Editorial People in focus

Every issue of Management is people focused. But our annual coverage of the Equal Employment & Opportunities (EEO) Trust Work and Life Awards always ends up being particularly people-centric. This year is no exception. Award winners and their stories, personal health, workplace safety, disconnected executives and personal investment advice all feature this month. Organisational success in today’s constantly switched-on world is all about attracting and keeping the best people. To do that requires looking after people and creating the right work/life environment – an enterprise where individuals can attain and retain some balance in their lives and feel good about their employing organisation.
As associate editor Vicki Jayne discovered when she compiled our EEO Awards coverage this year: “Intuitive assumptions about how more flexible, people-centred approach to work style design might affect employee behaviour have now been borne out in various studies around the world.” She cites UK report that produced some pretty compelling evidence to support the business case for greater work/life balance. The report suggests that work/life balance is “much bigger and further reaching issue than many organisations may yet have realised”. The process may have reached higher profile in recent years but there’s “still plenty of room for progress”, according to our cover story.
The majority of workers, however, still face time squeeze and women bear the brunt of domestic labour. And more than third of people think work/life balance is all to do with policies for parents which “undermines its wider relevance”. Jayne believes that by examining the achievements of EEO Award winners, Management readers will discover who in New Zealand is setting local benchmarks. So turn to our cover story.
When it comes to thinking about individual safety, consider this. New Zealand’s incidence of work-related injury, death and disease is higher than most other first world economies. One study suggests the number is somewhere between 250 and 600 per year. Other reports have put it as high as 800. Behind the statistics are the personal stories of individual loss and handicap. Management health writer Lynda Wharton backgrounds the unhappy state of our health and safety record, talks to experts in the field and provides 10-point business health and safety check list.
And finally, guide to personal investing. Writers Glenn Baker and Keith Stewart offer some well-informed tips on how to enhance your retirement fund. Baker talks to six of the smartest investment advisers in the business, while Stewart takes rather more pleasurable approach to financially rewarding yourself. Both have something to offer and it makes compelling reading.