While Ciccone thanked his parliamentary colleagues for creating a “family-friendly environment” in the Senate and encouraged other fathers to bring their kids to work, the fact Ciccone’s proud, baby-holding moment came seven years after Senator Larissa Waters became the first federal politician to bring her baby into the senate was a subtle reminder of the lag that remains in men accessing family-friendly workplace policies. 

This issue could be addressed thanks to changes in how workplaces are required to report to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. 

Most of us are well aware that the gender pay gaps of employers will be made public on the 27th of February when WGEA publishes such data from firms with 100 or more employees. But this is just one of several changes impacting workplaces that will ultimately affect employees with family responsibilities, thanks to the passage of the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023, aimed at enabling more accountability and transparency on workplace gender equality. 

From April 1, employers who report to WGEA (those with 100 or more team members) will be required to answer new mandatory questions and provide CEO pay details and remuneration numbers for those in Head of Business and Casual Manager roles. These employers will also be required to report on sexual harassment, harassment on the grounds of sex or discrimination. 

Employers with more than 500 or more team members must go a step further. In addition to providing the above details, these employers must include details of their policy or strategy for each of the six gender equality indicators. 

The six Gender Equality Indicators include: 

1. Gender composition of the workforce 
2. Gender composition of governing bodies
3. Equal remuneration between women and men 
4. Availability and utility of employment terms, flexible working arrangements, & support for family & caring responsibilities
5. Consultation with employees on gender equality in the workplace 
6. Sexual harassment, including harassment on the ground of sex or discrimination. 

WGEA has long aimed to address all six of these indicators in their reporting requirements, but these new changes will mark the first time that employers are required to have policies or strategies in place that address all of them in some way. 

All six play an important part in enabling gender equality, but the fourth GEI is particularly interesting for bringing down barriers those with family and caring responsibilities continue to come up against. 

The key word in this indicator is “utility”. Making flexible working arrangements and various support for family and caring responsibilities available is always a good step, but the more difficult and important step is ensuring such support mechanisms are actually used. This means directly reporting the number of employees using such policies and breaking it down according to areas like job level, gender and other relevant metrics. 

The results of WGEA’s 2022-23 Census, launched in November 2023, highlight the opportunity for stronger progress on areas like workplace flexibility and providing greater support to families. 

One area is on paid parental leave, where employers are increasingly evolving their policies to offer better primary and secondary carer leave, as well as much stronger initiatives around removing labels altogether to offer the same amount of leave to all new parents. But the uptick in men taking leave is not moving fast enough.  There was little change in the proportion of men taking paid parental leave in WGEA’s 2022-23 Census results, rising just 0.6 per cent to 14 per cent of those taking employer-funded paid primary carer’s leave. 

And while there has been significant progress around workplace flexibility in recent years, the WGEA results show that part time work is still being penalised when it comes to promotions and opportunities. Just seven per cent of management roles are part time, indicating a “part time promotions gap” which is a problem, particularly for women, given thirty per cent of women work part time. 

While employers have been making progress against most of the six gender equality indicators since 2013-14, when WGEA reporting requirements began, the progress is too slow. The game-changer now is for employers to report on their policies and how such policies and initiatives are actually being utilised, effectively measuring their impact on closing the gap.

At Family Friendly Workplaces, we’ve seen the power of recording and tracking the effectiveness of family-inclusive policies and practices to support employees in combining work and family commitments. Collecting such evidence sees family-friendly workplace policies and practices evolving to meet an organisation’s ESG and gender equality targets. Family-friendly policies, including flexible work, modern paid parental leave, inclusive leadership, family care and wellbeing initiatives, ultimately support gender equality efforts while making the workplace better for everything. 

Senator Raff Ciccone is one of countless dads keen on taking up workplace policies to make their work more family-friendly. In Ciccone’s case, Senate rules changed in 2016 to end a ban on children entering the house during divisions. The focus then was on allowing female MPs to breastfeed in the chamber, but really it’s an opportunity for all new parents to care for their children during the long proceedings when needed, and to also nomalise the mix of family and work for everyone. 

One thing is for certain, workplaces will need to stay ahead of the curve by by embracing family-friendly policies to improve gender equality outcomes to close the gap. 

You can read Family Friendly Workplaces’ free guide on transforming family-friendly policies and practices into gender equality solutions here. 

The post Time to end the lag in men accessing family-friendly workplace policies  appeared first on Women's Agenda.

That’s according to several commentators and surveys in recent weeks, highlighting how this office return will shape workplace trends in 2024. 

But employers pulling back on remote working options is just one of the battlegrounds set to reshape workplace culture this year in Australia. 

Other defining factors will stem from how employers respond to pay transparency, with the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) publishing the gender pay gaps of employers with more than 100 team members in late February. New legislation requirements around Respect@Work and WHS psycho-social hazards have also come into effect. 

There is also greater demand and attention on employers to address domestic and family violence, rethink paid and unpaid leave options, better support the differing inter-generational employee health, care and wellbeing needs, and address the impact of the cost of living crisis on team members. 

One thing for sure is that how effectively employers choose to rise to meet these modern workplace standards and measure the impact will define their ability to future-proof their workforce.  

As such, some of the workplace trends predicted  for 2024 will present an opportunity for the most attuned employers to secure an advantage for sustaining their workforce to underpin growth and productivity. 

Here’s what the best and smartest employers will do in 2024. 

Document and demonstrate flexibility in hybrid and return-to-work mandates 

The ‘fair’ employers encouraging more employees to work from the office more in 2024 will do so by offering a compelling reason for making the trip that doesn’t rely on unfair incentives that create a growing opportunity gap between those who can and can’t easily access and afford to work from an office due to care and proximity factors. 

They will also offer clear and documented flexibility guidelines for managers to ensure their teams are not being unfairly impacted by hybrid work structures. Employees should be given long notice periods on any mandated changes with enough time to adjust their current arrangements. They should also have access to emergency care offerings to support their care responsibilities. 

Meanwhile, fair employers will also plan and get creative around how they bring their people together for in-person opportunities. They will ensure there is purpose in asking their people to commute and recognise that commuting for ‘presenteeism-sake’ is not cost or time-effective.

Publish clear budgets and targets to close gender pay gaps 

Employers are preparing for the impact of having their gender pay gaps made public, with WGEA promising to release such figures for employers with more than 100 team members in February. 

Facing internal and potential public backlash, we expect employers to move fast to mitigate and downplay the issue. 

But fair employers will respond to pay inequality in direct and straightforward ways. They will publish and acknowledge the gaps, highlight how they are introducing accountability measures to sort it out and outline a budget to be spent on closing the worst of such gaps immediately. 

Address employee mental health and loneliness 

Employers must consider the mental health of team members in ways that go beyond offering access to Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs). 

While reactive measures provided through EAPs are still important, in 2024 the best employers will issue more proactive avenues for addressing and measuring mental health. This could come through initiatives to mitigate the risk of burnout and overwork, training for managers and team members and putting greater effort into job design, limiting hours of work and ways of working smarter not harder. 

Loneliness is a related and growing concern for employers, particularly given 2023 research finding that one in six Australians feel “extremely lonely”, with those aged 18 to 24 most likely to report feeling often or always lonely, at 38 per cent.

Addressing loneliness shouldn’t be an excuse to demand team members return to the office, but it could see employers using in-person meetups and events to check in on mental health, create physical connections, and support relationship-building between team members. 

Calm Business suggests several strategies for employers to address loneliness, including specific empathy training for managers to foster an environment of psychological safety, benchmarking and tracking loneliness in the organisation, rewarding employees for supporting others and creating and supporting initiatives like social clubs, employee resource groups, and opportunities to support inclusion and belonging. 

More emphasis and clarity on the ‘S’ in ESG 

When it comes to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) frameworks, companies have typically focused on the environmental and governance factors and an overall sustainability approach. 

In 2024, the smarter employers will put more consideration into the ‘S’ in ESG: that being the ‘Social’ aspect that runs through to the HR departments and DEI teams and sees employers striving to create a “Socially Responsible Workplace” that understands their role in supporting employees to balance their paid work with their care and family responsibilities. 

