The Work/Life Association has been hosting professional development roundtables events for 10 years. Here are the topics covered over the past two years.
Dominica Whelan, Fair Work Commissioner
The National Perspective (PowerPoint presentation)
Slavka Scott, Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission:
The Victorian Perspective (PowerPoint presentation)
Juliet Andrews, Aequus Partners:
How Employers are Responding to the Right to Request (PowerPoint presentation)
Tina Dimitiadis, Villa Maria:
Lessons from Recognised Flexible Employers (PowerPoint presentation)
Marie Haddow, Manningham City Council:
Lessons from Recognised Flexible Employers (PowerPoint presentation)
In January 2005, The Harvard Business Review published an article called “Overloaded Circuits: Why smart people under perform”. Its way of describing the effects of the challenges we face in a world of rapidly accelerating change and the constant demands of every day life. As 2009 draws to a close we have chosen to share with you some strategies that help individuals and workplaces stay resilient in our fast moving world to ensure high level wellness as well as high level effectiveness are maintained. This is a roundtable not to be missed with a panel of speakers set to provide a power packed information session over lunch that will inspire you for 2010.
Jacqui Bloink from St Vincent’s will explain how a spiritual and personal development program ‘Gift’ offered to employees at St Vincent’s has had a tremendous impact on staff satisfaction, retention and embedding the organisational values. The ‘Gift’ program aims to demonstrate that individuals bring unique gifts and talents to the workplace in their interaction with patients and colleagues. Appreciating individual qualities and the life and energy of others at work can make a difference to the work experience.
Denni Francisco the Director of Qualia Learning Network an organisation working with executives and leaders to achieve higher levels of performance with a particular focus on increased personal stress resilience will share some principles and powerful, yet simple tools of her Superworking Leadership Program to increase mental effectiveness, physical energy and emotional balance.
http://www.qualianetwork.com.au/superworking/
Colin Beames, Director WRDI Institute is a corporate psychologist and thought leader on human capital, workforce trends, workforce segmentation, employment strategies, employee engagement and retention. His presentation will explore the concept of the Psychological Contract, showing its importance for workplace health and performance, and more importantly, how to measure it to transform workplaces. He will explain: why linking the employment value proposition to engagement and retention makes sense; four ‘holy grail’ workforce measures; and how to overcome the blunt measure of employee engagement by applying a risk management approach to quantify talent retention risk in dollar terms.
http://www.wrdi-institute.com/
and his presentation (PDF format)
At a time when labour market shortages are no longer the problem for employers and we face growing unemployment, there is a danger that the advances that we have made in getting the messages of work life balance and flexibility across will be lost.
Dr Helen Szoke, Chief Conciliator/Chief Executive Officer at the Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission will share her insight on this topic and explain why the protections that exist under the Equal Opportunity Act are so important and provide one measure to continue to make our work lives manageable and productive.
To compliment Helen’s presentation we will hear from two local employers who have not let the GFC interfere with their strategy to be more flexible.
The Victorian Government's Working Families Council recently rewarded 16 employers who have developed innovative programs in policy and practice that improve the work and family balance of their employees with a Fair and Flexible Employer Award. Maddocks, ranked as one of Australia’s top 20 law firms and ConnectEast the owner and operator of the EastLink motorway were two of the companies recognised as Fair and Flexible employers now eligible to use the Award logo.
At this event Liz Ryan, Director of People and Culture at Maddocks and Michael Werle, Group HR Manager at ConnectEast will share with us two different perspectives on implementing work practices to provide greater flexibility and explain why flexibility is good for their business.
You can download the Maddocks presentation here (Microsoft PowerPoint format)
and also Michael Werle from Connect East (PDF format)
Presented in partnership with St Vincent’s People and Organisational Development Team
Agile organisations respond to changing times with a People Strategy designed to deliver business outcomes that will help the organisation manage through tough times and position itself for future growth and workforce challenges.
