EMAcast

Michael Briggs and John Bradbury, discuss the key themes that have emerged in the dynamic workplace podcasts in 2002 and highlight some of the findings from the discussions and what they mean for New Zealand businesses going into 2023.

Sealink New zealand has approximately 130 staff and provides ferries for the transportation of passengers, vehicles, and freight to destinations around the Hauraki Gulf. It is a unionised company, and 70% of the workforce perform in the following types of roles on vessels and shore: skippers, deckhands, customer service consultants, truck drivers, and engineers. Following the unusual circumstances of a business with essential workers operating throughout a two-year pandemic Sealink embarked on work on its employee value proposition This project involved working collaboratively with employees throughput the business to develop it’s key 3 focus areas for the EVP. The approach taken has to date helped to lift employee engagement and commitment to the business whilst the EVP will serve the business to recruit, retain and continue to engage staff int 2023.

Blind Low Vision New Zealand have successfully introduced a four-day workweek. In this episode, we look at why they did this, how they implemented it, and the business outcomes. The focus for introducing the four-day work week was to improve the culture, and throughout the implementation, discussion and buy-in of staff at all levels have been of paramount importance. The organisation was agile in responding to the different needs of the varied workforce and to the challenges that emerged to make the 4-day week a success. The organisation took a very pragmatic approach, having not only a trial but also a pre-trial, trial and over the course of the last year, has built a list of FAQs to guide managers and staff on key issues. Throughout the project, the focus has been on the implementation of the 4-day work week as a productivity tool, and this has been achieved with spin-off benefits of culture and engagement improvements.

Dr Ellen Nelson has a unique lens on leadership from her practical army experience helping evacuate Afghan refugees and her research. In the episode, we discuss the lessons learnt and how these can be applied in the workplace to improve firm performance, staff retention and productivity through better leadership and culture. Dr Nelson has worked across a variety of business sectors in the areas of Developing leaders (with a focus on authentic leadership), Improving staff well-being, Increasing the representation of women and structuring work for the future (improving productivity by focusing on outputs and on flexibility such as #workschool hours).

Ellen Joan Nelson - https://www.ellenjoannelson.com/

The 4 day work week is a global initiative to reduce the number of hours people work, but with no loss in pay, or productivity. It takes a 100:80:100 approach, where pay and productivity remain at 100% but hours worked are reduced to 32 per week. In this podcast Jarrod Harr shares the data on the trials to date and we critically examine the initiative to help members understand whether this might work in their business. We look at what can go wrong, and how to mitigate that, with a strong focus on how to ensure that productivity is increased and that the productivity increase is sustained.

Mike Marr, is the entrepreneur driving the TPT group since 1999 TPT Group owns a number of different businesses and Mike have led 10 successful start-up businesses and completed 13 acquisitions. In 2020, like many businesses, the TPT group moved to more flexible and hybrid working. While this was initially successful, they were concerned about the effects on organisational culture, engagement, and productivity. As such this year they have focussed on bringing staff back to the office and believe this is the best approach across their range of businesses. Mike talks about their experiences and the focus of the TPT group on productivity and how they believe this is best achieved for both the company and employees, other stakeholders and ultimately New Zealand.

Matt Hockey has over twenty years of experience in commercial property in the UK and New Zealand. We talk to Matt about what Dynamic Workplace means for office space and find out that there is a significant move to focus on the quality of office space. Matt tells us how businesses are moving to hot-desking, shared spaces and redesigning the workspace to encourage collaboration between hybrid teams. We look at the financial and people impacts of the choices that businesses have made and try to pick some trends for the future.

During the lockdown there was a dramatic acceleration in the use of technology to enable people to continue to do their jobs and for businesses to function. Whilst the most common was the use of video technology for meetings, for example, Teams and Zoom, there was a wide range of digital tools whose use exploded during the lockdown. Melissa Crawford has carved a career at the intersection of progressive people practices and digital tools. She is a certified metaverse expert and has a Master of Technology Futures. In the podcast, Melissa shares her work with businesses to make the most of innovative technologies.

Lucy Cennamo Jones is the New Zealand Consulting Director for the global business consulting firm Talogy. Lucy has twenty years experience applying organisational psychology to enable people and organisations to be more productive. Lucy talks about the impacts of the pandemic on individuals and teams and gives guidance on the ways in which managers have supported their teams to overcome the challenges. In particular Lucy sets out the positive and negative effects of more flexible ways of working, and provides practical examples, routed in psychological evidence, to enable people and businesses to be more effective and overcome the challenges of hybrid working and maximise their benefits.

Griffiths Equipment is a manufacturer based in South Auckland. To ensure that the business could operate efficiently and effectively during 2021 the leadership team quickly decided to implement a 4 day working week across a wide range of roles. Gemma Collins takes us through how the leadership team made the decision and got the buy in of employees, what helped them to maintain and increase productivity, and how team members and managers developed and used new skills during the change. We discuss the role of, and impact on, organisational culture and what the businesses longer terms plans are to build on their recent success.