How much should we work? Working hours, holidays and working life: the participation challenge Committee for Economic Development of Australia Hilton Hotel, Adelaide 3rd August 2010

AWALI 2010: A work-life perspective on employment participation and working time

Who did we talk to? We surveyed 2800 working Australians in March 2010 Newspoll ran the survey Randomised survey which is reasonably representative This year we focussed especially on: ◦ Working hours ◦ Work hours preferences – who wants to work less or more? ◦ Uptake of paid holiday leave

How do we measure work-life outcomes? How often does work interfere: ◦ with activities outside work? ◦ with enough time with family or friends? ◦ with community connections How frequently do we feel rushed and press for time? How satisfied are we with our work-life balance?

Four years of AWALI

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading (Lao Tzu) Work negatively impacts on personal, family and community life for the majority of workers ◦ For ¼ of workers this is often or ‘almost always’ the case The same groups of workers continue to have the worse work-life outcomes

Women are still more at risk of work- life strains

Combining work & care continues to be challenging

Managers & professionals continue to have poor work-life outcomes

Those in service industries also have worse work-life outcomes

Time is of the essence...

Little appetite for longer hours for most Around half of all workers do not have a good fit between actual & preferred hours Many workers want to work less (by 4+ hours) ◦ 32% of women ◦ 40% of men Full-time hours: ◦ 46% of women & 34% of men 48+ hours ◦ 72% of men & 77% of women

Who wants to work more (4+ hrs)? Men working part-time (46.4%) ◦ Prefer additional 6.8 hours, on average 30.5 % of women working part-time agree ◦ Prefer average of 2.8 hours more Casual workers ◦ 50.3% of men ◦ 40.6% of women

Generation gap? Teen workers: 18 – 19 years Gen Y: 20 – 29 years Gen X: years Baby Boomers: 45 – 64 years Grey workers – 65+

Ideal work week – 35 hours

Gen X: family + work

Holidays

Mothers particularly benefit from holidays

Why don’t people take holidays?

Holidays versus pay rise?

Leave work at home

What to do?

1. More say over working flexibly 2. Long work hours 3. Reducing the burden on working women 4. More support for working fathers 5. More supportive workplace culture practice, management and leadership 6. Holidays matter: time, money, rest 7. Future research….what works? Metrics?

Managers and leaders Understand and implement the law Change workplace cultures and habits ‘Walk the talk’ Drive from top - with metrics, not policy ◦ KPIs for managers ◦ Measure, reward, reflect, respond Prevent long hours Support and educate supervisors, managers, staff

AWALI tells us that better outcomes will flow from: Good supervision Supportive workplace cultures Avoidance of long hours Providing employee-centred flexibility Quality jobs (control, security) Reasonable workloads Taking leave

Still a BBQ stopper?