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People’s work priorities have changed significantly since the days before the pandemic.
“The flexibility of being able to work from home, obviously shorter work hours to pick up the kids from school, things like that. Those would probably be the biggest ones.”
A new report from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency and the Bankwest Curtin Economics Center or BCEC has revealed these changing trends.
The findings show that fewer Australians are willing to maintain part-time roles, with a growing number of workers prioritizing flexibility.
Professor Alan Duncan is the director of the BCEC and one of the authors of the study.
“Less than 30 percent of the workforce now works part-time and there has been a corresponding increase in the number of those working full-time, as well as an increase in the prevalence of flexible working arrangements among those working So taken together I think what we’re seeing, particularly among women who make up three-quarters of the part-time workforce, is largely a sort of transition to work arrangements. full time and flexible.
Australia has one of the highest rates of part-time workers of any OECD country.
However, the share of women in these positions has fallen by 3.2% over the past two years.
At the same time, full-time positions that allow flexible work arrangements increased by 2.3 percent during the same period.
Dr. Silvia Salazar, co-author of the report, explains the reasons for this change.
“The flexibility that has been put in place in many companies has allowed many people to increase their working hours, and therefore to access full-time work. But also to take care of their children in a way that what they can manage both So, before you can choose between working part-time and taking care of your children, let’s say that you can now work full-time while taking care of your children thanks to flexible work arrangements. .
Yet the unusually high rate of women in part-time positions also reveals the inequalities that persist.
“As women, in particular, begin to approach the childbearing and family-forming years, there is a decline in the prevalence of full-time work and an increase in the incidence of part-time working until ‘at retirement age where, for both women and men, we see that around half of the workforce works part-time. So I think there are societal norms. predominant care responsibilities, whether children or the elderly, are still disproportionately entrusted to women rather than men.
Considering all of this, job opportunities might look a little different in the future.
Employers are already paying attention to the daily needs of their workers.
“If you are a workplace that does not offer flexible work arrangements, you will be a workplace that lacks good employees. Because you will just leave or go somewhere else. Especially for niche sectors. kind of roles. So I definitely think most employers are going to have to start offering it, if they can.
Dr. Salazar says more change is inevitable, given the changes since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
She says employers will need to be flexible to adapt to a changing environment.
“If you want to retain these talented workers, you’re going to have to move toward more flexibility in the way we work. So I think remote work will definitely be something that we continue, probably not 100 percent of the time, but there is some years There are times we will work from home and others we will do in the office and definitely flexible working arrangements where you don’t have to be there at a specific time but have some flexibility. on start times you finish, and how do you do your job, I think that kind of thing, having more autonomy over how you do things, when you do it and where you do it, that’s something we’ll see a lot of. in the future and I think there (are) a lot of conversations that will happen between employees and employers, to get it right.”
Professor Duncan says businesses need to ensure that employees who follow a path that prioritizes their personal wellbeing do not suffer setbacks in their professional development.
“It’s really important that we reduce the career penalties associated with flexible working. And to do that, I think it’s really important that companies give confidence to their employees that there is a standardization of working arrangements. flexible work arrangements so that they are modeled by senior management that there is an investment in skills and processes among managers and HR professionals to manage a flexible workforce. And the more flexible working can be normalized, the more the adoption of flexible working models and part-time working within the company is great.
