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HR & leadership: Jumping off the corporate treadmill and into the sea (or up a tree)
In 2001, demographer Bernard Salt explored the social ‘seachange' trend in his book The Big Shift, after the term was popularised in the high rating ABC Television series starring Sigrid Thornton. Salt argued the increasing popularity of the seachange was as much a cultural feature of the Australian nation (and its love affair with the beach) as it was a demographic move to the coast. At the same time, the term ‘treechange' also entered the Australian lexicon.

Last year, Charlie Nelson from Foreseechange wrote in Research News that ‘seachange' was one of the most glibly mentioned trends in recent history, based incorrectly on the observation that capital city Baby Boomers (the large generation born between 1946 and 1964) were the ones moving to the coast. To the contrary, Nelson points out that analysis in the ABS Australian Social Trends 2004 report reveals that less than one-third of new residents in the high growth coastal regions had moved from a capital city. The majority had moved from other large regional population centres or country areas. Furthermore, the peak age of adult new residents was under 30 - hardly stressed-out Baby Boomers. More likely they were young people unable to afford capital city house prices.

While the demographic profile of those who make a seachange/treechange may be far more diverse in reality (with your Research News managing editor being a good example of the deviation from the mean), there are perhaps other factors at play - certainly amongst researchers who have turned their backs on the major metropolitan centres.

Ashley Watt (who had been born and bred in country New South Wales), decided after seven years that he had had enough of living in the city when his wife was offered a position as a speech pathologist ‘back home in Narrabri', about 530km north west of Sydney. Unlike the other researchers with whom Research News spoke, Watt didn't quit his job and set out solo to make the move.

‘Colmar Brunton has always been very flexible in work arrangements; we have a number of mothers working part-time  still working for the company as well as a few other externally based employees.  When I raised the point that I was not happy with my current job and was looking for a change they were more than happy to try and accommodate me.'

(As well as working full-time for Colmar Brunton, Watt moonlights as a director of a local Narrabri event management company called Why Leave Town Promotions.)

James Parker's seachange to Coffs Harbour in 2004 was prompted by a job offer. When he was asked to manage a local Coffs Harbour newspaper, Parker and his wife thought it would be a good opportunity to experiment with the seachange experience. Later, in November 2006, he launched Jetty Research, a multi-disciplinary research company with a quantitative bias. Based at the local university campus (SCU), it includes a six-seat CATI research call centre employing predominantly postgraduate and senior undergraduate university students.

In many other cases, it is the desire to achieve a better work/life balance that prompts a move to regional Australia.

Independant researcher Julia Zivanovic, who relocated to Rockingham (40km south of Perth) in 2001, says: ‘I earned a six figure salary but wasn't getting to spend a lot of time with my husband, or on achieving personal goals, such as getting fitter, undertaking a PhD and doing more voluntary work, particularly with dog rescue. In short, the balance in my life was missing.'

Gabrielle Prior, from Wypye Consulting Services, made a seachange to Beechworth in northeast Victoria via Europe.

‘After working overseas (Denmark, UK) for more than five years it was time to come home, but city life had lost its appeal,' she explains. ‘I wanted to jump off the corporate treadmill and get a better work/life balance. We had the opportunity to buy a small acreage for less than the price of my Sydney townhouse so we took it.'

Doris Pozzi, director of Dorian Welles Pty Ltd, who divides her time between North Fitzroy and Kyneton, said the lure of the latte had diminished after 20 years of working in the city and she sought ‘peace, fresh air, nature, realness, simplicity, space, stillness, truth, quiet and harmony'.

However, as independent researcher Beth Dungey points out, a ‘seachange' is in many ways a state of mind, not a move defined by one's physical proximity to a major city.

‘Seachangers and treechangers capture the imagination, particularly the imagination of the press, but I suspect that there are a lot more SOHO (or suburban home office workers) out there than there are real seachangers and treechangers.

‘Practically speaking, and certainly by Sydney standards, I'm not at all remote (in fact by Sydney standards I'm positively inner suburbs). I'm working in the ‘burbs, from home.  I was made redundant just before having a baby and, like quite a few people I know, took advantage of a situation (a redundancy) to make a change - something they wouldn't have done or wouldn't have done quite so soon if the golden handshake hadn't been forthcoming.'

