Jobseekers

Despite many employers embracing the concept of working from home, there are many others who still struggle to justify that the home environment can be a productive place to perform work. Not every role can be done from home, nor does this work well for all staff, but those that can and the employers are reluctant to make this happen, here are some common concerns as to why:

~ That work will not get done at all or as fast
~ That Managers won’t be able to keep a close eye on them
~ That they won’t be easily contactable by their colleagues
~ That once they are set up at home, these arrangements can’t change
~ That they will waste time due to the inability to access company software, hardware and files

I received a lovely gift recently to be pampered at a day spa and I was speaking with one of their casual workers. She shared how she hadn’t had a weekend off in 7 months…. Wow 7 months! I couldn’t even imagine. It has been many years since I’ve had to work in any industry that works on the weekend, that I have taken my weekends off for granted.

As she works in the beauty industry, the peak time for business is when the majority of workers are not at work, therefore evenings and weekends. This can be quite difficult particularly when your partner, family and friends are not on the same work schedule as you and the time that you do have off is when those closest to you are working. This worker also shared her desire to buy a house and that casual work meant that hours weren’t consistent from week to week, therefore not helping her to have a reliable guaranteed income to achieve this goal.

Unfortunately, for this casual staff member, there appears to be noticeable cons at the present time, however there are a lot of employees where casual work is the ideal situation for them. When I was at university, I had a casual job and it was terrific that I would be able cut my hours right back during assessment time, then increase my hours over the holiday period when I was not studying. This situation was ideal for me and so many other students as well.

I had a very interesting discussion yesterday regarding the concept of life balance and work life balance. There were six of us with very different opinions around these concepts and the overall theme of living a balanced life. The discussion got me thinking, does life balance and work life balance mean the same thing? Are they both valid terms?

Key Commonality – Living a Balanced Life
The key commonality at the core of life balance and work life balance I believe is that of achieving balance between the many facets of one’s life. This may include but definitely not limited to work, family, friends, social, personal time, household duties, health and wellbeing etc. This optimum state of living a balanced life is commonly related to juggling all that is important to an individual, which may of course vary at different times in our lives. Let’s explore these terms further.

Life Balance
My interruption of life balance is that this concept embodies all that makes up an individual’s life. There is no emphasis or singling out of any one area, but looking at your life as a whole to achieve balance, noting that many areas make up your life and may interfere or impact on one another. In particular, this term does not suggest that work happens in isolation to the rest of our lives. We are of course still living when we go to work (although some people may disagree with me on that point!).

Requesting leave from your employer is an exciting time, as normally you have some fun, relaxing or challenging time away from work ahead of you (depending of course on how you like to spend your leisure time!). Depending on the relationships you have with your Manager and/or your employer’s leave policy, this can be daunting to ask as it may not be a sure yes and timing can be everything.

To help increase the chances of your leave being granted, here is some preparation you can do prior to asking:

• Determine the leave dates and number of leave days you will be taking
• Establish if you will have enough leave to cover the period of time (if not, how do you propose to go on leave? Use unpaid/flexible leave etc)
• Identify any role/business clashes that may impact on your ability to be granted leave and determine possible solutions for these (whether it is completely tasks earlier, working extra hours before you go, renegotiating deadlines, organising extra resources etc)
• Identify if any of your Manager and/or other team members have planned leave at the same time that may cause a problem (I was recently speaking to an employee who had their leave request refused as another member of their team had already planned leave at that time…. Therefore keep that in mind and get in early!)

If you are fortunate enough to be able to work from home you may struggle to stay focused sometimes. The home environment is where most of us spend the majority of our leisure time. Therefore, working from home warrants some rules to help you to get the work done in the shortest amount of time without major interference on you or your families personal lives.

Here are some suggestions to stay focused when working from home:

• Set Work Goals – determine what you need to get done within a set period of time. This allows you to prioritise and concentrate on delivering a task.
• Create a Work Space – ensure that your work space meets health and safety standards and that you are creating an environment around you to concentrate and complete your work. Ideally, if you have a study/spare room occupy that, this will be easier for you to set up and close off from the rest of your home. Other considerations when selecting a work space include lighting, temperature, noise and other uses of that space.
• Turn Off Distractions – it is very easy to slip into your normal routine of being at home and doing what you normally do, for example watching TV, listening to music, playing with the dog. A general rule I use, if I wouldn’t normally work with that distraction, then why start now? For example, I work better with no noise, but sometimes music is good for tasks that don’t require as much mental energy, then I will put music on. If possible, you should try minimise all of the common distractions if possible e.g. television, radio, washing machine, dryer, pets and other people interrupting. On that last point, it is critical to consider that you aren’t the only person that uses the space, therefore be conscious of the movements of others in your home and how you can work together to structure your work so that you can work from home effectively with inconveniencing others.

