3: stray from my laying too much, but I think small
Speaker 3: classrooms probably.
Speaker 2: Are beneficial to more children.
Speaker 3: But being in a big, open plan space is setting
Speaker 3: these kids up for working in the real world when
Speaker 3: they do come into the workforce, because you know, quiet
Speaker 3: officers are probably going to be quite rare, So there
Speaker 3: are going to be sort of ways of working that
Speaker 3: will shift through these generations.
Speaker 2: It's impossible to know, but I do think.
Speaker 3: That artificial intelligence is going to be the biggest disruptor
Speaker 3: for this next generation.
Speaker 1: Just finally, what would your message be to employers about
Speaker 1: the need to be open to different ways of working?
Speaker 1: In a nutshell, I suppose.
Speaker 3: In a nutshell it would be to make sure that
Speaker 3: your responsive to the individual needs of workers. That there
Speaker 3: isn't going to be a policy that's going to fit everybody,
Speaker 3: and that being able to offer a smallers board of
Speaker 3: job design to suit as many people as possible will
Speaker 3: be the best way of keeping in value and staff.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Rachel. That's it for this episode
Speaker 1: of The Front Page. You can read more about today's
Speaker 1: stories and extensive news coverage at Inzet Herald dot co
Speaker 1: dot enzet. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sells.
Speaker 1: Patty Fox is a sound engineer. I'm Susie Nordquist. Subscribe
Speaker 1: to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts, and tune in on Monday for another look
Speaker 1: behind the headlines.