The St Vincent’s people strategy recognises the need to prepare for a future that includes, changing trends in the workforce, failing birthrate, ageing population, shrinking labour force and skills shortages, expanding demand for health services, budget pressures, increasing levels of complexity and technology in health services, and increasing demands for quality of life initiatives. At this roundtable we will explore the St Vincent’s approach and discover how the strategy delivers what the executive wants for its people and core business and how it delivers to meet their expectations in time of change.
Likewise the KPMG wellbeing strategy does much more than provide massages or seminars in the workplace. It is about building a sustainable national program to give employees enhanced life skills and a positive work/life balance. By delivering initiatives such as resilience training, financial planning workshops and promoting healthy physical challenges KPMG aims to create an environment of team work, relationship building and a positive reputation designed to retain employees in the long term. Combined with a number of flexible work options the KPMG strategy is designed to create an enjoyable and family friendly work environment.
Our speakers at this discussion over lunch will provide tremendous insight to this topic from two very different industry perspectives. They are:
Flexibility is a benefit applicable to people at all levels in an organization. It is also a business strategy being applied to manage costs in tough economic times. No matter what’s behind the decision to work more flexibly such working arrangements rarely succeed without considerable effort on the part of line managers. Although managers often say they want to support employees work with greater flexibility they complain they don’t know how. In fact much of the difficulty in making flexible work practices succeed is attributed to a lack of formal support from management. At this roundtable we will focus our discussion on the different approaches organizations have used to tackle this problem.
The interface between work and personal/family life is often seen as rife with conflict. “Balance” and “juggling” are the predominant work-life metaphors and they assume that time is a scarce commodity to be fought over by work and home. Job and family are seen as irreconcilable enemies. In this presentation, however, E. Jeffrey Hill invites the participants to adopt new thinking by considering a metaphor based on harmony. He invites you to think about how work and personal/family life can co-exist and even benefit one another. Productivity on the job and peace in one’s life are both possible, simultaneously.
To illustrate the concept of work-life harmony results will be presented from the Singapore National Study of Work-Life Harmony and selected findings from IBM’s Global Work and Life Issues Survey over the past decade. Special emphasis will be given to the influence of job flexibility on harmony and what the latest research is saying about telecommuting.
E. Jeffrey Hill, PhD, is associate professor in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University. His research examines finding harmony between paid work and family life. Before coming to BYU he was a work and family subject matter expert at IBM where he pioneered many flexible work options including paternity leave, part-time employment, and telecommuting. Dr. Hill recently developed and analyzed the 2007 IBM Global Work and Life Issues survey with more than 25,000 respondents from 79 countries. In 2006 he conducted the Singapore National Study of Work-Life Harmony. Dr. Hill has published more than 40 scholarly articles and book chapters. He and his wife Tammy are the parents of 12 children and 7 grandchildren.
You can download the slides here (Microsoft PowerPoint format)
While organisational stress and psychological injury have been high on the national safety agenda in recent years they are areas which organisations often find difficult to tackle. Some organisations are choosing to broaden work and life balance programs to incorporate stress and wellbeing issues. At this roundtable you will learn how that can be achieved.
Craig Bosworth, Medibank Private’s Public and Industry Affairs Manager will discuss the true cost of workplace stress and help you build a business case.
Figures provided by the Australian Safety and Compensation Council indicate that whilst overall compensation claims made by Australian employees fell significantly between 1996 and 2004, the number of compensation claims being made for stress almost doubled. Specifically, stress can impact on employee productivity by causing increased absenteeism and presenteeism, which imposes a direct economic cost to employers. Craig’s presentation will demonstrate the economic costs that stress-related productivity losses impose on employers and in so doing extend on Medibank Private’s previous work that measured the economic cost of presenteeism.
Telstra is a company which believes that employees who are mentally and physically healthy are more likely to be engaged, committed and productive in all aspects of life. The company’s mental health and resilience programs are a multifaceted approach to the prevention of work-related psychological injury integrated into a broader health and wellbeing program. The Telstra approach to health and wellbeing provides employees with programs including a musculoskeletal strategy, a mental health and resilience strategy, occupational health and a health promotion strategy.
Karen Oldaker, Telstra’s Health and Wellbeing Group Manager will explain how Telstra’s holistic approach to wellbeing, which aims to increase productivity, reduce absenteeism, and provide a workplace of choice, is implemented.
Download presentation here.
Thirty-nine percent of
Carers Australia website http://www.carersaustralia.com.au
Download taskforce on care costs here.
You are invited to a Work/Life Association (WLA) special free event to launch the Work/Life Signposts project designed by WLA to help Victorian organisations implement work/life programs that effectively align workers’ need with business requirements. The Work/Life Signposts has been developed through support provided by the Victorian Government’s Better Work and Family Grants program.
Signposts documents
Dr Helen Szoke Signposts Launch
Bardoel Signposts Launch
More than one million people in Australia experience depression, anxiety or related substance use disorder each year. With depression affecting one in five people at some point in their adult lifetime, these figures also impact on the workplace. Depression is second only to heart related illness in terms of disability in Australia - resulting in a profound impact on all aspects of life, including work.
Half a million full working days are lost every month and workers cut down their activity on another one million days in one month due to depression. Depression will touch everyone -including employers - either directly or indirectly in today's world. Depression currently represents a major social and economic challenge, particularly in today's workplace.
Many employers realise the importance of staff retention and motivation in creating a harmonious work environment, but in today's climate it is also important to monitor the well being of staff. Lack of awareness and understanding in the workplace about depression can lead to difficult situations which may arise from prolonged absence or excessive sick-leave.
In response to this important issue, beyondblue has developed a depression awareness program for workplaces.
This roundtable will be presented by Therese Fitzpatrick, National Workplace Program Manager beyondblue and provide:
Recent research shows that workplace flexibility improves business and personal outcomes if it is implemented effectively. What does "effectively" mean"? It means that flexible work policies are implemented in a supportive workplace culture, i.e. a culture in which there is positive (and practical) managerial support and a lack of negative consequences for the employee using a flexible work arrangement (e.g. they are not considered "less committed", or denied access to promotional opportunities).
In essence managers provide the critical link between an organisational policy which promotes workplace flexibility and day-to-day practice, but little attention has been given to ensuring that managers have (i) a high level of knowledge as well as (ii) the confidence to manage difficult issues; and (iii) implementation skills. Aequus Partners recently launched flex-e, an e-learning tool to assist managers with each of these issues. Juliet Bourke from Aequus Partners will present the academic and industry research about flexibility and bridging the gaps between policy and practice which led to the development of their e-learning tool.
Jannine Fraser is a director of Directioneering, a consultancy offering a bespoke service in career management, career coaching, leadership development and outplacement. Directioneering’s philosophy is that each individual is unique. Jannine will share how she applies this philosophy in managing a team of 16 using an innovative approach to flexibility and how this adds value to their client group.
Elizabeth Nunez HR Director at Pitcher Partners, a professional services firm, will provide insights and practical examples on how focusing on providing staff with opportunities to manage work/life has provided their firm with strong employee retention and engagement. As a result, the firm has won various awards and was recently ranked in the 'Top Ten' in a National Work/Life Benchmark Study.
It will soon be Christmas and the traditional summer holiday period for Australians but how many people in your organisation are just too busy at work to take a break?
A comprehensive research study commissioned by Tourism Australia revealed that tens of thousands of Australian employees need a holiday but are reluctant to take one. Australians have now stockpiled a staggering 70 million annual leave days (AC Nielsen, 2005), or 14 million weeks equating to around $11 billion dollars in wages. Based on the research findings, Tourism Australia conducted an employee pilot program - No Leave, No Life from May 2006 – January 2007.
Katherine Droga from Tourism Australia will present the research findings which led to the pilot program and the outcomes of this innovative approach to addressing the problem of accumulated leave.
Sandy Guest and Kathleen Duffy from the Department of Primary Industries will discuss the organisational cost of accumulated leave and their experience of piloting the No Leave No Life program.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) and the Business Council of Australia (BCA) National Work and Family Awards are an Australian Government and business initiative that began in 1992 to recognise excellence in work and family initiatives. They showcase organisations with outstanding flexible working arrangements that meet the needs of the business and its employees. The Awards focus on outcomes rather than just policies. They acknowledge businesses that:
The 2007 Awards were recently presented and representatives from three of the ‘winning workplaces’ will join us at this roundtable. They will each outline two of their key work and family initiatives providing details of why they introduced the initiative, how they did it and the results of their efforts. Panellists will include:
In addition, Sandra Taylor-Steele from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations will provide a commentary from the judges’ perspective on the Award finalists generally and what constitutes a ‘winning workplace’.
Efforts to create gender equity in the workplace have both succeeded and failed. In the U.S., and to a lesser extent in Australia, sex discrimination is waning while caregiving, and the women who generally perform those tasks, is increasingly penalized. Work-life programs should reduce these penalties by facilitating dual commitments to work and family, but have only succeeded for a small segment of the workforce. The piece of work-life that has proven to be effective concerns negotiated flexibility, a practice that is win-win for business and employees. However, according to Robert Drago Professor of Labor Studies and Women's Studies at Penn State University family supports, such as paid family leave and child care, need to be provided by government, and businesses need to recognize their stake in relevant initiatives. Robert will use his provocative book, Striking a Balance: Work, Family, Life as the basis for a presentation and discussion which will unmask the ‘real’ reasons most people lead unbalanced lives.
Bob’s presentation will be complimented by Jennifer Baxter, from the Australian Institute of Family Studies, who will present some new research from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children on how patterns of paternal employment are related to family time. The time that parents and children spend together is central to the functioning of families with children. It can enhance the wellbeing of family members and develop and build upon relationships within the family. Many parents of young children, however, have to manage the competing time demands of childrearing and employment. Fathers often work very long full-time hours, meaning their availability to spend time with children is reduced. Mothers’ work hours may also reduce their availability, although mothers are more likely to be working part-time. What does this mean for the children of the people we employ?
These are changing times. The concept of work/life balance is now front page news when just a few years ago people had difficulty explaining what it meant. Competitiveness, flexibility, quality services are key concepts in the organisation of work today – as are job security, job satisfaction and fairness. The successful employer, private or public, has to deliver on all these. This means involving staff in decisions about change, making sure their needs and aspirations are considered, and winning their commitment to new ways of working. Taking the concept of work/life balance from rhetoric to reality in the workplace is a journey that requires many steps. Our speakers at this event will provide insight to help make your steps easier to manage.
Tim Lee, Deputy Secretary, Industrial Relations Victoria will outline the Victorian Government’s agenda for working families. In recent years the State Government has worked with employers in various industry sectors, and through a range of initiatives, to encourage work arrangements that provide better work and family balance. Probuild Constructions and the Brotherhood of St Lawrence are two organisations familiar with the Government’s efforts. At this roundtable they will share the steps on their respective journey and demonstrate that better work and family balance programs can be applied in any sort of workplace.
Up until recently talk about work/life balance in the construction industry had the blokes reeling with laughter. Everyone knows that six, and often seven days a week, is common practice. It’s little wonder that the symptoms of that pressure began to show. Ted Yencken Director Probuild Constructions recognised those symptoms and has actively championed Probuild’s innovative approach to work and life balance in the complex construction environment. Ted will share the process Probuild took to achieve significant change in a very short period of time.
The Brotherhood of St Laurence employs approximately 550 staff. Michelle Stretton has been responsible for implementing and monitoring the organisation’s long running work/family/life balance program over the years. Michelle will outline the steps taken by the Brotherhood in this journey to work towards achieving and maintaining a work environment that offers positive and practical help to staff in balancing work and life balance in line with best practice.
According to the Bureau of Statistics 2007 Year Book Australians are pushing out their working lives. While 60 has been the average retirement age in recent years, most of today’s older workers plan to keep working until at least 65, and 10 percent plan never to retire. Only one in five plans to retire before 60.
