Work-life Balance in New Zealand
CASE STUDIES: Chris Wilkinson
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The majority of businesses in New Zealand are small to medium sized operations. Here's how one company is addressing the work-life balance issue."
Chris Wilkinson owns Photo Plus Holdings, and Pronto Hire Group, service-based businesses operating in the Wellington region. The owners and managers have been committed to achieving an improved work-life balance for the past five years. Across their three city shops and a rental store, they employ 25 full-time staff and about the same number of part-timers.
Chris says: "As the companies have grown, we have managed to evolve a flexible and workable solution to our staffing needs. This ensures cover to maintain our customer service commitments, yet allows individual team members to make choices about the hours and days they work.
"At the corporate office, most of the team are mothers. So that they can work around school and childcare schedules we structure our day accordingly. As they finish earlier, customer contact then passes to voice and email that is attended to the next business day. We use technology so they can also work from home when needs arise.
"In our stores we also have mothers that have returned to work with us. In these cases we schedule our shifts so they can pick up their children from kindergarten, and we have part-timers available should they need to stay home for any reason.
"We make greater use of 'key time' staff so that shifts can be split allowing those studying to attend lectures, and full timers to maintain their choice of hours. A pool of part timers allows for easy swapping of shifts, and back up for busier times".
Chris says he started to think about work-life issues when staff that had been with the company a long time started to have families and take on other responsibilities. "I know what it's like to have a family and need time for other things and I started to look at companies overseas and big companies here to see what they do for their staff. Our work-life initiatives have developed over the last five years and it's just all been good for the company."
While some businesses shy away from introducing work-life initiatives, perceiving additional business costs, Chris says: "It's a mindset thing. We keep people longer and productivity is great. If people know there is flexibility and they are happy and less stressed, that attitude flows through to productivity."
For more information about Pronto Hire Group, or Photo Plus Holdings visit our websites: