Go Home
Today is ‘Go Home On Time Day’, a brainchild of Australia Institute which recently conducted a comprehensive study on overtime work in Australia. Are you leaving office early today?.

Academia Blues
Melissa Gregg thinks that academia is no longer a smart choice.

JobDash
Jobdash, a career management tool for IT professionals, is already capitalising on Linkedin’s new API announcement.  Jobdash can be used to  ‘track and Filter real-time Employment Offers from Twitter and LinkedIn status updates’. Our world is rapidly changing.

Web 2.0 & work
McKinsey’s QA with MIT’s Andrew McAfee on how Web 2.0 is changing the way we work

A new research by Australia Institute revealed the nature and extent of overtime work in Australia.

Some of the highlights of the research:

• A typical full-time employee works 70 minutes of unpaid overtime a day, amounting to 2.14 billion hours annually and gifting $72 billion to employers.
• Full-time employees work more unpaid overtime then anyone else (table 2)
• 50% of white-collared workers experienced unpaid overtime, compared to 24.2% for blue collared workers. (table 2)
• Male employees (49.7%) worked more unpaid overtime than their female counterparts (41%)
• Older and high-income earners work more unpaid overtime (table 5)
• Workplace culture is a contributing factor with 44% who work unpaid overtime saying that it is ‘compulsory’ or ‘expected’ (table 6)

What’s interesting is the fact that majority of workers (63.4%) would choose to work overtime because they have a strong sense of commitment and duty to their job (table 8).  In other words, many Australians are happy to work overtime without getting paid. Most companies focus a lot on remuneration to motivate staff, perhaps altruism is underestimated.

The report (pdf) is a worthy read.

It’s common knowledge that workplace disengagement is rife in organisations across Australia. What can an employer do?

Gallup recommends employees be asked 12 questions, as follows: 

• Do you know what is expected of you at work?
• Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right?
• At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
• In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?
• Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?
• Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
• At work, do your opinions seem to count?
• Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?
• Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?
• Do you have a best friend at work?
• In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?
• In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

The argument goes – the higher an employee score on the 12 questions the better the performance.

The real meat of the argument is that questions be asked in the first place (‘how are you?’ works well with me). The act of asking encourage two-way interactions; any day that is better than a rigid ‘do as I say’ style. 

It seems to me that the answer to many workplace problems begins with asking questions and listening.

Are you asking questions?

Australians are a busy lot.

Majority (69%) admit to leading busy professional lives (second only to Americans).

As advances in technology continues unabated, the ‘always on’ lifestyle becomes more and more entrenched in our every day lives. Which, one would thought, would be viewed as a negative development. Surprisingly, a study by Frost & Sullivan found Australians professionals do not mind the 24/7 lifestyle. In fact, tools which rendered them to be always connected are credited for enhancing work-life balance, freedom, time-management and getting things done.

Titled ‘Meetings Around the World II”, the Frost & Sullivan study also found that Australian organisations adopt technology quickly in work environments. In fact, 59% indicated they are open to trying new ways to communicate. If you can read beyond the fact that the study is sponsored by CISCO and Verizon , two organisations who stands to benefit from increasing adoption of new collaboration tools, the study is actually a very insightful look at rapidly changing workplaces and individual work styles.

How has technology changed your work lifestyle?

I played with ABS data. The graph below tells us two things:

a) We have come a long way with our pay. Since Nov 1983, average national weekly earnings almost tripled, increasing from $312.60 to $923.40 in May 2009.

b) We have a long way to go before gender pay equality exists. In May 2009, men earn $1115.80 compared to women who average $733.40.

The graph is a simplistic trending picture of gross national earnings (before tax), and may not be reflective of many professions or industries. However, pay disparity along gender lines is a puzzling reality. In some industries like IT, the inequality is driving women away.

A lot of attention has been shed on executives pay. Gender disparity in earnings deserves equal, if not more, attention.

If you are female and earning less for doing the same work as your male counterpart, would you do anything to rectify it? If you are male and aware of pay disparity how would you react? What is your story?