Developing a work and family policy in your workplace
There may be several reasons why you have identified a need for family friendly workplace policies. These may include:
- you wish to become a best-practice organisation to attract the best possible staff
- you understand that work and family policies are a good business strategy
- staff have indicated a need for more flexibility in the workplace
- you have identified a problem with turnover or absenteeism in your workplace the organisation is restructuring or planning for the next business year
- your company is required to report to the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA)
- you are introducing or reviewing a workplace agreement
Here are some suggestions to get you started in developing a work and family strategy for your workplace:
Demographic Analysis
Needs Assessment
Communication
Developing your work and family strategies
Demographic Analysis
Family friendly policies will only be effective if they are properly targeted at your organisation and its business needs. You can ensure that this is the case by:
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understanding the demographics of the Australian workforce and the changes currently occurring in the workforce
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knowing the profile of the industry that your company belongs to and the future projection of the demographics of the wider industry workforce
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assessing the demographics of your workplace taking into account factors such as:
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the proportion of women to men
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the most common age group of your workers
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the age of retirement
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average length of time worked in the organisation
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whether employees have children or whether they are they likely to have children in the next few years
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whether employees have caring responsibilities for older parents, family members with disabilities or other duties
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Needs Assessment
A demographic study of your workplace will give a broad indication of what your workforce’s needs may be. For example, knowing that your workforce is mainly in the 40-55 year age group, suggests that your employees are more likely to have concerns about caring for ageing parents than child care or parental leave. However, an assessment of your employees’ needs can be further refined through tools such as staff surveys and other communication strategies such as staff meetings, consultation and focus groups. Exit interviews of staff who are resigning or leaving to work elsewhere are also a good tool for determining if there are gaps in your work and family policies.
Staff surveys are an extremely effective means of identifying the needs of your employees. There may be a number of employees experiencing difficulties in managing work and home life conflicts which could be easily resolved by negotiating better start and finish times. Also, looking at your company's rate of absenteeism and staff turnover as well as retraining and recruitment costs can indicate whether it would be beneficial to implement some retention strategies.
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Communication
Communication is essential in developing family friendly policies that are well tailored for your organisation. Consultation with management and employees is important in identifying the key focus areas for attention and implementing effective policies.
There are several options for developing good communication strategies. For example, you may wish to establish a joint management/staff project team to develop and implement work and family initiatives. This group should meet regularly and develop a method of communicating their activities and consulting with all staff.
Individual discussions with managers can also be an effective communication strategy. You may also wish to conduct presentations to senior managers at critical stages. Additionally, you can enlist the help of managers to communicate with their staff. A good tactic is to identify and involve sympathetic people within the organisation to help ‘champion’ and progress the new program.
Electronic communication such as email and the intranet is a particularly efficient means of communication with staff, especially in large organisations. Newsletters and regular staff meetings are other methods of communicating with staff which may better suit small to medium size organisations.
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Developing your work and family strategies
Once you have looked at your company's demographic profile and conducted a staff needs assessment, you will have a better understanding of the kinds of family friendly policies that would be most beneficial to implement. Family friendly policies generally take the form of:
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flexible hours of work (eg flexible start and finish times, part-time work, flex time, shiftwork)
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consultation over hours of work (eg family friendly rostering)
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flexibility of leave provisions (eg all purpose family/carer's leave, parental leave, single days' annual leave)
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flexibility of location (eg teleworking, working from home)
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flexibility of employment status (eg job-sharing)
Some of these ideas may be more appropriate for your workplace than others. For example, it is difficult for jobs such as nursing to be done by teleworking, but other strategies such as flexible rostering and job-sharing may be very helpful.
Senior managers’ support and backing for the policies and their implementation is very important. Ensure there is a process whereby a common understanding of the arrangements flows throughout the rest of the business. Training for managers on work and family programs and how to manage flexible working arrangements is important – don’t assume it comes naturally!
A way of integrating flexible working into your workplace culture is to build it into performance review/appraisal frameworks to encourage both workers and their managers to feel comfortable and take responsibility for achieving better work/family balance.
Another tactic is to find out what other companies are doing - especially those in your own industry who are gaining a competitive edge.
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