With this in mind, the longer term impact of the ‘retiring baby-boomer’ group which comprises 4.8 million people from age 46-60 will see a fundamental change to the way in which labour needs are viewed and how work is carried out. The whole concept of ‘work’ and ‘life’ will need to undergo a fundamental change to facilitate the social changes that are needed as the biggest group ever, enter the third age. Many more people will be looking to transition into retirement. Is your organisation prepared to offer this sort of flexibility?
Dr. Lucia Kelleher is an ageing workforce/skills shortage management specialist. She has conducted national research projects, evaluation projects and education programs for government and the private sector examining how the retirement of the ‘baby-boomer bubble’ will impact business. Lucia will share her insights to set the scene for our discussion on transition to retirement.
Fiona Krautil joined ANZ just over 12 months ago as the Head of Advancement of Women and Diversity. Her aim is to ensure the bank develops tailored diversity and work/life solutions that work for staff and the business, that become an integral part of how things are done at ANZ. Fiona will discuss why mature age employment is a strategic business issue for ANZ; how mature age is positioned within our business & diversity strategy; what policies, programs & practices have been put in place to create a workplace that values the contribution of mature aged workers; and the results so far.
George Alexander and Cathy Lynch are HR Consultants with the State Revenue Office, an organisation that is leading the way amongst public sector employers in its approach to managing older workers. For the past 3 years an integrated program of education, career and succession planning and knowledge transfer has been offered to all staff over 50 years of age. In 2005, the program was a National Finalist in the AHRI Innovation Award for initiatives in an ageing workforce.
Volunteering, CSR and Work/Life agendas converge around themes of sustainability, social capital and care. Fittingly, our last roundtable before the festive season is devoted to the uplifting topic of employee volunteering.
In developing work/life initiatives many organisations support individuals to commence or continue their volunteer activities through flexible work arrangements and leave for volunteering. Some companies enter into formal arrangements and partnerships to integrate employee volunteering and community investment into their own business and employee development objectives.
Join us for a light lunch and to hear from Simon Robinson, CEO Melbourne Cares, a relatively new organisation which enables business, communities and government to work together to improve the quality of life for the people of Melbourne and in particular people in need.
Simon will share insights into corporate social responsibility and employee volunteering (he was previously Deputy Regional Director of Business in the Community in the UK). Simon will discuss how and why 25 local companies with 18,000 employees and more than 100 community groups have already signed up with Melbourne Cares; describe the approach to employee volunteer programs in organisations such as South East Water and other member organisations; and outline the complex evaluation system that it intends to apply to its programs.
Other perspectives to employee volunteering will be presented by Esther Makris, Corporate Social Responsibility Coordinator at NAB responsible for the bank’s long standing national volunteering initiative and Lisa Cavallaro, Employee Volunteering Development Manager at Volunteering Australia.
Just ask anyone – life is more stressful these days so it is not surprising that we are seeing workplace stress emerging as a major issue. It is linked to a range of physical and mental health problems in employees and negative impacts on organisations, such as increased absenteeism and employee turnover. But what can we do about it?
A VicHealth Report released earlier in the year shows job stress contributes to the preventable burdens of disease among working Victorians, with up to one third of cardiovascular disease in men and up to one third of depression in women attributable to job stress. It found job stress is a substantial public health problem deserving of a commensurate public health response. But what practical steps can organisations struggling with the challenge of developing effective long term workplace stress strategies take?
Lead investigator for the VicHealth Report Workplace Stress in Victoria: Developing a Systems Approach was Associate Professor Tony LaMontagne from the University of Melbourne. At this roundtable Tony will answer this question in discussing the findings of the Report including measuring job stress, the relationship between job stress and organisational health and implications for policy and practice in the workplace.
Tony will be joined by Jo Hoffman who will share how the Vic Police have implemented a comprehensive stress reduction strategy in the workplace. Kellie Lawrence and Antoinette Battista from the Department of Infrastructure will discuss work/life initiatives and present a case study on managing stress in the workplace.
The intersection of work/life programs with job stress initiatives will be the focus of the roundtable discussion. You may want to consider attending to this roundtable with your OHS colleague.