Written by Katrina Walton, Wellness Designs

Support by senior leadership is the ‘make or break’ for initiating and sustaining successful corporate wellness programs[i]. No surprises there! In fact, leadership support has been shown to contribute more to a program’s success than the content itself.[ii] Indeed, it has been Wellness Designs’ experience that when the CEO gets behind wellness initiatives that things really start to happen!

In reflecting on our most successful programs over the years, this support has been demonstrated in many ways. This includes senior leaders cycling to work, having weekly massages, participating in team challenges, attending wellness events, and enabling staff to participate in wellness activities during work time. Each of these examples goes beyond simple endorsement of wellness initiatives and reflects active and visible participation, or in other words, ‘walking the talk’. This is perfectly captured in the following quote:

“When CEOs value healthy lifestyles and openly practice good health habits, the rest of the organisation is likely to follow in their footsteps. To be genuine in promoting health, CEOs need to embrace health as an individual priority. This does not mean they have to be a marathoner or ‘health nazi’, it just means that they value health and wellbeing and take steps to protect it’ ’ (WELCOA 2006).

I’m not a Mum, I’ll be upfront about that. I have been in HR for many years and I’ve hired staff, so I have a fair idea what they’re looking for on the other side of the table.

I have never discriminated against a candidate who was a mother, father or otherwise. It does unfortunately seem that there are employers out there who have their doubts about hiring mothers according to a recent survey. The Working Mothers Study by Regus claims that SIX out of every TEN Australian companies have no plans in the next two years to hire mothers. These employers feel that working mothers may not be as committed or flexible…… Not sure if this is just me, but I was honestly flabbergasted by this finding…. that’s more than half! What century are these employers stuck in?!?!

Ok, so that’s as negative as I’ll be about that finding, as it’s really those employers who are missing out on the terrific contribution made by mothers in the workforce. Would you really want to work for that type of employer anyway? The good news is that there are FOUR out of every TEN who responded positively about plans to employ working mums, so isn’t it just a matter of finding them?!?!

We recently had the following article published in the Australian Career Practitioners Magazine outlining how Australia’s best employers implement work life balance support, so that you too can benefit from helping your staff achieve a balanced life.

This great publication is produced by the Career Development Association of Australia that is Australia’s largest national organisation of professionals who work in the career development field. For more information visit www.cdaa.org.au.

Employing new staff who work remotely can pose many challenges to assimilate them to a new organisation. I’m sure we’ve all been the “new guy” at some point and we know it can be a daunting experience getting our heads around such things as new processes, new people and new products/services, therefore I would imagine being a new remote employee you would feel a great sense of isolation as well.

Inductions take place at a critical time in the employment relationship. If done well, it can leave a very positive impression in the minds of the new recruit to help them to hit the ground running sooner and succeed in their role longer term. If not done so well, it can no doubt led to negative outcomes e.g. loss of productivity, increased training and retraining requirements, disruption to other team members to even increased turnover.

I have had the fortunate pleasure of working with colleagues from all around the world, in which I relied on email, telephone, skype and a rare visit to be able to build relationships with fellow team members. Technology has certainly come a long way to make it possible to connect with people remotely.

If you have ever studied full time and worked, you will know the challenges of trying to keep up with your studies whilst also having a job (and trying to have a life!). It can be a very stressful time, particularly those who depend on a job to support them during their education.

Work life balance is often associated with working mums, but as a recent article highlights work life balance is important to many Australians, including those who are studying as well. The study presents findings on the impact of work on studying and gaining employment after graduation. The results of the survey indicated students who work greater than 8 hours per week increased their chances of dropping out. In addition, students who work part time in their related field significantly increased their chances of gaining employment after graduation.

Speaking from my own personal studying experience I can certainly agree to both of the points above. I worked between 8-10 hours per week whilst undertaking university full time and I would have struggled doing any more hours. Employment allowed me to generate additional income and gain invaluable professional experience in my field that helped me to gain my first job out of university.