As we have found in surveying hundreds of organisations measured against the National Work + Family Standards, most employers find they have work to do to address this social aspect of ESG, in fact two-thirds fail the initial benchmarking assessment. 

Increasingly, we will see ESG frameworks incorporating the move to support team members, especially through things like elevating the importance (while improving policies) of paid parental leave, support for new parents, and supporting those with a wide range of caring responsibilities. 

In enabling flexibility, the best employers will further develop guides and training to embed flexible work practices across their full organisational hierarchy. They will further encourage more fathers to take paid parental leave after initially removing ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ and gender labels on their PPL policies. They will better formalise and communicate their care-related policies and establish clear formal family mental health and wellbeing policies. They will create opportunities to support team members with referrals and access to services that can support their families, such as aged care services, disability services and childcare services. And they will formalise and budget to provide emergency backup care options for team members. 

The ‘S’ in ESG may come into conflict with other predictions for 2024 – such as the expectation that more workplaces will demand team members return to the office more days each week. However, the best employers will see the opportunity to elevate their move to be more socially responsible. 

Opportunities to learn and play with AI 

The AI revolution took a firm hold in 2023 and the focus is set to get stronger in 2024.

Many businesses already leverage AI to improve productivity, respond to customers and produce and test products. 

The smarter employers will take active measures to allow team members to learn more about how AI can support their work, experiment with it, and offer information and knowledge on what more they can be doing to understand AI in line with their future career aspirations. 

These employers should also be able to respond to and anticipate concerns around AI-related job losses – to give team memes reassurances and otherwise the opportunity for upskilling and training in different areas where their jobs may be at risk of AI in the future. 

Training and rewarding managers on empathy 

This year’s best employers will actively support and enable leaders to develop and deploy their skills in communication, conflict resolution and empathy. 

These so-called “soft” skills complement all other trends mentioned above. They are necessary for supporting team members’ mental health and care-related responsibilities, dealing with changes around remote work, and supporting hybrid and disparate teams. These skills are also necessary for work increasingly dominated by AI. 

Empathy is especially critical for leaders to build truly collaborative, open teams that trust each other and not only respect the differences their colleagues bring but actually see such differences as critical to decision-making. 

Position leadership as critical for embedding family-friendly work practices 

Great workplace policies are only as good as the leaders who support them. 

In 2024, we will see the most family-friendly employers in Australia focusing on the role of all levels of leadership in supporting the robust policies they have been developing and evolving over the past few years. 

Leadership around workplace policies starts with supporting and actively communicating the why behind such policies and also involves leaders demonstrating how they are accessing and using workplace flexibility and paid leave options. 

Seek regular feedback from employees and act on it 

Feedback is tough to hear but necessary for an employer to respond to the changing needs of their workforce.

Regular feedback allows employers to respond to continued economic change, understand if current initiatives are delivering, and identify risks and weak spots across the organisation. That’s why one key trend we’ll see from the best employers will be robust and regular evaluation processes, like utilising the Family Friendly Workplaces benchmarking assessment and commitments to act on the findings. 

If more employers act on some or all of the trends mentioned above, we’ll have a much happier, more diverse and more productive Australian workforce. Great leadership can make it happen. 

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“I remember years ago at a place I worked at, a man was taking two weeks parental leave and the boss said, ‘oh, do you need to take some time off to breastfeed?” 

Speaking to The Project, she recalled hearing the comment and immediately knowing it would have a “lasting impact” while also saying a lot about the workplace’s culture. 

Does such stigma prevail in 2023 Australian workplaces? Not everywhere, but definitely in some places. 

The latest data on men taking leave shows just how significant the issue is. 

Overall, 2023 has been a game-changing year for paid parental leave in Australia, with the Albanese Government’s extended Commonwealth funded scheme coming into effect in June, as well as another jump in the proportion of employers offering gender-neutral paid parental leave that is free from limiting ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ carer labels. 

The latest data from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency released at the end of November and based on more than 5000 employers with 100 or more employees, highlights where paid parental leave access is improving, and where employers are seeing the value of supporting more diverse experiences of parenting and caring. 

But the data also provides some hints about how stigma and entrenched workplace cultures might be holding men back from taking leave. 

Of the employers that do offer paid parental leave, there was a nine per cent increase in 2022-23 in workplaces offering gender-neutral and label-free leave, or “universal paid parental leave” as WGEA refers to it. WGEA described this as a “hopeful” sign that employers are starting to understand the importance of removing carer labels. 

But WGEA also found that male-dominated industries were still far less likely to offer universal leave than female-dominated industries, meaning many male workers are missing out in areas like Manufacturing and Transport, Postal and Warehousing.  

Meanwhile, the proportion of employers offering some form of paid parental leave in addition to the government-funded leave hardly budged in the reporting period, rising just one percentage point from 62 to 63 per cent in 2022-23. 

Yet, even where paid parental leave is being offered and made more accessible, men are still not taking much of it. 

Overall, men accounted for just 14 per cent of all paid primary carer’s parental leave taken, just a tiny increase of 0.6 per cent. This is despite a growing number of men having the option to take leave funded by their employers. As WGEA Director Mary Wooldridge said on this gap in men being offered but not taking paid parental leave, having good and well-intentioned policies are just the start. “The real hard work comes in changing the culture and the environment, addressing any stigma or underlying stereotypes that inhibit those policies being taken up and put into place.”

Unfortunately, the trend in men taking government-funded paid parental leave also isn’t encouraging. New government figures recently released show the scheme was accessed by 170,200 women in 2022, compared with just 1,020 men. The data shows that 87,895 men accessed the two-week “dad and partner pay”, which has since been removed for the reformed scheme, compared to 745 women. 

Also limiting men and an overall shift in access to PPL are continued vast divides in who has access to PPL, with the WGEA data showing employees can not only be limited by their gender and carer status, but also limited by the size of the business they happen to work for. 

Almost nine in ten (87 per cent) of businesses in the 5000 plus employee range are offering paid primary carers or universally available parental leave, compared with just 57 per cent in the 100 to 246 employee range, and a total figure across all sized employees of 63 per cent. 

Although we don’t have WGEA data on business with less than 100 team members, we know that startups and small businesses can struggle to offer paid parental leave, given concerns about resourcing such policies.

There are also concerns that employers are seeing the government scheme as “enough” for new parents, which goes against expectations from the prime minister earlier this year that employers should step up to complement the system. Forty five per cent of those employers that don’t offer PPL say it’s because the “government scheme is sufficient”. But it’s not. Australia still has one of the least generous paid parental leave schemes when compared to most other OECD nations with an average of over 52 weeks leave on offer.

The uptake of paid parental leave for men is a critical component for shifting entrenched social expectations and creating a stronger environment of shared care. Men need to see role models taking parental leave and role models again highlighting what it means to “share the care”: working flexibly, part time, being open and proud about taking time out for kids. 

So, when men can access the leave, what’s stopping them from doing so? 

First up, there’s the gender pay gap, and the fact men are so often in higher-paid positions. The WGEA data uncovered a 21.7 per cent total remuneration gender pay gap. Men are also still far more likely to be in senior leadership roles, accounting for 78 per cent of CEOs, 59 per cent of senior management positions. 

But there is also the workplace stigma, social norms and entrenched gender stereotypes standing in the way of men taking paid parental leave and even going on to work in part time and flexible positions.  The reality is men need to feel it’s ‘safe’ to take parental leave and many don’t. Fearful that their role, status or performance review will be negatively impacted if they take leave.

Labels matter. While the Federal Government recently rescinded the reference to primary and secondary carer provisions when PPL changes were introduced from July this year, many employer PPL policies still make employees distinguish between being a primary or secondary carer. This has a knock-on effect on how leave and caring duties will be split and shared at home and often, inadvertently, pigeon-hole women as primary carers, and men as having ‘less’ caring responsibilities at home.

There is the fact that men in smaller businesses are less likely to have access to any kind of employer-paid parental leave — an issue that also impacts women, but could put the onus on women to take more unpaid leave regardless of what sized business she works in. 

