Removing flexible work options a giant leap backwards for woman

Every single day, I’m talking to people who are burnt out and struggling to find enjoyment in their jobs, and we talk about how they might improve their work lives so they can enjoy their work again and have better life balance.

A huge factor in turning things around is helping them get clear on what good looks like for them. On how they would design their work lives in a way that would enable them to thrive. And like I said in my earlier LinkedIn post this week, everyone is different and their needs will be different at different periods in their lives.

Workplace flexibility is absolutely key to all of this – having the flexibility to design work lives in a way that works for them. And, (no brainer!), that then also works for their employers because they’ll be more productive and engaged.

The Government’s directive earlier this week to restrict working from home is wrong in so many ways, and a giant leap backwards for woman.

More than 10 years ago I did an MBA business research paper on the barriers to women reaching senior leadership positions in the NZ public service. Women were underrepresented in the top roles and I showed how that was a missed opportunity in terms of delivering better public services and improving performance.

Apart from obvious issues of equity and fairness, the literature shows it makes good business sense to have gender diversity in leadership and governance.

My research focused on the barriers inherent in organisational cultures and structures and one of those was the ‘long hours norm’ and a lack of workplace flexibility (reports at the time showed requests for flexible workplace arrangements for women were typically being rejected despite legislation that allowed for it).

Here’s an excerpt from my report:

“Expectation of long hours and lack of workplace flexibility is a significant barrier to women’s advancement into senior roles (Eagly & Carli, 2007; Piterman, 2010).

 In the course of this research, comments from some interviewees suggested a Public Service culture of being seen to put in long hours at work to show commitment to the job and improve chances of promotion. This is despite the fact that working long hours does not necessarily equate to increased productivity. A recent report shows that New Zealanders work 15 percent longer than the OECD average to produce 20 percent less output per person – ranking New Zealand’s labour productivity in the lower third of OECD countries (New Zealand Productivity Commission, 2013).

Conversely, greater acceptance and use of flexible work practices is said to increase the control that women have over their work lives, which in turn improves their performance (Sojo & Wood, 2012). Eagly & Carli (2007) suggest changing the long-hours norm as one of the key management interventions organisations should action if they want to see more women at the executive level”.

Since then, technological advances have obviously enabled so much more by way of flexible work options, and the global pandemic showed what was possible. This has been life changing for so many, and particularly women who tend to do the lion’s share of child care.

Turning the tables on this makes no sense. The negative impacts on productivity and engagement, attraction and retention of talent – the list goes on. But it also makes no economic sense. It will cost more to commute and more in child care costs etc so people are unlikely to spend in the CBD (part of the rationale for the directive), not to mention the increasing property overhead costs for the public service with more desk and office space required.

It beggars belief how a Minister for Public Services, who ironically also happens to be the Finance Minister, can give a directive to reduce work place flexibility after so much progress had been made. It’s backward thinking and short sighted, not to mention an abuse of power.

I’m not an expert in the machinery of government but as far as I understand it, the Government has no business telling chief executives how to manage operations with their organisations.

You can bet that if ministers were called on to explain any mistakes made within government departments that they were accountable for, they would be the first to say that operational matters are up to chief executives, throwing them swiftly under the bus in the process!

Chief executives are between a rock and a hard place. Even knowing that operational decisions are up to them, and that they can’t legally stop people WFH if they have employment contracts in place that allow for it, I don’t imagine too many will be prepared to push back on the directive from their minister to crack down on WFH, no matter how ill-conceived it is.

No doubt that public servants will struggle to get any new employment agreements in place that include WFH options in the foreseeable future.

It’s a sad situation and a slap in the face for so many hard working public servants to have even the threat of their flexible work options being reduced, at a time when they are picking up the extra workload created by Government directives that led to 6,000 of their colleagues being made redundant.

That’s why I’m still mad, and very sad, on our public servants’ behalf. All we can do is live in hope that sense will somehow prevail – even if it takes another election cycle to see that happen.