ACTIONS: Engagement and awareness of flexible work

This will remove subjectivity and potential bias from decision making and ensure the employee experience is consistent across the business.

What immediate actions you can implement:

• Update the recruitment page on your organisation’s website to include case studies on women in senior leadership positions and ensure that opportunities for flexible work are stated explicitly.
• Develop a toolkit which supports managers to have conversations with their employees about the organisation’s values and encourage managers to have conversations about changes in their behaviour that will support the implementation of these actions.
• Consult with employees and managers to understand the current level of engagement and awareness of entitlements and opportunities pre and post leave to support them to stay connected to the workplace, their career and colleagues during period of absence. Focus on surfacing factors that prohibit communication flow and understanding the channels and strategies that have the greatest impact.

What longer term actions you can implement:

• Develop a communications plan with case studies and role models to communicate the benefits of practices and strategies more actively. These could include:
  • Hardcopy guides/toolkits/brochures for soon to be or recent parents
  • Allocating employee positions to ensure accessibility of information
  • Push email to employees on maternity and paternity leave, including invitations to engage in social events, participate in training and development programs and chat rooms to ensure ongoing connection with peers and the workplace
  • Consider increased adoption of audio and verbal channels to improve communications, including voice memos and short podcasts
  • Appointing a maternity ‘buddy’ or maternity ‘mentor’ to conduct regular check ins with employees prior to, during and following periods of leave
  • Increased focus on opportunities and entitlements during the employee onboarding process.