Getting the balance right - Isle of Man Today

Isle of Man Examiner, May 2005 Businessupdate7what do youthink?What are your views? Is a good work-lifebalance really achievable? E-mail your viewsto john.sherrocks@newsiom.co.imJAN BUJKO: Wehave all worked inplaces wherepeople are judgedon the length oftime their car is inthe car park asopposed to whatthey are achievingduring the dayMW: 050401/29www.osagroup.com611161OSARecruitmentMaking a successful transition tomanager – essential coaching from OSAget a better performance.TAYLOR: But we are talking about differentindustries altogether. You guys are allworking in a professional-type industry,finance, at a higher level, with higher-paidjobs.WEADOCK: You can’t get a lower-paidindustry than hospitality. I represent quite alarge workforce but we are paying a lot lessthan you are and we are open 24-hours aday. We need to look at stress levels and thehours people are working.Long hours cultureDTI’s JAN BUJKO: The long-hours culture isan issue. How many line managers in theirown behaviour promote that directly orindirectly? That permeates the wholeculture of the organisation. We have allworked in places where people are judgedon the length of time their car is in the carpark as opposed to what they are achievingduring the day. I would like to see moreattention paid to company cultures,attitudes of managers and companiestowards the long-hours culture.DOYLE: It is also down to the individual. Ihave worked from 8am to 7pm, and thatwas normal, five days a week and I used tobring work home. I worked for years on thatbasis. When you are younger and youhaven’t got family, it happens. But I laterdecided to stop doing it when I was gettinghome from work and the kids were in bedand saying ‘I haven’t seen you all week dad’.NIXON: It is work hard and play hard as anattitude. It is all about balance.GARRETT: There are times in your careerwhen it suits and to get careeradvancement or to get experience, there aretimes when people would be able tocontribute more.HARRISON: There are many organisationswhich don’t have formal policies in placewhich say ‘we don’t engender long hours’.There isn’t a set policy which iscommunicated, and it becomes the normto work in that way.Staff recognitionHUNTER: It is down to the culture and whatyou portray as individual managers andthat is how everybody else will perceive thatculture in the workplace and will respondaccordingly.We are dealing with ships that are on theother side of the world. Their working day isour middle of the night. If we have to dealwith an incident at 3am, we have to comein to the office. It is giving something backto those people and not constantlyexpecting them to do it as part of theroutine.We have to appreciate people may have tocome in at a weekend or late evening. It ishow the management looks at this and sayswe appreciate what you are doing and notjust take it as routine.Management skillsGARRETT: We need to ensure that linemanagers have the skills to interpret therequest for flexible working taking accountof individual circumstances and thebusinesses’ requirements.There are lots of line managers in manyorganisations who would reel against thethought of giving something to a memberof staff which they didn’t get when theywere in their position. I didn’t get it, so whyshould you get it? That is the big challenge.It is no different to someone working on abuilding site, ‘I didn’t get that when I was anapprentice, so why should they get itnowadays?’BUJKO: There is a tendency to see work-lifebalance as a trendy piece of humanresources jargon, but all it is really is givingemployees the right to have a life out ofwork.There is a lot more to the work-lifebalance than just flexible working. It is notjust for people with families, it is an issueTURN TO PAGE 8How we handle the transition from being responsible for ourselves to having a collectiveresponsibility for a team or more strategic/technical business responsibility can makeall the difference to our personal effectiveness.The higher you rise within an organisation and the greater your sphere of influence, themore important it is that you have clarity and control of your activities, goals andeffectiveness both inside and outside the workplace – and know how to take control ifthe balance is lost.Recognising the signs of imbalance is essential – some people have ‘blow ups’, somebecome forgetful or lose concentration. Managers may excel at their jobs but find theirhome life falls apart.Everyone in management has been through the transition from individual contributor tobecoming a technical or people manager. Among their other services, OSA can offerindependent coaching.Lorna MacLaine, OSA’s organisational and management development consultant, hasspecialised in this area for the past five years, with eight years previously in widertraining and development roles, and a total of 18 years in business.Lorna says: ‘Much management training concentrates on the ‘technical’ managementskills but often we simply need to have someone hold a mirror up for us to see where wehave become out of kilter and what changes we need to make to bring ourselves backinto balance. Increasingly, organisations understand that such rebalancing is simplyanother area of management development designed to enable them to optimise theproductivity of their most important resource – their people.’OSA succeeds in this arena by introducing independence to the process, with no internalorganisational baggage but with a high level of experience, knowledge and skills to findthe answer without being influenced in the way somebody with a personal stake in thecompany might be.Lorna says: ‘This independence enables the coach to be extremely honest, un-emotiveand open. It also means the coach is able to offer guidance and support through a varietyof issues, enabling us to push out of the comfort zone and find the answers.’Lorna works in partnership with the client, allowing them to set the pace, with monthlyor six weekly meetings from one to four hours at a time, working on an ongoing actionplan. The client can then focus on putting their development plans into action back inthe workplace and gain balance in their working and personal lives – regaining controlover themselves, their work and their life.For more information on the coaching, training and development options available atOSA, contact Lorna/Karina on 611161 or email lornamaclaine@osagroup.com