Bay businesses embrace Flexible working conditions
Some arrange workdays around a traditional Ma¯ ori calendar
Bay businesses have embraced flexible working arrangements in a postlockdown world where home is the new office. Some businesses have introduced job sharing and flexible work hours. Others even arrange workdays around a traditional Ma¯ori calendar based on the cycles of the moon.
Tauranga law firm Cooney Lees Morgan has formalised and embraced flexible work arrangements, where staff can work from home on an ad-hoc or permanent basis and job sharing is allowed where possible.
Mother-of-two Rebecca Graham has just become the first person at the firm to be appointed a partner while continuing to work part-time.
The 40-year-old’s ascension to the partnership table is just one example of the law firm’s embracement of workplace wellbeing and illustrates the benefits of providing support for employees.
When her first child was born six years ago, Graham took time off work then started back two days a week. Her hours have slowly increased to three full days and two half days.
“It’s really important to be able to maintain my life outside of work and be there for my children,” she said. “But also, I wanted to become a partner because that’s the next step in my career.”
Graham acknowledged the new part-time partnership arrangement was a “leap of faith” for both parties, but she’s excited to get involved in running the firm of 90-plus employees.
Following Sally Powdrell’s retirement from the partnership last year, Graham is one of two female partners in the group of nine and she felt a sense of responsibility to make her arrangement work so other women can follow suit.
“There are lots of really good female lawyers but the figures still show that senior positions in law are male-dominated.
“It’s good to be a role model in that regard so more female leaders can come through in the future.”
Cooney Lees Morgan partner Mary Hill has been instrumental in steering the firm in a sustainable direction.
Hill helped devise a formal policy and a set of principles to guide decision-making on flexible working requests when she joined the partnership four years ago.
“The challenge is to ensure requests are dealt with equitably, and that the teams within our firm still function well,” she said.
“I think lockdown was really helpful in demonstrating that it can work and in fact, people are often more productive when they are working in their chosen environment.
“From my perspective, it’s just about treating people as responsible adults.”
Hill said it was also crucial to invest in people and take a long-term view.
“One thing we’ve really worked on is seeing talent in our ranks and then nurturing that and bringing them through.”
This involved giving staff support and training, and can avoid the costs and risks associated with hiring from outside the firm.
Hill said many staff have been with the firm for 10 years or more.
“One reason is because we keep providing opportunities for people to grow rather than just assuming people want to stay pigeon-holed in their current role.”
Senior associate Tanya Drummond said the firm’s flexible work arrangements have taken a huge amount of stress off her shoul
ders. With five children and two dogs to care for, as well as a fulltime role in the corporate and commercial team, not having to go into the office each day allowed her to be as efficient and productive as possible.
“I work from home at least two days a week, and I can change those days if I need to,” she said. “Because I’m at home and not having to worry about traffic, or getting into office attire or other office distractions, I can actually sit down and plough through a lot of work so it’s actually easier to meet my targets.”
Drummond applauded the firm for its commitment to retain good staff and nurture their careers.
“CLM is solutions focused. They are flexible enough to make things work rather than saying: ‘You need to fit into this box’ and I think that’s really progressive.
“As a result, the firm retains and grows great people, so it is definitely a win-win situation.”
Healthy Families Rotorua staff arrange workdays around Maramataka — a traditional Ma¯ori calendar based on the cycles of the moon.
The rhythm of a Ma¯ ori lunar calendar is used as a self-observation tool to help staff understand their behaviour patterns and arrange their workday accordingly. Manager Mapihi Raharuhi said staff can plan their days around Maramataka. “Some people might choose to schedule all of their meetings on a high-energy day.” Raharuhi said the staff have continued to practise Maramataka post lockdown.
“Covid was very telling in that now we have workplace environments that are just a little bit different now. Now we can work from home or places other than the office. “The beauty about Maramataka is it is consistent. It doesn’t matter where you are, what space you’re occupying, it still helps to optimise your productivity by aligning it with Maramataka.”
Raharuhi said the lockdown provided some stressful environments and they questioned how Maramataka could be used outside the workplace and into the workforce.
“A staff survey found it does work outside that space . . . Maramataka has become quite a movement and has quietly gained momentum across a whole range of sectors.” Maramataka helped people to become more connected to their environment, she said.