And there is the entrenched history and expectations we continue to carry regarding who does the care work, despite such expectations coming in sharp contrast to the dramatic increase in women’s workforce participation. 

Many advocates agree on the need for men to be better supported to take parental leave as one of the most important levers government and workplaces have to improve gender equality outcomes, while also benefiting the health and development of children.  Parents At Work has released its latest white paper outlining how employers can adopt a gender neural PPL scheme and is calling on workplaces to benchmark their PPL policy against best practices standards to champion greater Family Friendly Workplaces.

Employers can help change this starting with benchmarking their parental leave policies and practices against The National Work + Family Standards. There is also a business case guide for employers on Advancing Shared Care in Australia through Paid Parental Leave which highlights how employers can contribute to changing how we approach parental leave in Australia.

The post Men are increasingly offered paid parental leave so why are they not taking it?  appeared first on Women's Agenda.

All too often, when the topic of supporting carers in the workplace is raised, the conversation quickly starts and ends with a focus on women and babies. Wider caring responsibilities of employees often don’t get a look in sadly. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no denying investment in parental leave support is critical to improving children’s wellbeing and development, women’s health, attachment to the workforce and gender equality efforts.  But we can’t pretend or ignore that our employees don’t have wider caregiving needs. 

In reality, most of us will either need to care for someone, or be cared for by someone else, in our lifetime. With an aging workforce, aging population and 1 in 2 Australians living with a chronic health condition, caregiving is everyone’s business and workplaces need to prepare for caring needs of their workforce to rise in the coming decades steeply.

There are an estimated 2.8 million informal personal carers in Australia, with around 906,000 of those being primary carers. Projections suggest the national demand for carers will rise 23% by 2030. These carers play an essential role in society. Their role as a carer can come up suddenly and unexpectedly. The majority of carers say they didn’t have a choice about whether or not they would take on the role, according to research by Carers Australia. 

If we were to replace the informal care work these carers undertake with formal market services, the cost would be a massive $77.9 billion, according to 2020 analysis – and that’s a figure that does not even include accommodation costs. 

But often lost in this conversation is the significant impact to income and retirement savings that comes from being a carer – an impact that further contributes to the gender gap in superannuation and retirement savings.

A report by Evaluate, commissioned by Carers Australia, found that when a primary carer turns 67 their superannuation balance is reduced by around $17,700 for every year that they are a primary carer, while their lifetime income earnings is reduced by $39,600 for every such year. 

Like other aspects of care, it is women who are more likely to do this work, making up 71.8 per cent of primary carers, according to Carers Australia. The number of carers is also increasing, growing 5.5 per cent from 2018 to 2020, due to changing demographics. 

Meanwhile, carers often do this role alongside employment, with a 59.5 per cent workforce participation rate for carers, according to data from the Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers. 

So how can we shift the conversation at work to ensure that carers are better supported?  

It starts by understanding who carers are, why support is so necessary, and then understanding their broad range of needs. 

Who are Carers? 

Carers are defined by the Commonwealth Carer Recognition Act (2010) as being individuals who provide personal care, support and other assistance to another individual who needs it because that other individual has a disability, a medical condition (including terminal or chronic illness), a mental illness, or is frail and aged. This definition does not include those who provide care as part of paid work or voluntary work, or as part of requirements for a course of education or training. 

Importantly, the Act notes that all carers should have the same rights, choices and opportunities as other Australians. In highlighting the role that children and young people have in being carers, it also declares that all children and young people should be supported to reach their full potential, and declares that “valuable social and economic contribution that carers make to society should be recognised and supported.” 

Critically, the Act states that carers “should be supported to achieve greater economic wellbeing and sustainability and, where appropriate, should have opportunities to participate in employment and education.”

Being a carer and an employee

Carers can face challenges staying in the paid workforce and re-entering the paid workforce and managing their health and wellbeing while taking on paid and unpaid roles. 

So how can employers support these carers? 

First, employers should consider the opportunity to tap into this workforce, where carers are available. Employers can also consider programs and mechanisms for carers to re-enter the workforce, especially when they are no longer classified as a carer – a point where they may have spent considerable time out of the paid workforce, but have learned significant skills regardless. 

Employers must also take stock of the fact the majority of carers are women, and that offering further support to this segment will ultimately also support them in broadening their potential talent pool and meeting any gender-based targets they have. 

As for those supporting carers already in the workforce, many employers will have policy frameworks in place to support carers, but such mechanisms may not be getting used to their full capacity, or may not be flexible enough to support the wide range of carer needs. 

Also challenging for employers in addressing carers is the fact those with such responsibilities cross into all groups, ages, levels and job types across an organisation. In many cases, individuals also don’t identify themselves as carers. In some cases again, these carers may feel their responsibilities outside of paid work are invisible and lack recognition. It may be difficult to articulate their situation to colleagues or managers who typically look to clear-cut policies designed for caring for children. They may find the flexibility they need is more ad hoc or more challenging to plan out and predict, to that of parenting responsibilities. Carers can also deal with the unknown: supporting people in ways they have little to no experience in managing previously, and venturing into administrative work for the first time. 

Carer wellbeing is also a concern, with this cohort of Australians being two and a half times more likely to have low well-being than the average Australian adult (at 55.2 per cent to 25.4 per cent), according to a survey of 5992 carers aged 13 or older by Carers Australia. They are likelier to experience significant health problems, loneliness and financial hardship than the average Australian. The 2022 Carer Wellbeing Survey found that the risks of poor well-being and health increased somewhat between 2021 and 2022 for carers in the 25 to 44-year-old age group and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers. 

In paid employment, the CWS identified further challenges carers face, including working fewer hours than they want, challenges with accessing flexibility (with 22.8 per cent reporting no flexibility), and just half of carers in the workforce saying they felt they could discuss their carer roles with their manager or employer at any time. Almost one in seven (15.8 per cent) say they have not disclosed their caring obligations to their supervisor, with younger carers more likely not to disclose this. 

Clearly, there are opportunities for employers to identify the needs of carers across their workforces and also to open more opportunities for team members to discuss and share such needs. 

In some cases, employers can support team members with paid services that can help carry some of the administrative and mental load of being a carer. Navigating the NDIS and the aged care system, for example, can be complex and require significant research and appointments. Employers can consider offering access to services that provide roadmaps and guides to such systems, and even care concierges who can support team members who might be going through the process for the first time. 

There are opportunities for policymakers too, to not only offer more support mechanisms to carers for addressing things like isolation and time pressures, but also for addressing the cost carers can carry into retirement – such as through the introduction of a Superannuation Guarantee Contribution for the Carer Payment, as well as an increase in the Carer Allowance, as recommended by Carers Australia. 

Overall, the 2022 Carer Wellbeing Survey found that those carers with access to support had fewer health and financial challenges and higher wellbeing – indicating the power of employers and policymakers taking up the opportunity to offer greater support. 

Developing and promoting an inclusive carer’s policy is one of the first practical things employers can do to be more carer-friendly.   

Carers are critical to society. Their work and responsibilities can often be invisible behind closed doors. But we all have a responsibility to support them better. 

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As employers look to invest in greater diversity, equity and inclusion policies, the phrase ‘bring your whole self to work’ is often promoted as central to the workplace culture the organisation is trying to foster. 

But without an inclusive leadership culture, these policies will fall well short of their potential. 

And you don’t have to look far to see the result of employers failing on inclusive leadership, even from those with generous policies and the best intentions of being socially progressive.  

Take parental leave policies for instance. Twenty years since being outlawed in Australia, pregnancy and caring discrimination continues to linger (both out in the open and behind closed doors) across employers large and small, and it is acutely felt by new parents pre, during and post parental leave, especially when returning to work. Likewise, for those caring for loved ones with a disability, long term illness and aging relatives.

New data from the University of South Australia, released in August, found that 60 per cent of mothers returning to work after parental leave believe their opinions are often ignored, that they feel excluded, and are given unmanageable workloads. Incredibly, many workplaces still lack basic facilities to support new mothers, with a quarter of those surveyed saying their workplace does not provide appropriate breastfeeding facilities. 