Broadband makes it possible
One of the most significant factors leading to an increase in the number of researchers making the move to coast or country was the promise of broadband being rolled out in regional Australia in the early ‘noughties'.

Dungey says email, phone, text and VoIP are all essential tools.

‘You need to replace the water cooler chats with other forms of communication.

‘The Independent Researchers Group (IRG) grapevine, an online bulletin board, is also useful. Attending functions becomes important for networking and connecting, not just for professional development.'

However, Watt says ‘working externally I also get frustrated with the slower internet speed and other technological issues like that.  I have a lot of down time due to this.'

Pozzi agrees one of the three biggest challenges is the lack of decent broadband in country areas (although another challenge is ‘enjoying being in the country too much that you don't want to come back to town at all'). Zivanovic faced the same challenge too, until she successfully lobbied her local MP for decent broadband.

Fortunately, at the same time broadband supposedly become more widely available, domestic airflights got cheaper and more frequent (although this trend has probably plateaued), while upgrades to the roads leading to them often makes commuting faster than it is in the city.

‘Given that I am only an hour flight away or even the six hour drive to me is not that hard, I can always get to Sydney easily whenever I need to have a face to face presence,' says Watt.

However, Dungey believes working outside the central business district (CBD) can give researchers a bit of an edge when it comes to understanding their research participants.

‘After 15 years working in the microcosm that is the CBD, I've realised we can sometimes trivialise the opinions of Betty from Balga or Murray from Maribyrnong because they are not like those we meet in the city. Working outside the CBD you meet these people on a daily basis and get to better understand them.'

When asked about the challenges outside the big smoke, Watt says it can be hard to find new clients. Prior agrees, adding that there is a limited range of clients with budgets to do research in regional areas.

‘I don't think my situation would work for everyone, however for me it works, but the days can get quite lonely and I feel that my emails after 3pm are usually quite loopy because of this.  But overall it is all about lifestyle and this is one both my wife and I enjoy,' says Watt.

Most, but not all, said their income had taken a dip but that it was balanced by lower costs of living.

Returning to the city a challenge
For qualitative researchers living in regional areas, Pozzi says doing groups in the evenings in town means deciding if you want to keep/arrange somewhere to stay in town or are willing to do a long drive home late in the evenings.

Zivanovic adds, ‘Having to attend meetings before or after normal working hours can be painful. For the other attendees they are often close by to their normal place of business but for me it's a 40Km trip back to the office.'  

Charlie Cochrane, from Charlie Cochrane Research and Planning, who relocated to the northern suburbs of Wollongong in 1998, agrees.

‘I would like to have a pied a terre in Sydney as well as my home down here. I shared a flat on Woolloomooloo for a time with a friend who was also living down here. It was great having a "the bolt-hole" in Sydney as we used to call it - even though it was tiny it was great for when we had evening commitments in Sydney plus work the next day and you could be up in the City easily for a duration.'

In addition to long travel times, Zivanovic also believes those who work in regional Australia lack access to the same training opportunities as employed colleagues.

‘The price of some courses and seminars, especially if it requires interstate travel, are hard to justify when you are self-employed. I overcame this by commencing a PhD and using my local library (attached to a university). Being a PhD student gives me free access to a wide range of professional development seminars and courses.'

Zivanovic, like many others, cannot imagine returning to a city job.

‘I think the adage is often said that if you are successful as a self employed person then the traits you need to have to gain that success usually make you a difficult employee. I think it would be hard for me to find an organisation that could ever give me what I have now - not just the money but the flexibility, the autonomy, the balanced life, the ability to pick and choose my work and to control my own destiny.'

Kerry Sunderland, managing editor, Research News

Beth Dungey says working from home (as many SOHO, seachangers and treechangers do) requires a certain discipline to ensure that you do maintain a separation between work and home. Everyone has his or her own tactics. They can include:
  • Dressing for work when at work (when Dungey's now eight year old daughter was three, she told her she didn't believe mum was going to work when she dropped her at day care as she had the wrong shoes on).
  • Turning off the computer, shutting the door and leaving the mobile in the ‘office' at ‘home time'.
  • Not answering the work phone outside ‘work hours' (and turning it down when you go to bed if you're working with people in other time zones who have the habit of calling at 3am).
  • Not answering work calls to the mobile outside ‘work hours'.
Of course, some of these could apply to city workers too.



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  • Topline
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    Research News   Edition index (December 2008)


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