"The Injuns are comin'! Circle the wagons!"
When the environment is full of threats, as it is right now,
it's a natural instinct to hunker down. We worry what might go
wrong rather than right, and as control slips from our fingers we
desperately try to regain it. Managers or employees, it makes no
difference.
Who's Winning?
So is the R Word is winning over the F Word in the workplace?
Hard data (you know I love it) initially proved elusive, so I
focused on comments from Professionelle members, as well as
articles and blogs from overseas. I found most anecdotes and
stories to be gloomy. Managers and employees were both busy
circling their wagons, and flexibility at work seemed in real
danger of turning back into an F Word. I was all set to say, that
yes, the recession was winning.
And then, serendipitously, a comprehensive report on the issue
arrived in my inbox, courtesy of the Equal Employment
Opportunities Trust (EEO) here in New Zealand. Put out by the
Families and Work Institute in the USA, the
report is a broad, up to date survey covering 400 workplaces'
response to the recession, including how flexible work arrangements
were faring.
The verdict: flexibility is alive and well, claim employers.
Good News
Specifically, 81% of employers said that they had maintained
flexible work options in the economic downturn. 13% said they had
increased them. Only 6% admitted to reducing these options.
About 40% of workplaces had encouraged flexible options like
telecommuting and voluntary reduced hours to control costs and of
these a little over a half claimed to have allowed employees "some
or a lot" of input into the decisions. One example I found in my
reading is Nortel Networks, who filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection in January this year, and are now encouraging employees
to work remotely to cut real estate expenses.
A quarter of surveyed employers had used flexible options to
help them minimise lay-offs. We have a local example of this, of
course, in Fisher & Paykel, the first NZ company to take up the
Government's 9 day working fortnight subsidy as a way to control
wage costs and prevent redundancies.
Cost Cutting
Turnover in two thirds of companies surveyed by the Families and
Work Institute
fell in the last year and, unsurprisingly, 90% of those suffering
a sales decline took steps to contain costs. The top three cost
control methods?
- 69% eliminated or cut bonuses and pay rises
- 64% laid off staff
- 61% implemented hiring freezes
Flexible work arrangements to achieve cost cuts appeared lower
down the list.
- 29% said they had used voluntary hour reductions
- 22% used compressed work weeks
- 19% encouraged more telecommuting.
Interestingly, the report revealed that women may be doing
better than men in the recession. Workplaces with predominantly
female employees reported a lower incidence of layoffs, promotion
freezes and involuntary hour reductions.
The Local Scene
A survey of 150 senior NZ managers by recruiting company Michael
Page New Zealand and reported in the NZ Herald on August 4th
indicated that "putting salaries on ice was the most common
strategy companies used to avoid redundancies".
The main strategies used to avoid job cuts here were:
- Salary freeze - 42 per cent
- Nothing - 19 per cent
- Forced paid leave - 16 per cent
- Reduced working hours - 9 per cent
- Reduced office rental - 6 per cent
- Salary reductions - 4 per cent
- Forced unpaid leave - 2 per cent
- Other - 2 per cent
How has flexibility fared in New Zealand as the recession has
bitten? I turned to the EEO Trust who told me that a recent survey
of theirs, yet to be released, has found that
"work-life initiatives, including flexible working options, are
still important to employers with more than half the survey
respondents saying they were offering more flexible working options
to counter the recession."
Retention Tool
One aspect the US Families and Work Institute report did not
address was the extent to which employers are now offering flexible
work as an affordable alternative to pay rises and bonuses. This
was a strong theme in the anecdotes I found.
Flexible work has always been in part a retention tool. These
days some firms seem to be offering flexible options not only to
reward staff but also to de-stress them at a time when many are
carrying heavier workloads. One commentator on the Wall Street
Journal's The Juggle blog covered several of these themes:
Actually, I feel like I have more flexibility now
than I did two years ago before the downturn because the golden
handcuffs are off. My comp has been cut in half, and my bank is
trying to be more flexible with the people that are still here
since they can't pay them as much money. I actually do have to
travel a lot more due to all of the layoffs, but I find that no one
is questioning my arrangement to work one day a week from home or
to flip that day around when I have to travel on other days. I see
more of the remaining staff with flex arrangements now - compressed
week, one or two days from home or even working 4 days.
Silent Fright
Call me a sceptic, but I can't help wondering if so many
employers found it easy to say they were maintaining policies to
offer flexible work simply because so few employees were asking for
such arrangements!
Earlier this year, Dr Philippa Reed, Chief Executive of the EEO
Trust, mentioned to me that local manufacturers were receiving
fewer applications for flexible arrangements. It's a fair guess
that employees have grown reluctant to ask for flexible options at
the same rate they had a year or two ago. Why stick your head over
the parapet to be shot at?
