I work fulltime, and yet I get to pick my kids up from school at least two days a week. 

I work most of my week in the buzz of our Grey St office and the balance of it in the silence of home. My home days change according to what’s happening at work (client meetings) or with my family (school sports days). 

This isn’t everyone’s idea of a dream scenario, but it works for me, our office, and my family. I work hard to make sure I’m exceeding all expectations at work because I’m grateful for this flexibility. It means my children have two afternoons a week when they’re not in childcare, which – given my husband and I both work fulltime – is a measure of balance we never anticipated we’d be lucky enough to find.

But we are not alone – such arrangements are actually becoming much more commonplace. In recruitment, we are seeing a seismic shift in the way people are viewing the “normal” working week. Candidates are craving flexibility and employers are noting that it can create a healthy culture, which in turn can help attract – and keep – excellent people.  

Increasingly, work can be done from anywhere as long as you have a phone and a laptop. We have moved away from the days when employees needed to be seen working in order for people to believe they actually were working. Today, workplaces tend to operate on trust, and people we talk to love it.

We’re finding, flexible work arrangements are one area where employers can give their job offer some x-factor. Often, Tauranga companies cannot offer big-city salaries, but candidates may overlook that if they can work hours which enable them to drop their kids to school every day, or work from home to keep an elderly relative company one day a week, or push a full week’s work in to four days so they can have a regular 3-day weekend.

Flexibility also enters the conversation when employers are looking at filling fulltime roles. There are many phenomenal candidates in Tauranga, who have moved or returned here from overseas with world-class experience. Some of them have been so successful they don’t actually need to work – but they’d like to share their skills if the conditions were right. If you could be flexible in your expectations of what a working week looks like, you could employ someone truly exceptional for 25 hours a week. Wouldn’t they be better for your profitability than someone ordinary working 40 hours a week?

When a company has a policy of offering flexibility, they can end up with an entire staff of specialists, each working fewer hours and devoted just to the tasks at which they excel. This can be much more effective than hiring one staff member who covers a range of tasks – and is exceptional at none of them. At Ryan and Alexander, we each work to our strengths and expertise, doing hours that suit our families and workload, and the result is a high-functioning team working hard for clients all days – and nights – of the week.

If you’re failing to attract candidates, you’re losing good people pretty quickly, or you’re wanting your workforce to be more engaged, more loyal and more committed – give flexible hours a go. It won’t work for everyone or every role, but it can make a world of difference to your employees, and your bottom line.

This month, a survey came out which validated what many of us have known for some time: housing in Tauranga is crazy expensive. In fact, Tauranga is now the least affordable place to buy a home in New Zealand – and among the least affordable in the world.

The latest instalment of the comprehensive Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey listed a sample of 293 cities worldwide in order of most affordable to least. Tauranga came in at 282; just 12 places from the bottom.

There are two elements which combine to measure affordability: house price and income. The survey covered the third quarter of 2017 and showed it would take an Aucklander 8.8 years of median household income to pay off the median home, while someone in Tauranga would take 8.9 years.

It’s not much of a difference, but it’s fairly startling company to find yourself in when we’re one place worse than Auckland – a city of notorious unaffordability – and seemingly vying for the top title against known bywords for unaffordability such as Hong Kong, Los Angeles and Honolulu.

Tauranga has seen some significant house value surges in recent times, yet incomes in this city don’t surge to the same degree.

As we’ve said before, this ain’t $10 Tauranga anymore. It is possible to get a well-paid job here and salaries have definitely moved in recent decades.

But it’s also clear many Tauranga employers still expect to pay provincial wages but attract big city talent. The situation is reminiscent of the old Brisbane “sunshine tax” – employers expect the glorious weather and proximity to the main Mount beach will make up for the salary shortfall.

However, in recent times highly-skilled professionals who have become accustomed to the incomes on offer in Auckland seem to have decided the languid Bay lifestyle just isn’t lure enough. They want fair remuneration for their skills and training and are unwilling to consider pay cuts in the many tens of thousands.

It’s not that long ago that candidates were willing to accept the income shortfall. But times have changed. Some Tauranga firms have had vacancies for longer than a year. These days, if a candidate can get $140,000 in Auckland, they are unlikely to move to the Bay for $95,000.

The surge in house prices has been an absolute game-changer.

Tauranga’s traffic is increasingly diabolical, local schools are bursting at the seams and now we have confirmation that it will take you longer to pay off a home in Tauranga than it would in Auckland. Tauranga is not the cheap idyll it used to be.

Employers struggling to attract talent in this new environment may want to consider the wealth of talent available among skilled migrants. We get a lot of interest from South Africa, Eastern Europe, the United Arab Emirates, The Philippines, India and Bangladesh.

These applicants are not dissuaded by provincial-level rates and may not be as focused on home ownership as Kiwis tend to be. Hard-working, highly-educated candidates tell us they have no expectations of home ownership – and, just like that, home affordability ceases to be a concern. We see some regional New Zealand employers being held back by staunch Antipodean-only hiring policies.

I expect they don’t understand the calibre of the skilled migrants on offer. In the current climate, where fewer Kiwi candidates are willing to entertain the idea of life in the “unaffordable” Bay, it might be time to take a look.