Podcast

How many people start the year wanting to leave their jobs because it doesn’t fit with their home life?

Work-life balance is the term of the decade as employees grapple with the ever-increasing demands of work and home life. But as workplaces adapt to the call from career savvy professionals to be rewarded with flexibility and wellbeing support for the commitment to their work, never before have we seen such an opportunity to integrate the two.

How do you turn a Career v Life tension into a more seamless ‘one life’ reality that supports you, your employer and your family. Join Emma Walsh and Gill McLaren as they address the obstacles that get in the way from living an all-round productive, meaningful life.

Before commencing parental leave, it is important to discuss with your manager/supervisor and/or people representative the amount of communication you wish to receive whilst on leave. Keeping in touch with progress and changes in your department and in the company while you are on parental leave will assist you in a smooth transition when you return to work.

Join Emma Walsh and Lucy Dahill as they break this down a further and share your various options for keeping in touch whilst on parental leave.

It's never too early to start thinking about how you will manage your child care arrangements around work once you return from leave.

Join Kiri Stejko and Lucy Dahill in this short audio which provides some top practical tips and key considerations to make the preparation easier.

It's important to plan and prepare for a conversation with your manager about your impending leave; how your working arrangements may need to change in the future and how your work will be performed in your absence. Working together with your manager will ensure a more positive transition.

Join Emma Walsh, Kiri Stejko and Lucy Dahill as they provide some practical examples of how you can optimise your preparation for parental leave.

Keeping healthy and being safe at work is critical for expectant parents. This means you and your manager may need to consider what needs to change or be accommodated as a result of your pregnancy. Whilst many expectant parents can carry on and work in the same capacity as they did previously, it is important to acknowledge and accept that some things may need to be adjusted or stopped altogether.

Join Emma Walsh, Kiri Stejko and Lucy Dahill as they share some great real life examples of how this can play out in the workplace.

When you become pregnant, there are responsibilities and obligations both you and your employer must be aware of in order to manage your transition to and from parental leave.

Join Emma Walsh, Kiri Stejko and Lucy Dahill in this short audio as they discuss some of the essential requirements you will need to know along with some practical tips on self care at work during your pregnancy.

Returning to work after a period of parental leave can be an emotional time for some parents as they worry how they will cope with this major life transition. In this recording, Kiri Stejko, CSO Parents At Work, shares her own experience returning to work after her second child, along with some important factors to consider to best prepare yourself and ensure you have the proper support in place to allow yourself the time to adjust.

The transition back to work after parental leave can be smooth if we take the time to focus on what it is we really want. As Parents At Work CEO Emma Walsh highlights in this short audio, the most important conversation you need to have is with yourself, considering questions like what would make your transition easier, what would provide support to you at this time, and what would help you feel more emotionally ready?

Join Lucy Dahill as she explores what a flexible work arrangement could look like.

Flexible work practices can vary for each individual depending upon the type of work, work pattern available to employees, and the effect flexibility has on the employer.

A flexible work arrangement can be classified as a variation to the standard full-time core job functions including a change of location as to where you perform some of your job functions or a change in the hours you perform your work activities.

Flexible work arrangements come in all shapes and sizes and are often innovative in design and structure, having both formal and informal elements. When flexible work practices are agreed between an employee and manager, the flexible work approach is made workable by a high degree of trust and with the consideration to the needs of the individual employee, the team, and the manager involved.

A flexible work approach focuses on outcome-driven performance as opposed to attendance-driven performance.

It is about you having the opportunity to design and decide how your work will be done and how you will coordinate your schedule with your own needs, the needs of your team and of the wider organisation.

Join Lucy Dahill as she takes you through some key points when considering to work more flexibly.