Further, the UniSA researchers found that one in five new mothers were refused their requests to work flexible hours or from home. Thirty per cent of pregnant women surveyed said they received no information about their leave entitlements. 

Almost a quarter (23 per cent) of women said they felt they needed to hide their pregnant belly at work, and 13 per cent of respondents said they were treated so badly during their pregnancy, leave, or after returning to work, that they had no option but to resign. 

Similarly, mothers are not alone, other studies show fathers also report feeling a lack of access and empowerment to be involved in caring duties including utilising flexible work, parental leave and caring policies to contribute to their caring responsibilities because it isn’t culturally acceptable, or safe to do so, in their workplace.

The above results are often symptomatic of a failure of inclusive leadership, not necessarily the policy itself.

It’s fair to say that even those employers who offer great parental leave policies aren’t immune from instances of overt and covert caring discrimination.  Employees often report that it’s their relationship with their manager, how understanding and inclusive they are, that makes or breaks the policy intentions.

Whilst workplaces often focus on policy inclusions when designing them, employees are often being left short-changed and let down by leaders ill-equipped and trained to manage the diverse and inclusive needs of their people.

Who are the inclusive leaders? 

Inclusive leadership is the foundation of underpinning a workplace culture that cares for its people, its customers and its community.

Inclusive leaders recognise the need for policies, and embrace practices that ensure those announcing a pregnancy, taking leave or returning from leave have the options in place to provide the best possible transition to becoming a working parent. 

Inclusive leaders support and enable a workplace culture that encourages all team members to navigate work and life commitments effectively. Inclusive leaders create workplaces where it’s widely understood that there is a zero-tolerance policy to harassment and discrimination of all forms, including against pregnant women, new parents, and anyone with caring responsibilities. 

Inclusive leaders will proactively recognise the challenging periods and moments that matter to an employee and pre-empt where and how they may need extra support. These leaders will listen to the needs of employees, and will actively engage to determine what, if any, issues are cropping up that may be creating barriers and address them.

Inclusive leadership is an emerging area, but one that’s essential for meeting the modern demands of the workplace. 

But few leaders have these skills. Just five per cent of the 24,000 leadership assessments by consulting firm Korn Ferry resulted in leaders classified as “inclusive” – meaning barely one in 20 leaders have this skill.

This is despite separate research by Harvard Business Review finding that the number one determinant of an “inclusive workplace” is leadership, ahead of an employer’s mission, policies, practices and co-worker behaviours. March 2020 research found that what leaders “say and do” makes up to a 70 per cent difference as to whether an individual reports feeling included or not. 

Proactive over reactive 

Other recent studies highlight the importance of inclusive leadership for enabling diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) generally across an organisation. Elizabeth Broderick’s recent review of the culture at EY, called following the tragic death of Aishwarya Venkat, highlighted how even in big firms with competitive employee benefit policies and HR resources, people can feel excluded. 

One key finding from Broderick’s report into EY was on just how variable leadership was across the firm, with some employees experiencing “exceptional leadership” and others experiencing “sub-optimal leadership”, resulting in each person’s experience being shaped by the “leadership lottery”. 

Broderick’s review surveyed 4,500 current and former EY employees across Australia and New Zealand, finding that one in four do, at times, feel excluded. It found that 15 per cent of employees have experienced bullying in the past five years, while ten per cent had experienced bullying, and eight per cent had experienced racism. 

Among Broderick’s 27 recommendations is to review key performance indicators to include expectations that all leaders achieve a certain level of people leadership capability, including in leading diverse teams, in order to be eligible for progression. 

Broderick also suggests introducing further measures for accountability on staff retention, such as by sharing the cost of excessive turnover back to the service line. Additional recommendations include developing the firm’s approach to leadership through training, coaching and mentoring on people leadership, including ensuring that leaders gain awareness of the impact of their style on those they work with. 

As Broderick notes in the EY report, “Leaders at all levels of an organisation establish and influence the culture, but committed and courageous leadership at the top, where power is concentrated, is particularly critical for driving any cultural transformation process.”

We’ve seen at Family Friendly Workplaces how leaders who embrace inclusion become champions for change. They inspire others to follow, and they create workplaces that support the mental health, safety and wellbeing of employees and their families. 

Too often, we see employers relying on Employee Assistance Programs to address issues that emerge in the workplace, alongside office perks like free lunches, gym memberships, yoga rooms or one-off office days and initiatives, like the upcoming (and still very valuable) ‘R U OK Day’. While these initiatives do have a place, they often sit on the side of reactionary approaches, and/or put too much onus on the individual to try and sort themselves out. 

Employers need to be proactive and see the responsibility they have for their own workplace cultures. They need to focus on ‘prevention’ rather than attempting to cure issues that occur, and that’s where inclusive leadership is so important. 

Teaching inclusive leadership

So can inclusive leadership be taught? We believe it can, especially with so much research and analysis now available on how to promote these skills, and given the analysis now available on leaders who have successfully led with this approach. 

According to Dr Juliet Bourke from the University of NSW Business School, there are six core pillars of inclusive leadership. Leaders who embody these principles can drive cultural change. They can improve employee engagement and also achieve better business outcomes. Helpfully, these pillars all begin with the letter ‘C’, and include curiosity, cultural intelligence, collaboration, commitment, courage, and cognisance.

This form of leadership intentionally seeks out, listens to, and acts on diverse perspectives. Under this approach, leaders will make equity a workplace priority, challenge bias and behaviour (including language) that lacks inclusivity. They will understand the need to accommodate different needs and communication styles. They will recognise that every individual has varying priorities and responsibilities. They will be aware of the need for workplace flexibility and will actively demonstrate working flexibly themselves.  

Achieving all of the above obviously takes a huge effort, an open mind and a continual appetite for learning and self-discovery. But the benefits are enormous for what an inclusive leader can personally achieve, as well as the value they bring to others and their organisations.

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For a child born or adopted from July 1 2023, the Commonwealth-funded Paid Parental Leave is up to 20 weeks (or 100 payable days). The payment is flexible, meaning eligible families can claim it in multiple blocks until the child turns two. There is no longer a requirement to return to work to be eligible for the entitlement. Changes expand eligibility and purportedly give families more choice in how they share the leave. Notably, references to defining parents as a ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ carer have been removed.

But many experts agree, the much-needed PPL changes do not go far enough and argue that they won’t deliver the transformation required to encourage men to take up the leave. To achieve paid-parental leave equality and see the benefits of parents better sharing care loads, it will take both the government, and employers, to seriously invest in funding, advocacy and education to shift the current status-quo.

What do we mean by shared care in this context? It means establishing a foundation supporting fathers to take extended periods of paid parental leave where they can bond with their child, take part in their early care, and then continue to play a strong role in the unpaid work at home. 

Achieving better balance in care helps everyone. Fathers get more valuable time with their children, mothers have better opportunities to pursue paid work and their careers, children benefit from stronger connections with their parents, and the country sees an uptick in GDP thanks to greater women’s workforce participation. The business case is powerful for the nation, just as it is powerful for employers to promote policies that can promote shared care to assist in attracting and retaining the best possible talent.

Australia has a long way to go in achieving this balance. Just 12 per cent of those taking employer-paid ‘primary’ carer’s leave are men, according to the latest data from the 2022 data from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, despite more than half of employers now offering it to men and women. The ABS previously reported that dads account for just 5 per cent of those taking the government-funded PPL on offer for primary carers. Seventy percent of women, compared with 42.4 per cent of men, are participating in housework, and women are spending three hours and 34 minutes a day in childcare-related activities, compared to 2 hours and 19 minutes for men. 

Meanwhile, fathers continue to face stigma and barriers around taking on this care. Last week, new research from the Gidget Foundation found that only one in three new fathers felt well supported by their workplace after having a child, with only one in five feeling supported during their partner’s pregnancy. 

Shared parental leave policies can help to narrow these gaps, foster an equal division of unpaid care and paid work, and improve the work-life balance of families. 

