New Zealand workers are burning out at high rates – and Māori twice as frequently as Pakeha, according to new data.
AUT professor Jarrod Haar hopes this research will help kick off an urgent conversation about how burnout can be addressed in Aotearoa.
Professor Jarrod Haar Photo: Supplied
To better understand the challenges of the New Zealand workforce, Haar has spent 19 years gathering and crunching data.
In the last two years, he's been collecting "workforce data" from particularly Māori workers to try and figure out who is struggling and why.
While a lot of earlier research on the Māori experience has been qualitative (based on estimation), Haar's data is quantitive (based on measuring).
This kind of data is very valuable, he says, as not only does it tell us things that qualitative data can't, it carries more weight in conversation.
"There's nothing like being able to say 'I've done a study of 1000 Aotearoa workers. Māori are at a statistically higher [risk] of being burnt out and here's the percentage number - it's 50 percent for Māori and it's 25 percent for Pakeha.
"'Then people could say 'jeez, Jarrod, that's rough' and I'd say 'kia ora, it is, and here's some of the reasons why'."
Research findings must be well-translated into accessible language so the information gets to people, such as policy-makers, who can do something with it, Haar says.
"What do human resources managers need [to know] to understand about the pressures on their workforce, for example?"
Although there aren't too many benefits of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has sped up the pace that academic work gets released "in some kind of layperson description", he says.
"One thing good with Covid is it's really been making researchers try and get a grasp on their data and then translate it."
The Wellbeing@Work study has revealed two types of Māori workers who are especially struggling at the moment – one is the hardworking yet low-skilled people who have to do tonnes of hours just to get by.
It's understandable that these workers are part of the so-called Great Resignation, he says.
"To low-paid workers looking for an extra dollar or two an hour and I'd say kia ora, good on you… especially in these challenging times where costs [of living] are going up. For workers working 50 hours a week, 1 or 2 dollars [more per hour] does make a difference.'
Haar's data suggests that "good" employers don't have to worry about losing staff – "if you look after your workforce and respect them and pay them adequately and tell them they're doing a good job, they are likely to stick around."
But others who've been "thinking the world is their oyster" and neglecting their workers during the pandemic may get a wake-up call now that the New Zealand border has reopened.
"We will see low-skilled workers who want to get more money shooting off to Australia. For skilled workers, the world opens up."
Along with low-skilled Māori, professional Māori such as academics and scientists are also burning out, Haar says.
One cause is their unpaid workload as cultural guides for colleagues, which he calls a 'cultural double-shift'.
"They have a full-time job and then people say 'oh bro could you do this Māori thing' and before you know it you're doing an extra day but the [employer] thinks… that's just a normal piece of work."
Any organisation that wants to retain their Māori workers would do well to consider a four-day working week, Haar says.
After researching its benefits, he's now "a big convert" to people doing "100 percent of the mahi" for the same pay in 80 percent of the time.
Most of us waste a lot of time at work anyway, he says, on average doing less than three hours a day of actual work each workday.
"The rest of it is taken up with inefficient meetings and a lot of other interactions – some of which will be valuable but a lot won't be."
Working a four-day week would allow Māori professionals much-needed time and space, Haar says.
"Instead of spending your Saturday or Sunday on the marae, you might be able to say 'well, actually Wednesday is my day off and I'm going to go and spend that at the marae. It becomes a part of my normal working week and I have the blessing of my organisation and I'm getting paid for that day on the marae rather than having to do it after hours."
Jarrod Haar is a Professor of Human Resource Management in the Department of Management at the Auckland University of Technology and the Deputy Director of the New Zealand Work Research Institute.