That is the title given to a recently released report into practices and attitudes towards work flexibility in Victoria’s largest law firms.
Don’t be fooled into thinking this roundtable is just of interest to lawyers. It isn’t. The report and process undertaken by the Law Institute of Victoria and Victorian Women Lawyers provides numerous insights relevant to any organisation intent on dealing with contemporary workplace issues impacting on business performance that often present as work/life problems.
For example, legal workplaces are places where the intellectual property of employees is paramount, where the very viability of the law firm depends on the keen minds of its employees. It is a sector that makes a significant investment in those intellects from the moment they set foot in the firm that finally employs them. It is also a sector that has been acutely aware of the dearth of women in its senior ranks – particularly when compared to the junior ranks of the profession, where more than half of employee lawyers are women. The same could be said for many other industry sectors.
The level of ‘unhappiness’ in the legal sector is a frequent source of discussion and one that research currently underway will quantify and articulate as cause for concern – not least because unhappy employees mean less productive employees. Depression among lawyers is another subject beginning to emerge as a real and serious problem for the profession to tackle with lawyers singled out as the profession ‘most likely’ to suffer from the illness. Long hours of work (with the related lack of work/life balance) are one of the major contributors.
In light of all these factors, how does a profession adapt to meet the emerging needs of its workforce? And how well is the law profession measuring up now? What lessons are there for other sectors and individual organisations? Alicia Patterson from the Law Institute of Victoria will answer those questions with support from representatives from some of the law firms involved in the recent study including Amanda Dib, HR Manager at Clayton Utz and Helen Ayre, HR Manager at Holding Redlich. Don’t miss this great opportunity to hear from local people dealing with the same local business and social environment you operate within.
Providing people choice over when and where they complete their work is fundamental to being able to balance work and life responsibilities. At this roundtable we will hear how the Licensed Club sector of the hospitality industry and the Liquor Hospitality & Miscellaneous Union used a grant from the State Government to undertake an employee choice rostering pilot study. Work undertaken in this project resulted in a set of guidelines which could be applied to workplaces in any industry to develop a flexible rostering system.
Johnnie Walker, the project consultant will outline the findings of the Clubs pilot study and the guidelines for developing a flexible rostering solution. He will be joined by an employer in the industry who will share their experience of employee choice rostering and starting to put the guidelines into action.
Melissa Carfax-Foster, Director of Operations at Melbourne’s Epworth Hospital has managed an employee choice rostering system for the past five years. This style of rostering was introduced in the setting of industry wide nursing shortages. Through its flexible approach to rostering Epworth now enjoys full staffing capability in this area. Melissa will outline how employee choice rostering was introduced at Epworth and present a sound business case for it as a work/life option worth considering.
Charlie Allen, from Victoria Police is part of the Attraction, Recruitment and Deployment Branch which is developing the Workforce Agreement strategy and a former Roster Sergeant for many years. Charlie has worked on the Roster Reform project and currently assesses worksites seeking to move from a traditional to an 'alternative' roster. Charlie is well versed in the concept of employee choice rostering, and how it could be applied.
The boundaries between work/life balance and workplace wellness are becoming blurred. Whether the two are separate or integrated, the goals are similar - employee resilience combined with business improvement and sustainability. This roundtable discussion will trace the history of wellbeing programs to pinpoint the contemporary business case, consider how to measure return on investment and hear from three wellbeing program managers to learn what’s going on in out there.
Wayne Bishop, is the Director of Activetics, a Melbourne-based consultancy that provides assistance to organisations with assessment, policy development, training and coaching services in worksite health, work-life balance and career transitions is a pioneer in the area of workplace wellbeing programs. He will trace the history of wellbeing programs and identify their place in workplaces of the future.
Mike McCoy is Managing Director and co-founder of fitnes2live, Australia’s leading interactive online health and wellbeing service. Mike is a health, wellness, fitness and nutrition commentator and journalist on ABC Melbourne radio, with regular features in most major and numerous sports magazines. Mike will put forward his view on how important it is to measure return on investment of wellbeing programs.