The minimal increase to the number of weeks available under the Commonwealth-funded paid parental leave scheme from 1 July is to be followed by further incremental increases to reach 26 weeks by the year 2026. This leave continues to be paid at the minimum wage. There is no requirement for employers to top up.  

Unfortunately, even when elevated to 26 weeks, Australia still falls well behind the world leading nations on paid parental leave – who also happen to be world leaders on gender equality, according to the latest Gender Gap Index, from the World Economic Forum. Iceland, Norway and Finland took the top three spaces on this Index, with all three boasting PPL schemes that pay new parents more than a year of PPL, at around 80 per cent of a parent’s wage. These countries also boast strong ‘use it or lose it’ provisions to encourage Dads to take leave by making it financially viable to do so. 

Back in Australia, the childcare reform package introduced this month is another small step towards enabling more parents to share the care, in that it should make additional days of care more affordable for families.  

Too often, we hear of mothers in dual-parent, heterosexual households cutting back on work days or deciding not to return to work due to childcare costs making it “not worth it”. While such costs should always be considered shared in such a household, a number of factors lead many mothers to see this as their cost to weigh up, when determining whether additional paid work makes financial sense. Those factors include mothers earning less than fathers, and mothers being more likely to already work part time or be returning to work following a career break. 

The childcare reform package with the changes to the subsidy that will appear in payments from 10 July will make a real impact on making it easier for mothers to pick up additional days of work, or perhaps pursue early childhood education opportunities for their child for the first time. The result? The opportunity to better share in paid work and ultimately better share the care. 

So what next for promoting shared care in Australia? It’s unlikely we’re going to have further significant government-backed reform to paid parental leave in the near future. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has previously acknowledged that his government’s legislated changes are a “national minimum standard” and a foundation for a wider system, with “enlightened employers” competing to offer working parents the best possible deal. 

It’s clear, the government is expecting employers to step in, and we need them to.

Employers funding PPL is on the rise.  Many are adjusting their policies to meet the expectations of modern families and to attract and retain talent. This includes removing ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ carer labels, eliminating previous tenure requirements to ensure such leave is offered from day one on the job, and paying superannuation during periods of parental leave.  But it’s not just funding and flexibility that’s needed, we need employers to double down on pregnancy and carer discrimination that persists in workplaces.  Gender bias around caring responsibilities is not only harmful to women’s workforce participation, pay and leadership representation, it hurts men too when they are excluded from care-giving.  Men will not take parental leave if they do not feel it is ‘safe’ or affordable to do so.

Now is the time for more employers to recognise the business case for PPL and to do a health check on what they are currently offering to see how they can complement the government’s paid scheme. 

We must also continue to advocate for greater commitment from government to increase PPL funding beyond 2026 to be more in line with the OECD average of 53 weeks and to pursue a universal early childhood education system that delivers for Australian families and educators, not only for the sake of our future generation, but also for our economic growth.

Parents At Work have today released the Whitepaper Advancing Shared Care in Australia through Paid Parental Leave: The business case for employers to take action. The Whitepaper helps employers to understand the current state of play and what they can change to evolve policies that support their people but also their business.

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The Voice referendum provides an opportunity for our nation to talk about our constitution and how it can be improved to reflect on what is means to be a truly ‘inclusive’ nation. It’s time to deeply examine our relationship with the past and our current treatment of First Nations people and to invest in shaping the future for a better, more reconciled Australia.  

That’s why we need every Australian to actively engage in and be informed about the referendum and undoubtedly it is employers who have the most vital role to play in this education. It’s now time for workplaces to step up, get off the fence and get involved. 

To be clear, I believe in a fair, equitable and inclusive Australia for all. For me, that means supporting a Voice to Parliament as a pathway to help achieve this for First Nations People.  

As an employer, I believe wholeheartedly in the responsibly and opportunity I have to help inform what the referendum can deliver for Australia, our community and our workplaces by acting on constitutional recognition for First Nations Australians; that this is a gift for all Australians, now and for generations to come.

Encouragingly, the number of organisations publicly and actively demonstrating their support for The Voice is growing, but many are still seemingly weighing up their positions.

Some of the more prominent declarations of support for the Yes campaign have come from sporting codes, including the NRL, AFL, Tennis Australia, Football Australia, the Australian Olympic Committee and Netball Australia. Rugby Australia gave their resounding support in a full page in the Sydney Morning Herald declaring, “The Voice is not about division, it’s about union”. 

Many of the country’s biggest employers have also publicly backed the Yes campaign including ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Woolworths, Coles, BHP and Rio Tinto. Big four accounting firms and some of the country’s largest law firms including Baker McKenzie, Hall & Wilcox, King & Wood Mallesons, Gilbert + Tobin and Ashurst have also backed The Voice. And a number of Universities too are promoting their Yes stance, including ANU, UNSW and the University of Wollongong. 

In some cases, big employers have committed to rolling out in-house educational campaigns in the lead-up to the vote, including EY, which has also given its “full support” to the Voice. 

Last week more than 110 migrant and cultural community organisations signed a joint resolution declaring their support for The Voice, noting it as a great opportunity for the nation to come together. Meanwhile, 144 civil society organisations have launched the Allies for Uluru Coalition, a collaboration to actively show their support for the Yes vote, with groups like Greenpeace, the Human Rights Council of Australia and Beyond Blue on the list. 

The above organisations and coalitions backing The Voice cover huge segments of Australia – either through employing Australians, delivering services to them, and/or touching into the community and the activities Australians cherish, such as through sport. 

Still, many employers have said nothing or very little, perhaps hesitating on making such a stance. Many smaller sized businesses believe there is no need to get involved at all. 

In leading Family Friendly Workplaces, we see this referendum as an opportunity for employers to demonstrate this social responsibility, and send a message to those who identify strong Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) as critical to where they invest and spend their money, and who they will work for and do business with. 

Critically, we also see the link between the Yes campaign and demonstrating a commitment to families, children and the next generation. We are constantly reiterating the need for employers to see how they influence all segments of the community– especially children–with their workplace policies. 

Be it paid parental leave, flexible work or something else, we are always encouraging employers to see the diversity of families they ultimately have a connection to, through their employees, customers, clients and stakeholders. Supporting The Voice, too, is an opportunity to extend this work, and to take their place in building a better Australia. 

I know many HR leaders are currently concerned that backing the Yes vote could be perceived as if they are telling employees how to vote. They should trust that employees have the skills and agency to ultimately make up their own minds when they go to the ballot box. But as an employer, backing the Yes vote shows they are for action and positive change, and that they are demonstrating the importance of inclusion and social responsibility. 

As the Uluru Statement from the Heart says: “When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to the country.” 

This is an incredible vision for Australia, that any employer committed to families should back.

We acknowledge and support the Uluru Statement from the Heart. It is a gift and invitation to all Australians to unite together in reconciliation. We say YES to reconciliation and a Voice to Parliament for First Nations people. 

Together, as a unified nation, we can improve the lives of all families today, and of generations to come, for “a reconciled tomorrow”. 

You can read Family Friendly Workplaces’ full Voice for Reconciliation Statement here. 

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For the ‘Social’ aspect of ESG, there are clear opportunities available for organisations to do more on addressing diversity, equity and inclusion, and especially how their working conditions are impacting employee health and safety. Employers must strive to be Socially Responsible Workplaces that understand their role in supporting employees to balance their paid work with the care and family responsibilities they have outside of work. 

So how can and should they do this? Since launching Family Friendly Workplaces two years ago, we’ve assessed 345 employers – including some of the biggest employers in Australia – against key benchmarks of being family-friendly.

These are organisations that have approached us with a demonstrated interest in addressing just how their policies stack up against the fundamentals of what it means to be family-friendly in Australia in 2023. Although just a third have now met such benchmarks, a willingness to see how they stack up against best practice principles should be commended. 

Of those 345 orgnisations measured against the National Work + Family Standards, 104 have now been certified or are currently in the progress of being certified. 

