Attract mothers back to work with flexibility
Creating a flexible approach for mothers returning to work would help ease the skills shortage, experts say.
Too many women are finding it difficult to get into the workforce after having children because employers are not thinking flexibly enough.
The human resources and IT sectors are most geared up to deal with alternative work arrangements sought by working mothers, says recruitment firm Talent Path, but the boys’ club mentality rife in engineering and mining is blocking employment options.
Australia has a lower work participation rate for mothers with young children than fellow OECD countries Canada, Sweden, the UK and the US, according to an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report into work and family life.
A lack of trust is at the heart of inflexibility at work, and employers need to rethink the connectivity between hours worked and results achieved.
“Hours at work is a redundant concept,” says Talent Path joint-director Hayley Crealy, who is expecting her third child next month. Crealy says the terms full-time, part-time and work/life balance are no longer relevant in today’s workplace. “It’s all life. There’s no slash. You don’t leave your life behind when you go to work. If you get it right at home, you get it right at work or study. It’s a blend.”
When Crealy, Jody Fazldeen and Dionne Hawley opened their recruitment firm in Brisbane and Perth five years ago, they decided to put into practice flexibility measures they had previously only dreamed of seeing.
Half of their 23 staff now work a nine-day fortnight to give full-time workers an extra day for themselves.
The rest work on a “virtual presence” model which places outcomes above hours worked, and enables staff to work remotely or in the office to the equivalent of a three-day week over three, four or five days.
Crealy says job-seekers with a good employment record are most likely to benefit from such flexibility at work, and bosses keen to engage in more flexible work practices would do well to have a more involved interview process to ensure the candidate fits the company’s ethos. “We’re fiercely protective. Our interview process goes for months,” she says.
Talent Path recruitment consultant Jackie Wythes says the female-dominated HR industry has good job sharing options and IT companies have had employees working remotely for years.
