National conference with Richmond Foundation

The FHRD teamed up with the Richmond Foundation to hold a national conference on "Juggling work-life commitments: does it make business sense?" on October 7 at the Radisson SAS Bay Point Resort, St Julian's.

The keynote speaker was Suzan Lewis, Professor of Organisational and Work-Life Psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University, who spoke on "Work-personal life integration. How can employers and employees collaborate to enhance gender equality and workplace effectiveness?"

The two other speakers were Doris Gauci, chief executive officer of the Richmond Foundation, who answered the question "Does culture affect Maltese employees with regard to work-life balance?" and M'Louise Agius, training and development manager, HSBC Bank Malta plc, who spoke on the HSBC experience.

Ms Gauci said the challenge facing local organisations was to promote work-life balance while meeting their social responsibilities and having a competitive advantage. The answer is to provide work-life balance programmes and training, which help employees be fulfilled through their achievements.

Ms Agius said the key challenge of any organisation is to promote policies and strategies that balance organisational needs with individual needs. She outlined HSBC's policies aimed at achieving work-life balance, with a focus on the contribution of each individual to the success of the business.

The overall benefits were: better customer service; having resources when the bank needed them most; retaining the best people; low staff turnover; and satisfied shareholders.

Three topics were then tackled in parallel sessions: Diversity; Stress as an occupational health and safety issue; and Making the business case for an employee assistance programme.

Diversity must be part of the organisation's overall strategy, placing it as an issue linked to the organisation goals rather than simply looking at it as something that must be done compulsorily to avoid fines. Management approaches must be more tolerant of diversity.

Fostering a sense of trust and teamwork can create a structure where diversity can lead to contributions. Managers must be trained to handle issues of diversity since those who do not appreciate diversity will actually lose out on talent, different perspectives and new ideas. Team-building programmes can help to train employees to accept others and this can lead to less conflict.

Stress can be found all around us. It all depends on the individual's coping skills. We can either view stress as a threat to our well-being or else as a challenge. It is only when we believe that things are beyond our personal resources that we become helpless.

Just as overworking can have serious effects when exhausted employees could become a great danger to others, so can under-working. Workers may suffer from loss of self worth if they are not given a specific workload and have to spend long hours in idleness at their place of work. This can also cause serious psychological problems.

The most potential hazard leading to stress seems to be poor relations with co-workers. Fear of rejection and ridicule at work can be a source of a lot of suffering to the individual. Solidarity can provide the ideal emotional strength and security, and can therefore enable workers to cope with and adapt to unfavourable conditions of work and uncongenial work environment.

Employee assistance programmes (EAP) complement the main business objective to make a profit as it directs resources towards the overall performance of employees. A number of key performance indicators were listed to gauge EAP effectiveness: absenteeism, staff turnover, sick leave, performance, productivity and the number of employees using the service.

Even if an organisation is doing well, with high profits, the organisation still needs to invest in its human resources to continue performing at its best.

The conference was introduced by Ms Gauci and John Muscat Drago, FHRD president. A welcome address was made by Social Policy Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Education Minister Louis Galea delivered the closing address.