What this shows is that most organisations that open themselves up to be benchmarked against these standards find that they have work to do, and – in many cases – they are willing to make the changes required to meet the requirements. 

Increasingly, we are seeing more small to medium-sized businesses stepping up to determine how family-friendly they are and what they can do to achieve certification. This is an excellent sign, as the majority of Australians work for these businesses, and typically they fall behind larger employers on workplace policies like paid parental leave, flexible work, and other areas. 

Launched in partnership with UNICEF Australia in 2021, alongside other corporate and community advocates, the Family Friendly Workplaces standards and certification program measures employers against the National Work + Family Standards, to provide a benchmark of minimum and best practice guidelines. 

Two years later, and now with employers of all sizes across almost all industries having been assessed, we now have valuable data to learn how employer priorities on creating family-inclusive workplaces are shifting. We published the first of this data in our Bridging Work and Family Divide Report in 2022, with an update on this data released today. 

Our latest data reveals positive trends on how workplaces are creating more family-inclusive environments. 

One such trend is that flexibility is continuing to be supported and normalised, with more than 95% of organisations providing their employees with guides and training to embed flexible work practice in action across the organisational hierarchy, job types and location. That’s up from 88% from our previous data, covering the 2021-22 period. 

Also positive is that paid parental leave is becoming less gendered, with 86% of organisations promoting gender-equal access to PPL in this year, compared to 74% previously. And almost 50% of PPL policies include paying superannuation on parental leave. 

However, this past year of assessments also highlighted a number of key challenges that remain. 

We see an opportunity for caring policies to be formalised and better communicated, given just one-third of organisations formally include caring needs as part of the HR and Diversity and Inclusion agenda. We also see significantly more opportunity to address mental health and wellbeing policies, with just 42% of companies having no formal family mental health and wellbeing policy. And there are opportunities for employers to offer support for caring needs. For example, less than 22% of organisations assist employees with searches or referrals to providers of childcare, disability, or aged care services, and only 12% provide backup or emergency care options. 

So what trends can we expect moving into year three of the Family Friendly Workplaces? There are hints in some of the leading and more innovative family-friendly policies being offered by employers, as well as new legislation and government-led initiatives. 

One year since the Albanese Government was elected, this Labor government continues to place more expectations on employers to be more socially responsible. It’s notable that last week’s Budget outlined a $2 million investment to create new workplace regulations that will support the management of psychosocial hazards at work. This follows the government’s extension of the paid parental leave scheme and calls from the prime minister for “enlightened employers” to see it as a “foundation” for a wider system. 

Increasingly, we see just how critical leadership is to embed family-friendly work practices. It’s not enough to simply write or update a policy, leaders must actively live and demonstrate such policies – as they are the ultimate enablers in driving the cultural change required. 

We have seen huge shifts in the number of Australian workers covered by policies that aim to support victims of domestic and family violence, with nearly double the number of employers compared to last year, committing to extending their Domestic and Family Violence (DFV) policy of framework. This powerful shift in government legislation to extend paid DFV leave, and extension of such policies across the public sector. 

Also essential is taking the next step on flexible work offerings, and ensuring that those working flexibly are fully supported. Over the past year, we saw a massive increase (from 68% to 81% in organisations committing to enhancing such support mechanisms, including by providing examples of flexible work in action, and formalising hybrid work practices, and developing policies and examples for teams to create their own approach. 

Meanwhile, feedback from employees can be difficult to hear – but is ultimately essential in knowing if efforts to be more inclusive are actually making a difference. From the employers, four in five (81%) are now committed to seeking increased feedback from employees, while the same amount are also committed to improving how they measure the effectiveness of their practices.

While the standards help employers close gaps that are holding back their equity and inclusion progress and support their overall ESG goals, it’s the impact on employees that are most important. 

What we’ve found is that organisations that get certified signal to their team members that their wellbeing matters. They demonstrate the value of well-being and family as fundamental to business operations. 

It’s encouraging to see how much can change in just a year when it comes to employers stepping up to provide Socially Responsible Workplaces. They know it’s not merely a matter of meeting ESG obligations or the expectations of stakeholders, but also that it makes good business sense. Protecting the wellbeing of employees is critical for enabling a productive and happy workplace, and those employers that actively highlight what they offer and why, get a much broader range of talent interested in their opportunities. 

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The roadmap covers a comprehensive list of recommendations, including an overhaul of leave provisions to offer a full year of Paid Parental Leave with “use it or lose it” mechanisms, as well as “right to disconnect” provisions for employees to avoid work disruptions outside of paid hours. 

Also addressing care sector pay, universal early childhood education and flexible work, the blueprint moves beyond the idea of providing a “right to work” to instead present “a right to both work and care,” as Greens Senator Barbara Pocock said on releasing the report. 

Released in March following a Senate Select Committee on Work and Care, chaired by Senator Pocock who also participated in our Work and Care Summit in November 2022, the blueprint comes as Australia is caught in a work and care crisis that requires immediate attention. 

The 33 recommendations presented would significantly improve the lives of those with caring responsibilities, as well as anyone working in the care sector. But they are reforms and ideas that go beyond supporting our stereotypical view of who has “caring responsibilities” to rethinking the very definition of family, and enhancing everyone’s ability to navigate the work/life conflict. 

Encouragingly, the best part of the report is that none of the recommendations are beyond our abilities and resources to actually make them happen, if we’re willing to challenge the status quo and address the highly-gendered caregiving bias that holds back progress.

As a long-term advocate for the introduction of gender neutral Paid Parental Leave, enabling care to be split more flexibly between parents is critical to improve gender equality. Such provisions would mark a significant shift in how parenting is shared, and encourage more dads to take leave and spend more quality time with a new child. Providing a full year of leave isn’t pie-in-the-sky thinking. It’s already happening in many parts of the world, with the average OECD country offering more than 52 weeks of leave that can be shared between parents. 

The “right to disconnect” idea is also one that’s being explored in other countries, as well as some workplaces in Australia. France has had “right to disconnect” laws in place since 2017, which saw employers negotiating with unions to determine agreements on disconnecting after paid work hours. Much of Europe has since followed, including Spain, Italy and Portugal.  In Australia, Queensland’s Griffith University issued its own approach to enabling workers to disconnect back in 2020, by restricting the sending of emails on Friday afternoons to support workers to adjust to remote work. The “right to disconnect” is also a recommendation ACTU secretary Sally McManus says would particularly support workers with caring responsibilities – who are mostly women – so they don’t “fall unfairly behind their colleagues in terms of pay, advancement and promotion.” 

The recommendations, which are urged to be viewed as a “holistic” approach for addressing the work and care crisis, include overhauling how we value care. One such way is to provide a published dollar figure on how much unpaid work is contributing to our economy – figures that would put in context just how much work goes into care in this country, and highlight the value of this area. 

Also tabled is the suggestion of mandatory reporting of flexible working arrangements and “roster justice” to the Fair Work Commission, for companies with more than 20,000 employees. This would include the mandatory collection of data on requests for flexible working arrangements and roster changes, and determine the proportion of those approved, as well as the length of employment an employee has worked after their request was initially made. 

And the report recommends a four-day work week trial be undertaken by the Australian Government, whereby employees reduce their hours to 80 per cent, while retaining 100 per cent of their salary. Such a trial would follow similar such trials that have already occurred internationally, with Australia aiming to measure the impact of the four-day work week not only on productivity, but also health and wellbeing, workplace cultural change, gender equality and the impact on the distribution of unpaid care across genders. 

There is a call for the definition of “immediate family”, as currently provided in the Fair Work Act 2009, to be amended to broaden out the purposes that an employee has for accessing carer’s leave. It suggests modernising this definition in a way that could provide a powerful shift in how we think about family and caring responsibilities and enabling carer’s leave provisions to be taken by employers for a much wider range of purposes, such as to support a sibling, and anyone who has been a continuous member of an employee’s household for more than 18 months. 

These recommendations are progressive ideas vital to improving work and care outcomes for all. We can’t afford to wait. 