Leanne Edwards is National Occupational Health and Safety Manager General Mills Australia the 6th largest food manufacturer in the world, marketing to more than 100 countries. General Mills first launched their Health and Wellbeing program in 2001, piloting the program at their Mt Waverley site and then rolling out versions of the programs to four other sites.
Louise McDougall is a HR Consultant with Transurban and also leads the "life@work" group, which prides itself on offering an extensive health & well being program for all employees. The life@work team consists of employee representatives from across the business with an objective of adding value to employees working life and enhancing company unity.
Wendy Lundgaard is Director, Business Development & Consumer Services at the Building Commission. The Commission’s extensive well-being program began under the umbrella of the OHS committee and was recently integrated into the Life Balance strategy. Wendy is serious about measuring the organisational impact of initiatives. She is always on the look out for activities which create a sense of fun, reinforce the corporate values, and enhance workforce resilience at an individual and organisation level.
Ideas are changing about the challenges men face in achieving a satisfactory balance between their commitments to paid work and their family/personal lives. Work/life balance was once seen to be a women's issue and it was considered inappropriate for men to raise issues about their family or personal lives at work. Two of Australia’s foremost experts on men in the corporate world, Graeme Russell and Peter Llewellyn Smith believe that there is a growing acceptance that work/life balance is a key issue for men, their families and for organizations. Join us at this roundtable to find out what work/life initiatives will meet the needs of men.
Graeme Russell is an Associate Professor in Psychology at Macquarie University. He is an internationally recognised researcher, author and industry consultant on work/life balance, fatherhood, gender equity and diversity. Graeme will share with us his extensive knowledge on the subject of men and work/life balance.
Peter Llewellyn Smith is Manager, Men and Relationships Service, Children's Protection Society. The society currently runs a program called “I'm a Dad" which is an early intervention approach that builds on the strengths of fathers and inspires, supports and motivates men to become better fathers and partners. This is just one of many programs for men that Peter has been involved with over the years that he will tell us about.
Mensline Australia is a national service that supports men who are dealing with family and relationship difficulties, particularly surrounding family breakdown or separation. It offers anonymous telephone support, information and referral for men around Australia, 24 hrs a day, seven days a week, for the cost of a local call. Mensline Australia’s counsellors are professionally trained to provide counselling responses and approaches that specifically suit the way men think and behave.
Jeremy Hearne from Mensline will share with us the work/life issues commonly mentioned by men from all walks of life calling the service and the impact it is having on them.
Elizabeth Sleigh Corporate Human Resources Australia Post will explain how Post has worked in partnership with Mensline - why they do this, the outcomes they have had and also outline some related initiatives.
Reducing Role Overload in the Health Care Sector
You are invited to attend a special forum on the topic of Reducing Role Overload in the Health Care Sector arranged by the Work/Life Association in conjunction with Monash University's Australian Centre for Research in Employment and Work (ACREW) and Victorian Hospitals’ Industrial Association.
+ MoreFor presentations from the Right to Request Flexible Work business forum held on 19 May click here.
+ MorePresident Obama and Michelle Obama are taking a keen interest in workplace flexibility
The Obama Administration announced plans to hold a Forum on Workplace Flexibility on March 31st at the White House.
+ MORETowards flexibility being the “new normal” in the American workplace
A recently released US report from Workplace Flexibility 2010, a Georgetown Law-based think tank, outlines a comprehensive set of policy solutions to expand Americans’ access to flexible work arrangements (FWAs) such as compressed workweeks, predictable schedules, and telework. The common-ground solutions described in the report can benefit both working families and businesses.
+ MOREAustralian men yearn for work/life balance
This article reports on a growing trend among males in the workforce to be wanting to better match their work and family responsibilities.
+ MOREFlexibility for men and women and all ages
Perhaps one the key to normalizing flexibility in the workplace is for men to speak up about their desire to have the same flexibility for family time as many women have been expressing and acting on for years.
+ MORE