Researching those who love their work, despite difficult conditions
Dr Sarah Proctor-Thomson from the School of Management is in the early stages of researching people who work in low paid or precarious jobs, but who have a passion for the work.
A senior lecturer in the School of Management is in the early stages of researching those who work in low paid or precarious jobs but who have a passion for the work.
Dr Sarah Proctor-Thomson aims to present her findings at a conference to be held in February 2015 by the Association of Industrial Relations Academics in Australia and New Zealand.
She is researching people who work in residential aged care, adventure tourism, and the design industries in New Zealand. The project, ‘Love Work’, owes its origins to Dr Proctor-Thomson’s PhD in digital media design in the UK.
"There was a strong theme of passionate workers operating in sometimes quite difficult conditions. When I came back to New Zealand, I started doing work in the not-for-profit sector and began to hear stories of passionate workers again," she says.
"I also came across a New Zealand Salary review report that identified a 'love quotient' as the reason for a 10-20 percent difference in salaries between the public and private sectors and the not-for-profit sector. It got me thinking."
Dr Proctor-Thomson has completed her first of two sets of interviews with caregivers in the residential aged care sector and is finding that the compassion that caregivers show for older people gives them energy, motivation and resilience.
"Workers tell me 'Going to work is like coming home to family'.
"However, the very thing that motivates the workers – the relationships they have with colleagues and people who rely on them – can be undermined by ongoing measures taken by their employers to increase efficiency or reduce costs. Rotating shift work and increasing resident-to-worker ratios can put pressure on caregivers and limit the extent to which they can form relationships with their residents.
Caregivers receive low pay for the skilled and important work they carry out. The sector has relatively low levels of regulation and training, but has active trade union representation and a union campaign for equal pay for caregivers is active.
In comparison, workers in the adventure tourism industry such as tramping guides, snowboard and ski instructors have limited access to trade unions.
The work is typically seasonal, often low-paid and provides little stability but has lifestyle attractions.
Workers in design – the third area of Dr Proctor-Thomson's study – can sometimes earn good money but once again the work is precarious and often workers have to work long hours to finish a project to a tight timeframe.
"Workers in the three areas have different sets of employment conditions, and are motivated by different types of love or passion.
"My hope is that working out the relationship between what motivates such workers and how they cope with challenging work conditions will offer insight into how they might be best supported, organised and managed."