As Senator Pocock said on releasing the report: “Australia is an international outlier in terms of our support for workers with caring responsibilities. We have slipped too far behind. And we are paying a price in labour supply, stressed workers, and gender inequality.

“It is time for a new social contract, fit for the 21st Century workforce, that does not put the burden on workers juggling care responsibilities around their jobs.”

In the days prior to the 47th parliament of Australia being elected, we called for government to prioritise developing a progressive National Work + Family Policy Framework that supports the adoption of greater family friendly policies and practices to enable greater female workplace participation, support fathers to lean into caregiving; improve work life wellbeing outcomes for all Australians, including investment in gender equal and flexible paid parental leave. Less than one year on, it’s encouraging to see work and care policy reform getting the airtime it deserves and more organisations willing to get onboard via the Family Friendly Workplaces initiative. It’s time to take action and implement these recommendations. 

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It’s also vital for tapping into the full potential of the population, driving innovation, and especially for safe-guarding the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) so not to perpetuate the same biases and discriminations of the past. 

As the UN Women’s International Women’s Day event series held around the country last Friday powerfully hammered-home, there are codes that need unlocking to ensure Australia’s STEM workforce truly reflects the community it aims to serve. 

Australia’s Minister for Women, Katy Gallagher, addressed the connection between women’s equality and tech and shared examples of how tech can support efforts to increase women’s safety, financial security, and economic opportunity. 

But in 2021, just 29 per cent of the STEM workforce was found to be made up of women, and just a tiny 15 per cent of occupations requiring STEM qualifications were held by women. 

As Gallagher firmly stated: “This is not good enough”. 

There is more work to be done in schools and generally across society in encouraging girls to pursue STEM studies and qualifications. 

But there is also much to be done on retaining women in STEM, and part of the solution is addressing common work life conflict barriers and investing in fostering a family-friendly culture from within, from the top down.

Back in 2019, a survey of 3000 people working in STEM by Male Champions of Change and Accenture highlighted some of the issues confronting STEM sectors.  

It found that 66 per cent of women still feel their voices are devalued at work, while everyday sexism continues to be a pervasive driver behind women’s attrition. A lack of flexibility was also found to be a major factor in women’s attrition. The report found this lack of flexibility, alongside women reporting they still take on the majority of household duties, was disrupting women’s ability to excel at work. 

We know from the pandemic, broadly-speaking, that greater workplace flexibility is something all employers can adopt and all employees can benefit from. In fact, we absolutely need leaders and teams to have a flexible mindset to truly harness innovation and solutions to stay competitive and relevant in an ever-demanding world. 

In 2022, the Australian Government’s STEM Equity Monitor found that Australia is experiencing unprecedented skill shortages across STEM fields. This National annual scorecard on gender participation in STEM clearly shows the solution to these shortages: women. 

The STEM Monitor revealed a leaky pipeline, with just 23 per cent of STEM senior managers being female, and women accounting for a tiny eight per cent of CEOs across STEM industries. 

Clearly, there are roadblocks on the path for women excelling in STEM. 

As Lisa Harvey-Smith wrote at the time of this report being released, “we need structural workplace changes”. She highlighted one key avenue as being to introduce more flexible work options, while also broadening access to paid parental leave. 

Of course flexibility and paid parental leave are just a few pieces of the puzzle to addressing women’s attrition in STEM. We must also work to solve the bias, discrimination, and sexual harassment that continues to hinder women’s careers here, especially as the Respect@Work inquiry found that sexual harassment is more common across male-dominated industries. 

Women unlock technology 

There’s no doubt that access to technology really is key to levelling the playing field; unlocking women’s potential to be heard, to be connected, to drive change around global shared experiences, like sexual harassment. 

MeToo founder Tarana Burke highlighted the role of tech and her belief in the “power of technology” in addressing the challenges ahead, highlighting what her own small team has been able to address during the #MeToo movement. She spoke about the powerful digital resources they’ve created for those who don’t have the support they need to go to therapy, as well as other innovative and accessible online tools to stay safe. As she said, “we have to be more active than the trolls.” 

This International Women’s Day, in line with UN Women Australia’s call on “Cracking the Code: Innovation for a gender equal future”, we firmly believe that employers must make real policy adjustments and changes to address the systemic issues behind women’s attrition at work. Employers must consider how the majority of primary paid parental leave continues to be taken by women, how inflexible work practices drive women out, as well as the role of sexism and discrimination that may be undoing all the otherwise good work that employers hope to achieve. 

Creating a “family-friendly culture” is about more than making working life a little easier for new parents and carers. It’s about acknowledging the fact we all have lives outside of work. We have interests and hobbies and friends and loved ones and people who depend on us. It’s also about creating a culture of safety and respect: where violence, sexism, bias, and discrimination are simply not tolerated. And it’s about continually working at a culture that genuinely backs the diversity that any good company says they want to achieve across their workforce. 

The extraordinary global tech-marketing leader Jackie Lee-Joe, whose career has seen her criss-cross the world on the forefront of tech-innovation with her family in tow, provided an excellent example of what can be achieved and the kind of talent a company can attract, by investing in a diverse and flexible culture.  She credited her move to Netflix because it had done so much more on diversity than other companies. Netflix is known for its generous paid parental leave, and for fostering a culture of “freedom and responsibilities” which it says encourages team members to make their own decisions about how they take leave. 

As Lee-Joe told the UN event, “technology carries with it culture”. 

The tech we use will ultimately reflect the culture where it was created. The innovation we can achieve depends on the opportunities provided to a diverse range of talent. 

We know this IWD2023 UN Women’s Cracking the Code’ theme will mean different things to different people. We also know, that many of us in our lifetime will be confronted by competing work and life pressures, by caring responsibilities and real health and welfare concerns that can exclude us from the workforce.  Being able to access a job, with an employer who ‘gets it’, can ‘make or break’ our career, our wellbeing and our families. 

We cannot afford to under-estimate the importance and impact of inclusive, family-friendly workplaces as key to unlocking and cracking the code to ensure greater diversity is achieved not only across STEM but every sector, across every workplace.

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But we need a greater sense of urgency to make it happen.

The proposed amendments to the current government-funded PPL scheme are an excellent start, and sorely overdue, addressing some of the fundamental challenges around accessibility and flexibility that new parents face, as well as making it easier for parents to share the leave by removing ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ carer labels. 

However, given how far Australia lags behind the majority of other OECD nations in terms of the length and amount of paid leave on offer – averaging 53 weeks for mothers and eight weeks dedicated for fathers – we have a golden opportunity to be bolder and invest in reform that would deliver greater economic and social outcomes for generations to come. Indeed, global research and modeling by experts have demonstrated that the return on investment of best practice PPL scheme far outweighs the costs.  

So, what are we waiting for?

The proposed changes before parliament would see the current scheme lifted from 18 weeks to just 20 weeks with a gradual increase to 26 weeks by 2026, and no tabled changes thereafter committed. At the current pace of change, it’s unlikely we’d even hit the OECD average in the next decade. 

And if we really want to encourage greater take up by men, we need to adopt a “use it or lose it” arrangement – ideally preserving up to 12 weeks for each parent to incentivize more families to share the care. 

I had the opportunity to highlight some of these points at a Senate Committee hearing this week, and importantly, bring my personal experience to the Inquiry, having navigated the affordability of accessing parental leave from both sides of the fence; a small business owner and a parent. 

The growing divide – the impact of the parental leave gap

While many progressive, often larger, employers have voluntarily developed their own competitive paid parental leave schemes to help them attract and retain their people, small business owners, understandably, have struggled to keep up and absorb these costs. 

What we now have is a significant gap in the amount of leave families can offer, with some relying solely on the government’s minimum wage scheme, and others able to access far more generous leave provisions from their employers. It’s fuelling a growing divide of inequity across our society that is simply unfair leaving families health and financial wellbeing at risk. And its children and women who are impacted the most. 

Accessing well-funded PPL shouldn’t have to depend on where you work and the nature of your employment. 

This growing paid parental leave gap is and will have multi-generational consequences. 

