New South Wales Quality Part Time Work Round Table

The New South Wales Quality Part Time Work Round Table was held on Thursday 19 February 2009.

Presented by the New South Wales Office for Women’s Policy and Diversity Council Australia, and hosted by the New South Wales Minister for Women the Hon Verity Firth MP, the Round Table brought together representatives from business, unions, universities and government agencies to identify the challenges and future opportunities for improving access to quality part time work in New South Wales.

A copy of the summary report of the Quality Part Time Work Round Table proceedings can be downloaded in both Adobe PDF and MS Word formats.

Some of the key themes reflected across the Quality Part Time Work Round Table proceedings include:

• The lack of quality part time work contributes to considerable underutilisation of women’s skills and capabilities in the workforce. While Australia performs well in educating our young women, keeping those skills within our labour market is more difficult, as reflected in international comparisons of female workforce participation. For many women, this can be attributed to the lack of quality work opportunities that enable them to work in, and advance through, their regular occupations while balancing work and caring responsibilities. More generally, this circumstance constitutes a significant leakage of resources from our economy with subsequent implications for productivity.
• The status of part time work in workplaces and the broader community needs to be elevated and we need to have new conversations about how we conceptualise work. Participants reflected that the current global economic environment presents opportunities to mainstream part time work and raise its status. However, some key challenges were identified. These included the need to keep work quality issues in sight when business are considering reductions in hours of work as a means of avoiding redundancies. More generally, views were expressed that we need to have a bigger conversation about the nature of work in contemporary society; and to use new language and challenge the concept of the ideal worker as a full time worker. In contemporary Australian society, part time work is not an anomaly, as one participant noted: “Part time workers are just like everyone else”. The challenge is to ensure part time work is an integrated, and not a marginalised, form of employment.
• Part time work is not only a women’s issue. Round Table participants noted that quality part time work is also important in facilitating workforce participation for men and for people with mental illnesses, disabilities, people transitioning to retirement, people with caring responsibilities beyond caring for their own small children (e.g. elder care, grandparent care, older children). It was also noted that in addition to benefits for the economy, quality part time work for women and men can improve the quality of family life, and that within workplaces men needed to be part of the solution in order to mainstream part time work.
• The part time workforce is diverse and reflects a diverse range of issues. These issues need to be addressed in a variety of responses to improve the quality of part time work. One clear message from the Round Table was that the part time work force is incredibly diverse. While some people struggle to reduce their hours, others are working fewer hours than they want or need to. Further, the obstacles to quality part time work are different in different industries, occupations, and parts of the workforce. While recognising common problems, policy responses and other actions need to reflect this diversity.
• Management capabilities need improvement in order to realise quality part time work in practice. Many organisations recognise the benefits of offering part time work, and formalise these arrangements in workplace policies. Meeting employees’ requirements for flexibility, and work hours that meet their needs, can improve staff morale and productivity, and can be used by businesses to attract and retain skilled professionals and older workers, particularly in organisations where competitive remuneration is not available. However, Round Table participants noted that policies and procedures by themselves are insufficient to address the workplace barriers to quality part time work. A range of issues were raised about the need to support managers’ understanding, capabilities, and motivation to implement improved arrangements.
• Individuals, business and government all have a role to play in improving the quality of part time work available in NSW. Round Table attendees identified a range of areas where researchers, unions, and workplace practitioners could make a difference, where greater support could be provided for businesses to implement arrangements, and where government policies could better support women’s workforce participation and remove barriers to improve the quality of part time work.

The New South Wales Office for Women’s Policy is developing a forward agenda to address the availability of quality part time work in New South Wales. This agenda will build on the issues and ideas generated through the Round Table, and will include identifying ways to assist business to implement good practice in this area.

World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report 2008 Country Profiles: Australia

 

 

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