In today’s society, both male and female employees want to juggle their caring responsibilities to maintain work life balance and overall wellbeing. Long held gender stereotypes that are gradually changing, are making it difficult for males to access flexible working.
Despite many organisations promoting flexible work practices, there is a comparatively low take up of flexible work options by males. Recent reports also depict that flexibility does not appear to be as readily available for men as women for example:
Men are twice as likely to have requests for flexible hours knocked back as women (ABC News Report, 2016), and
Women who have access to flexible working are more inclined to move into senior positions, whereas men who opt for flexibility are less likely to receive the same treatment (News.com., 2016).
These studies represent a growing concern for males in Australian organisations who may be susceptible to stereotyping and discrimination and alert organisations to re-think their actions when approached by their male employees for flexible work arrangements.
So how can an organisation increase the uptake of flexible work practices by males:
Create a culture where it is safe for both males and females to access flexible work practices,
Educate senior leaders on the benefits of flexible working for both males and females – such as higher levels of employee wellbeing, engagement and productivity,
Address stereotypes that caring responsibilities are a female’s domain,
Educate that taking time out for caring responsibilities does not mean an individual (whether they be male or female) is not career focused and
Share stories about individuals whom have taken up flexible work practices to encourage others to also partake in such practices.
For further information on encouraging flexible work practices, please contact the team at Nurture HR Consulting www.nurturehrconsulting.com.au
Having recently attended a workplace currently in the process of transitioning to automation it struck me that never has the need to remain abreast of industry changes been more paramount if one is to stay current in the workplace.
For employers, it poses two questions – how does an organisation continue to attract employees to an organisation facing automation and secondly how do employers maintain and motivate workers during the period of transition? A time when employees themselves see that the roles they currently occupy may in the not so distant future exist.
For employers, now is the time so start planning for the transition by:
Creating a high-calibre process during the recruitment phase, make it a standout to really solicit candidates. Remember you have to really sell the journey and support to the individual
Developing a clearly defined pathway and development plan for newcomers to the organisation, demonstrating the transition. If there is a clear vision for the employee with stability, they will be more inclined to continue on the journey
Ensuring regular catch-ups are arranged with the employee and a mentor to ensure they are motivated and content in their role and their career pathway is being monitored effectively
Conducting a skills gap analysis and make provisions for training opportunities to assist advancement of their career within the organisation and the employees position, keeping them interested and refreshed
Seeking alliances with industry groups and training organisations such as TAFE and universities
Encouraging employees to undertake online part-time courses to build on their soft skills; frontline management, negotiation, leadership and/or IT skills, whilst still continuing to work
Utilising social media platforms; LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. to remain abreast of changes and understand what other organisation’s are implementing.
If employees know that you are invested in them and making efforts to facilitate their career pathway there will be a much greater inclination to stay with the organisation, thus improving retention overall.
“Australia’s population grew by 1.4% during the year ended 30 June 2016; of this, natural increase contributed 46.1% whilst overseas migration contributed 53.9% respectively to total population growth for the year ended 30 June 2016. ” ( ABS, June 2016).
Given these demographics, organisations will be need to utilise a diverse workforce to optimise employment opportunities as we head into the future.
To foster a more diverse organisation, please refer to the suggestions below:
Develop a hiring strategy to increase workforce diversity,
Explore and extend your talent searching opportunities to capture candidates from a more diverse background pool,
From the outset, create a captivating job advert, which is culturally sensitive and attracts candidates to a highly diverse organisation,
Be willing to invest time in recruiting candidates from Non-English speaking backgrounds,
Put measures in place to ensure a skilled older workforce is working alongside unskilled employees to obtain that knowledge and make provisions for knowledge to be retained within the organisation,
Develop retention strategies for the older workforce to try retain them for as long as possible within the organisation,
Develop succession planning to ensure employees are afforded opportunities to be promoted and developed which will assist with retention,
Develop an employee referral scheme to attract candidates,
Provide diversity training in your workplace and
Offer other benefits such as willingness to accommodate cultural and religious practices.
Through the nurturing of diversity, organisations will be better equipped to deal with the challenges faced, retaining a skilled and effective workforce on and into the future.