A lack of well-funded PPL impacts a parent’s ability to support the well-being of their child. What we know from research into early childhood development is that the first few years of a child’s life is critical to their health and developmental outcomes in later life. Parents are also impacted, with research into prenatal health estimating that one in five women and one in ten men will experience anxiety and/or depression during the perinatal period. 

Australia’s progress on women’s economic participation and opportunity is regressing, according to the World Economic Forum. The gap in unpaid care and domestic work is limiting opportunities and choices for men and women, and ultimately then also contributing to the gender gap in retirement savings later on. 

The road ahead 

Implementing a world-leading paid parental leave scheme is good for businesses and families, and it deserves a greater sense of urgency from the government and employers.

We need to be far more ambitious starting with a move straight to 26 weeks, with a roadmap to reach 52 weeks by no later than 2030. We must also give more consideration to aligning the leave with a full replacement wage rather than the minimum wage, and paying superannuation on top. 

We need to engage employers to be part of the solution and recognise the importance of investing in practices that support employees’ caregiving needs not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes business sense too.  We urge policymakers to commit to further support to educate and incentivise employers to adopt more family-friendly policies that help to normalise employees’ caregiving responsibilities. 

This is our opportunity to create a much fairer, more family-friendly Australia that invests in and values caregiving as something we all rely on and benefit from.  

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So will this momentum continue through 2023? Or are we set to see some progress made actually reverse or be rolled back completely, as some workplaces push to return to the pre-COVID ‘norms’ of the past?

Certainly, we can expect some rollbacks and reversals on workplace policies. 

But we may also see some positive shifts firmly remain on the priority agenda in favour of supporting employee wellbeing, as well as acknowledging the care and family responsibilities they have outside of paid work.

And with the tight jobs market expected to continue, and employers having to fight to attain and retain the best team members, we can expect to see an upward trend in employers doubling down on their efforts to make sure their workplace is an appealing proposition, particularly for employees to whom lifestyle and family time really matters.

Below are some of the trends we’ll see in 2023.  

The four day work week gains (further) momentum 

The four day work week gained significant attention in 2022, thanks to a massive study in the United Kingdom followed by a similar initiative rolled out in Australia, as well as some major employers like Unilever announcing it is implementing the workplace strategy across its local offices. 

Just this week, news broke that 100 more major companies in the UK will be joining the 4-Day Week campaign, which will see them offering employees a 32 hour work week with no loss of pay. In 2022, we can expect to see this modern approach to the work week entering the mainstream, with large employers officially rolling it out in Australia, as well as small and medium sized businesses and startups also following the lead. 

Work from home options continue to dominate employee searches

The Covid pandemic pushed options for working from home significantly and suddenly back in 2020, but in 2023 we will see that such options are (mostly) here to stay, especially given the high priority job seekers are placing on remote work. As Seek reports, the term “work from home” continues to be the number one search term across its jobs platform, a trend employers will need to leverage as they fight for talent in a tight jobs market. 

While some employers may have hoped to roll back part or all of the “work from home” opportunities that are now afforded to employees, the reality is that many workers across Australia have now shifted out of metropolitan areas, and/or have grown used to a daily/weekly routine that incorporates things that can’t be achieved by being in the office 9 to 5, Monday to Friday – such as dropping or picking up the kids from school or going for a run mid morning. Many Australians have also had more than three years to adapt their homes to accommodate what they need to be effective at work, and will want to continue to take advantage of their at-home setup. 

‘Primary’ and ‘secondary’ carer labels removed

The ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ carer labels that are typically applied to paid parental leave policies are on their way out in Australia, thanks to a number of major employers like KPMG, ING and Baker McKenzie removing such definitions to enable ALL staff to access the same policies on paid parental leave, regardless of whether they are mothers, fathers, adoptive parents or something else. Also helping are shifts in government-paid parental leave, with the Albanese Government keen to promote flexibility in the reforms scheme offered, and more options for men to take the leave. In 2023, we can expect a huge number of employers shifting to label-free paid parental leave and making intentional moves to encourage more men to take parental leave. 

More employers will offer paid parental leave 

Currently, three in five employers offer access to paid parental leave in addition to the government paid scheme, either to both women and men or to women only, according to figures from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. 

In 2023, we can expect to see the proportion of employees who don’t currently have access to shrink – in line with the upwards trend in employers offering such leave over the past five years. Employers will be watching closely the policy shifts that are occurring at the Federal level and the push by the Albanese Government to see more employers complementing the government paid scheme. Particularly, we can expect to see more small and medium sized businesses offering paid parental leave, as they increasingly appreciate the opportunity and business case for supporting new parents and carers. 

More superannuation on parental leave 

Paying superannuation during paid parental leave is often a small cost for employers, but a meaningful one that shows they are actively hoping to help address gender gaps in retirement savings later on, and acknowledge that nobody should be penalized because they are supporting and participating in unpaid care work. We can increasingly expect superannuation payments during paid parental leave to become the norm in 2023, rather than the exception. 

More paid domestic violence leave 

With the NSW Government moving to offer 20 days of paid domestic violence leave across the public sector in September 2022, we can expect more employers to follow the lead and roll out their own paid leave policies aimed at supporting victim-survivors. 

As more workplaces acknowledge their role in safety, we can also expect more initiatives to be rolled out aiming to create safe spaces for their team members, and programs designed to offer financial and psychological support. These could include things like access to temporary accommodation for employees and their family who need it, a program supporting access to “burner” phones, and more on-team “first responders” trained to support staff who may be experiencing domestic or family violence. 

Employers responding to new Respect At Work laws 

With the Resect At Work legislation passing the Australian parliament this week, which will see an onus placed on employers to prevent workplace sexual harassment, we can expect some swift actions from employers aiming to respond and be ready and able to meet the new requirements. 

Under the changes, employers will now have a “positive duty” to prevent sex discrimination, as well as sexual harassment and victimisation in the workplace. While employers have 12 months before the laws take effect, they are being encouraged to introduce the necessary changes required earlier. Such changes require ‘reasonable and proportionate measures’ for preventing sex discrimination and sexual harassment, which could include overhauling or implementing new policies and procedures, establishing new support mechanisms for employees, delivering regular training and educational, and collecting and monitoring data. 

More employers will adopt and promote family-friendly benefits 

In a tight recruitment market, employers will need to do more to stand out. We’ll see more organisations promoting their remote work and work from home options on job ads throughout 2023, to meet the fact that candidates are already filtering their searches to find these offerings. 

We will also see employers doing more to promote their family friendly benefits and credentials – for example, highlighting the paid parental leave they offer, within their job ads and promotions. And potentially noting the other forms of leave on offer, such as fertility leave, menstruation and menopause leave. These companies know such leave entitlements signal to potential candidates that they take the wellbeing of their team members (as well as their team member families) seriously. 

We expect to see more employers adopting the National Work & Family Standards and being certified as a Family Inclusive Workplace to show their ongoing commitment to greater work life wellbeing and removing barriers to workforce participation, particularly for those with diverse and varied caring responsibilities that have previously shut out from job opportunities.

Employers will commit to creating proactive action plans that support carers and other family friendly ways of working 

Employers will need to be more aware of the caring needs more broadly across their workforce and rise to the occasion to support their employees bridging the gap between their work and caring duties.

We can expect to see employers recognise that caring commitments is a normal part of many employees’ lives and proactively put in place caring policies and benefits that respond when caring needs increase and change. 

Employers will be need to be more vigilant in ensuring that carer discrimination is being addressed and ensure managers are proactively educated in how to accommodate caring requirements when designing jobs and allocating workloads. 

New and creative initiatives to “stand out” as an employer 

What more can employers do to stand out as the top place for people to work? 

Through 2022, we’ve seen great employers getting increasingly creative on what they are offering their people, such as initiatives to support mental health and raise awareness on mental health, as well as new forms of leave to highlight the different needs of culturally diverse talent. 

More will want to show 

And 2023 is guaranteed to present more such unique offerings. 

It’s no longer enough to offer a “dream job” or even the best and most competitive pay, companies need to be working to support the full wellbeing of team members, as well as their families and life outside of work. 

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