Benefits

Why Join?

Be part of a growing number of family-friendly employers. Becoming a member of Parents At Work means you join a network of organisations committed to creating family-friendly workplaces.

We partner with you to achieve recognition as a family-friendly workplace.

Family-friendly policies and practices increase employee morale, job satisfaction and productivity while reducing absenteeism, disengagement and recruitment costs.

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Join as an Employer Member

Why Does it Matter?

The 2019 National Working Families Survey report provided valuable insights into what people want from their employers.
Here are a few reasons why it matters that you support your people in combining work and family. Read the full report here.

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1 in 4 Employees

1 in 4 Employees

are actively looking or considering leaving their employer in the
next 12 months due to difficulties combining their job with family responsibilities

1 in 2 Women

1 in 2 Women

 and 1 in 4 men experience discrimination at work during pregnancy
and/or their return to work

57% of fathers

57% of fathers

state that their parental leave is “too short”

1 in 5 parents and carers

1 in 5 parents and carers

are not comfortable talking to their manager about the
need for work and family leave

The Business Case for Action

Increasingly, people want to work for inclusive organisations that care about their career, family and wellbeing needs. In particular, millennial employees have high expectations around work-life balance and place an emphasis on self-care.

Best practice employers want to retain their employees and ensure they remain engaged and motivated in their careers throughout different transition periods. They also want to attract gender diverse talent. Our program directly supports this.

There is a very strong business case for supporting employees with caring responsibilities – both men and women. The return on investment for adopting family-friendly workplace policies is clear.

Elevation of your employer brand reputation as an Employer of Choice for women and men.

Improvement of business productivity through attracting the best and most diverse talent and increasing engagement.

Reduction in turnover costs due to work life conflict – we estimate an average cost saving of $40,000 for each employee you retain and would otherwise have replaced.

Reduction in cost of absenteeism through enhanced health, wellbeing and confidence of your employees.

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Benefits

Employee

Employee

  • 24/7 access to learning programs

  • Increased motivation & enjoyment at work

  • Improved work-life balance outcomes and personal health and wellbeing

  • Decreased risk of discrimination

  • Greater flexibility

  • Sustainable career design

  • Informed of support options available

  • Improved time management & productivity

  • Clarity of policies, expectations and entitlements

Manager

Manager

  • Clarity on working parent needs

  • Manager training

  • 24/7 support from client services

  • Increased talent retention

  • Easier parental leave transition for whole team and clients

  • A flexible mind-set

  • More confidence team is appropriately supported

  • Enables managers to develop and negotiate win-win flexible work arrangements

  • Support to promote gender equality

HR | Organisation

  • Instant access and easy implementation

  • Retain talent and have more women in leadership

  • WGEA reporting requirement met

  • An end-to-end program

  • Reporting functionality

  • Accessible in Australia and Internationally

  • Employer of choice status

  • Reduces HR workload

Why Be A Family Friendly Employer?

  • Many working parents and carers are unsatisfied with their work-life balance with some reducing participation or opting out completely. The impact of the work life squeeze can also mean busy parents are more likely to experience burnout and less likely to feel they have the time and confidence to pursue more senior career opportunities.
  • Workplaces and their leaders struggle to deliver effective learning and coaching programs to support employees with parental leave transition and ongoing work-life management. Often they lack internal parental and carers leave educational programs and HR lack time and resources to provide.
  • It costs the Australian economy an estimated $24 billion per annum due to parents stressing and dealing with family issues at work. 80% of this productivity loss is not visible.
  • 10% higher staff turnover for companies without family friendly work places strategies
  • Paid parental leave is over-relied on to retain and keep primary carers engaged in the parental transition period and ongoing work life wellbeing is deprioritised
  • Job design limitations make flexible work a challenge in reality for many
  • 48% of organisations offer a paid primary carers’ leave leaving over 50% of Australian’s with only basic minimum wage provisions
  • Managers are ill-equipped to support parents transition to leave and managework life balance
  • In Australia, 1 in 2 women and 1 in 4 men experience discrimination in the first year of parenthood or during pregnancy.
  • There is a 23.1% gender pay gap (total remuneration) with men earning $26,853 more than women. 16.3% of CEO’s are women, with only 6.1% of all managers employed on a part-time basis.
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  • Many employers in Australia are not running at desired capacity due to inadequate family friendly policies and practices. Only 62% of employers have a strategy for supporting employees caring responsibilities
  • $340 is the minimum estimated cost per day to companies for an absent employee. 92 million working days are lost due to absenteeism in Australia per annum.
  • Over 63% of working parents reported loosing out on over $10,000 lost earnings over the last year because of commitments to family. Also, the career pain is being felt by the younger working parent generation.
  • Only 15% of fathers request flexibility.
  • Only 2% of fathers take parental leave
  • Nearly half of men and women said they would take a job with less money if it were more family friendly and flexible. What’s more 25% of men are feeling trapped in their workplace – they want to move jobs for more family flexible work but feel they can’t.
  • It is estimated Australian employees are absent from work for an average of 9.5 days each year the cost to the economy is approximately $33 billion per annum. Informal carers provided an estimated 1.9 billion hours of care in 2015. The replacement value of care provided by non-primary carers is $16.6 billion per annum. 1 in 8 Australians (2.86 million people) are estimated to be providing informal care.
  • Data shows the leadership pipeline isn’t working: women struggle to get past the lowest levels of management and they occupy only a quarter of positions in the top three levels of management. Women comprise only 26.1% of key management positions, and 17.3% of CEO positions.

References:

Workplace Gender Equality Scorecard 2015-2017

OCED Parental Leave Report

Carers Australia Statistics

Australian Work and Life Index (AWALI)

National Prevalence Survey, Human Rights Commission

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