To help employees achieve real balance in their lives, employers need to be more flexible about start and finish times, and even acceptable attire, says RedBalloon employee experience manager Megan Bromley.
Over the next three-to-five years, HR departments will need to build closer relationships with their organisations' IT functions to meet the demands of the "future workplace", a briefing heard yesterday.
Employers that fail to address the "trust" issues holding back flexible work adoption will find themselves struggling to attract and retain staff over the coming years, says Sage MicrOpay managing director, Craig Osborne.
A successful workers' compensation claim against Telstra by an employee who fell while working from home shouldn't cause other employers to put these arrangements in the "too hard" basket, says employment lawyer Kristin Duff.
The Fair Work Act's flexible work provisions have been in place for well over a year, but many managers still don't have a "proper grasp" of them, and base their decisions on misunderstandings and prejudices rather than fact, says Mills Oakley partner Luke Connolly.
Employers that face dubious flexible work requests can ask workers for evidence of authenticity, and should flag their "discretionary right" to do so in their policies, says Mills Oakley lawyer Luke Connolly.
Employers that don't offer part-time workers adequate support and career opportunities risk losing them to competitors that do, says Diversity Council Australia (DCA) acting research director Lisa Annese.
Employers yet to embrace flexible work arrangements should use the World Cup as an opportunity for a trial run, according to the Trades Union Congress.
A Perth law firm that implemented a "people first" strategy to address high staff turnover and low engagement achieved momentum and success by getting some "quick wins in place" early on.
Almost nine in ten employers in Australia and New Zealand have established flexible work practices, but many admit their employees are unaware of the benefits - and less than half are using them to attract new candidates, a Rubicor survey has found.