A March 2009 Washington Post article describes a "silent fright" among workers, who feel they
must not complain, nor ask for anything, but just keep on
delivering above and beyond their role in order to try "to become
indispensable".
Mismatched Expectations
Are those employers who say they are continuing to offer
flexible work in fact offering options that employees value and
need? When I wrote about flexibility back at
Professionelle's launch most NZ employees were underwhelmed by
employers' common but minor gestures such as permission to
"occasionally vary start times to deal with non-work problems" and
"use personal sick leave to care for an ill person". Significant
options, like permission to work from home regularly, were much
less freely available. I wonder if something similar might be going
on in the US.
5 Full Days
Reading between the lines of the Families and Work report, I can
also see potential for second order effects that in fact undermine
flexibility. For example, layoffs mean more work for those who are
left. The pressure to bulk remaining roles up to full time, 5 days
a week is inevitable.
Some mothers returning to work in the last 12 months have told
Professionelle that their roles have been disestablished while they
have been away, or that they have been increasingly marginalised
since returning. Others have found the ground shifting under their
feet. One Professionelle member wrote:
I have received a restructure proposal from my
boss ahead of meeting with him. He had stressed that I needed to
return to work ready to commit to long hours but I foolishly
requested a little more maternity leave provided my employer could
find cover …Suddenly, my position is no longer achievable in the 4
day working week I have worked for several years now. It now
requires a full time employee. The injustice of it makes me want to
scream!
Face Time
Presenteeism may be on the rise, too. Not only are some roles
apparently reverting to 5 days a week, but those days need to be
spent in full view in the office. With layoffs and paycuts as key
company responses to the recession, presenteeism is a logical
reaction by managers. To offset the stresses they are under, they
feel less trust in subordinates and more need to control them.
Telecommuting and compressed working weeks can look like perks and
favours rather than effective ways to engage employees to do their
best work.
Sylvia Ann Hewlett, founding president of the Center for Work-Life
Policy, has surveyed women executives at top Wall Street firms. In
reports in the Washington Post and Forbes magazine, Hewlett says
that since late 2008 many more women executives report feeling high
levels of anxiety - 89% in 2008 versus 36% in 2007. A major reason
is an increased emphasis on face time. Hewlett said,
Leaving the jacket on the back of your chair 14
hours a day is part of the campaign to prove you are indispensable,
so whatever flex arrangement you had, it's very hard to take that
any more.
What to Do?
Let's be practical. The pressures of our home lives and the need
to juggle haven't dissolved with the recession. It's possible that
you will need to front up to your boss to negotiate for a flexible
arrangement. How do you increase your chance of success? We found
the following advice in a March 2009 article in Forbes
magazine:
By explaining how the change would benefit the
company fiscally, remaining responsive outside of the workplace and
maximizing visibility in the office, flextime can still champion
through a bad market.
Ward Gaffney knows this firsthand. On becoming a mom, Ward
Gaffney, a national director for coaching at
PricewaterhouseCoopers, felt her work schedule needed to change in
order to accommodate her new family obligations. However, she was
nervous about approaching her manager and worried that she might be
perceived as less committed. Plus, she notes, a lot of her
"talented friends" were losing their jobs.
Ward Gaffney's approach was as follows: First she consulted her
mentor to figure out a strategy. Next, she outlined a plan and made
an appointment with her boss to discuss the proposition. In the
meeting, she told her boss that her level of commitment and
ambition hadn't changed and explained how she would continue to
meet company needs. Ward Gaffney hoped her boss, a father of four,
would understand. In fact, she was surprised by how receptive he
was to her ideas.
The result? Ward Gaffney now works from home one day a week and
limits travel to the east coast. "I'm excited about the challenge
of balancing all of this," she says.
Of course, not everyone can get up the guts to approach her
manager. And some career experts believe this is not a smart time
to ask for flexibility at all…
Better Odds
A final thought: are there some jobs which may be better suited
to flexible working arrangements, and with a better-than-even
chance of getting your boss to a 'yes'?
These are the three criteria that shine through:
- A job that lends itself to clear, measurable objectives and
outputs
- A job that you have cutting edge skills in
- A job you have demonstrated yourself to be able to deliver
on
Beyond these you'll need a special boss (calm, imaginative and
supportive) and a dose of good luck!
What do you think?
Am I being too negative in my gutfeel that the recession has the
upper hand? And am I looking for too many fishhooks in the
apparently good news from the Family and Work Institute? I'd love
to hear your experiences. Please
tell me what you think.
Copyright Professionelle Ltd 2009