As Australians, who doesn’t love those 4 day long weekends, however, when it falls in the middle of the week, having to turn up to work on the Friday, post-public holiday, can prove to be most upsetting for the estimated 11.9 million plus employees who must show up to work (ABS, 2016). Not least, for the organisations who will have to also face the backlash and torment from employees!
Organisations must be pragmatic and proactive around absenteeism coming into the new year of 2017, putting it at the top of the agenda and making it a priority. How can we as employers alleviate absenteeism during these post-public holidays and in general in the workplace?
Know your employees – watch out for signs that employees are lacking motivation and develop a retention strategy to increase employee commitment and job satisfaction
Provide more flexibility in working hours and conditions – be open to employees working from home, starting later or finishing earlier
Ensure employees are furnished with a leave policy – distribute this both at the beginning of the year and half way through the year to ensure new employees are completely aware of the policy and expectations
Applying for leave – employees wishing to take leave need to do so within a given timeframe. For those that miss out, alternative strategies around opportunities for leave could be discussed
Encourage supportive and caring teams – teams who are able to feel happy for their team mates and able to carry the load when they are away will be far more effective and satisfied than those who lack empathy and care for their team mates
Health and wellness – through the promotion of a healthy work environment, access to facilities to avail of exercise and advise about health and wellness will demonstrate to employees that you have their best interests at heart and care for them, leaving them with a positive feeling about their workplace
Take these steps today and we as organisations can reduce absenteeism and be more equipped to deal with backlash from employees as we approach those Public Holidays!
All of us, whether we want to or not, carry biases with us into the workplace based upon the environment we grew up in, our education, our life experiences and our values.
Most importantly, it is a matter of how we deal with these biases by understanding what they are, how they are formed and how we deal with these on a day to day basis to understand why we make / support certain decisions in the workplace.
How are biases formed?
Psychological scholars posit that biases are evolutionary adaptions. Mental shortcuts that reduce cognitive processing and free up the mind to complete other tasks. They typically lead to fast paced judgments that are made priority, in order to maintain basic survival. Though some seem irrational at times and cannot even be explained rationally, they have often been passed down through our genetics as a form of adaption.
Some types of bias include:
Belief perseverance: once a belief is formed and a rationale has been developed it is very difficult to demolish it (Ross and Anderson 1982).
Confirmative Bias: the tendency to seek information that supports our beliefs while ignoring information that does not.
Illusion of control: for example – lotto!
Heuristics: mental shortcuts we all take to reduce complex judgements
What we can to do increase our self awareness around our biases?
Recognise that we carry biases
Define what these are
Obtain all the facts before jumping to a conclusion regarding an individual or a matter and
as the old saying goes don’t judge a book by its cover!
This year’s Melbourne Cup winner, “Almandin”, ridden by Jockey, Kerrin McEvoy was flawless in his race to the finish. His determination and dedication to be successful and do his utmost to be first over the line was apparent, right up until the very end when “Almandin” and fellow runner “Heartbreak City”, were neck and neck.
Kerrin McEvoy who 16 years’ prior was Melbourne Cup winner on a horse named “Brew”, has maintained his passion, drive and effervescence for the sport, so what keeps an individual motivated to keep striving for success?
For many organisations, employees much like the Kerrin McEvoy’s out there, they are relentless in their efforts, drive and devotion to continued success. In our ever-increasing changeable climate, organisations need to ensure that those employees are adequately rewarded and recognised so they are retained within the organisation and to ensure their motivation and engagement is preserved and retained.
An organisation with enthusiastic and engaged employees can be the difference between a successful organisation and a genuine industry leader. So how can organisations entice and motivate employees to go the extra mile. Some actions may include:
Saying a simple thank you or well done
Providing mentoring opportunities
Asking employees what motivates them and rewarding them based on their responses
Introduce a peer nomination scheme, where employees are encouraged to nominate their peers for recognition
An employee recognition award – recognising an outstanding employee accomplishment
A personal letter of thanks to the employee or team member from a senior manager for a significant contribution
Celebrate achievements
Formal reward and recognition programme
For further information on how to sustain success within your workforce, please contact Eva and her team via emailing eva@nurturehrconsulting.com.au
