In this episode Angela Priestley from Women’s Agenda interviews Katrina Troughton, Managing Director at IBM, Australia and New Zealand about the power of the little things that make a difference for parents and carers in the workplace. 

Katrina speaks candidly about her own experience as a working parent of three children and describes some of the benefits she received to help support her family whilst working at IBM in her 28-year career with the company. 

The discussion highlights how the right conversation helps employees share their own ideas about how their role can work in line with their caring responsibilities. 

A look into what make a workplace and employer family friendly and what organisations can do about it if they need to change or enhance how their working families are supported at work and at home.

As modern parents, we're all struggling to stay on top of both our own, and our kids mental health. In this podcast, Gus Worland talks about dads and their relationships with expression.

He says it's time to get rid of outdated ideals of what masculinity looks like, and start letting boys and men know that it's ok to be vulnerable and emotional. And not just letting them know it's ok, showing them it's ok.

Gus is the founder of the a fantastic non-for-profit foundation, Gotcha4Life, which fundamentally works to save lives of males throughout Australia.

Medibank made history earlier this year when they rewrote the rulebook, scrapping ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ carer labels and adopting a fair approach to Parental Leave.

"Medibank wanted to "make a stand" for their people, and "create an exceptional experience around parental leave," Kylie explains. 

In this podcast, Medibank’s Kylie Bishop (Group Executive, People & Culture) is interviewed by the Parents At Work CEO, Emma Walsh.

This podcast is sure to inspire other HR & Diversity practitioners who are looking to enhance their own Parental Leave Policies. Kylie outlines and reflects on the policies put in place in March, and how they are changing behaviours and cultures within the business.

As school holidays approach, most of us are thinking about re-connecting with family, taking some well-deserved time off as well as finding creative ways to engage the kids over the break.

In this podcast Fiona Hitchiner from Parents At Work interviews Adrian Rokman, co-founder of KidsCo, known for their award winning School holiday programs in the workplace and recently named as one of the most innovative companies in Australia by the Australian Financial Review. Together they will provide ideas and inspiration to families to provide fun and educational ways to keep the kids busy and entertained which will also create space for a bit of me-time for the grown ups! You will also get to take away practical resources for the kids.

With all the events that have transpired this year, carers deserve recognition now more than ever. In this podcast, Emma Walsh, CEO of Parents At Work, interviews CEO of Carers Australia, Liz Callaghan, to discuss both the work of Carers Australia and National Carers Week.

National Carers Week aims to recognise the 2.65 million unpaid carers in Australia and the work they provide for their loved ones. It aims to raise awareness of this crucial role and the incredibly impactful service they are providing for not only those they are caring for, but the community as a whole.

Ultimately, Carers Australia wants to see unpaid care recognised as a shared responsibility between family, community businesses, and government especially as the role of unpaid carers seems to be invisible to many.

The lack of recognition leads to insufficient support of carers, especially during this pandemic where this already isolating role has become even more distant from society and existing support networks shutting down.

To put things into perspective, the replacement value of all unpaid care this year (prior to COVID-19) is nearly 78 billion dollars - that's nearly 1.5 billion dollars per week!

This Carers Week we aim to raise awareness to create more carer friendly options within employment and the general community.

Blake Woodward is a dad, management consultant and founder of suittiestroller.com - a website supporting corporate dads in finding work life balance while raising a family, as well as advocating for gender-equal parental leave and support policies. In this episode, Parents At Work talk to Blake about his Global Dad Survey on the impact of COVID-19 on fathers, and his views on empowering working parents to choose the best way to raise their families through gender neutral workplace policies. You can access the Global Dad Survey Report here: https://www.suittiestroller.com/dad-survey-report

Over 80% of women are feeling anxious right now about birth during COVID-19 and over 40% are changing their birthing plans. What does giving birth during a pandemic mean? What are some of the restrictions? What can expecting parents do to still have a beautiful birth?

In this podcast, Parents At Work talk to Nadine Richardson from She Births about what expecting parents should know at this time. Nadine is a childbirth educator, doula and prenatal yoga specialist. She is the director of The Birthing Institute and creator of She Births® (2008), the world’s only scientifically verified childbirth education program.

Enjoy 10% off the She Births® Full Online Course with the code PAWPODCAST10. You and your partner can prepare together via desktop or app making learning as easy and comfortable as possible.

https://shebirths.com/full-online-birthing-class/

Image: Jerusha Sutton, www.jerusha.com.au

How will work-life be re-imagined post COVID-19?

Remote work is radically reshaping how we work and live. As organisations busily plan to welcome employees back to the office post COVID-19, they are fast re-imaging how and what 'working from the office' will actually mean in reality.

Workplaces acknowledge we're still months away from having everyone back behind their desks as they used to be, prompting some employers to drastically rethink how and where their people will work.

In this well-worth-the-time webinar Parents At Work invited a number of experts to explore exactly this - the future of workplace design and flexibility in our organisations.

Our panel included:

• Shiona Watson, General Manager, Human Resources at QBE Insurance.

• Kristen Miller, Head of Workplace, Westpac Group.

• Stephen Barrow-Yu, Executive Director, People and Change, KPMG & Director, Diversity Council of Australia.

• Emma Walsh, CEO, Parents At Work

To keep up to date with all our free webinars and resources for HR professionals and leaders sign up to our Supporter Newsletter visit www.parentsandcarersatwork.com.au

To find out more on how to become an Employer Member contact [email protected]

This webinar recording shares highlights of the National Working Families Report and discusses implications for the future of work and family in light of the challenges posed by Covid 19. The focus is on exploring the key recommendations for employers committed to creating family friendly, flexible workplaces.

Contributors include:

- Kate Jenkins, Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Australian Human Rights Commission

- Sarah McCann Bartlett, CEO, Australian Human Resources Institute

- Kellie-Ann McDade, Partner Employment Law, Baker McKenzie

- Grant Wardell-Johnson, Lead Tax Partner, KPMG

- Emma Walsh, CEO, Parents At Work

- Angela Priestley, Founder, Women's Agenda

Employers are key to revolutionising the way we design work and family policy and practices. To ensure Australia is both responsive and progressive in meeting the changing nature of caring needs in our society, we must advance the way we combine work and caring responsibilities. This means identifying and addressing the cultural, gender and economic barriers that prevent progress and result in poor health and wellbeing outcomes for Australian families.

This recording also explores recommendations for engaging the wider business community on what is needed to support both men and women manage work and caring responsibilities including:

- Key research findings on the work and family challenges that impact wellbeing and gender equality outcomes

- Insights from employees on what is needed to better manage work and care

- The business and community benefits of advancing work and family policies

- Key recommendations - how to progress employer-supported family friendly policies

About the Report

The 2019 National Working Families Report is a not-for-profit initiative undertaken by Parents At Work as an APLEN initiative in partnership with Karitane, HSBC, Baker McKenzie, Deloitte, KPMG, IKEA and QBE.

The report details the survey findings and considers how workplaces can better support women and men to effectively balance their work and caring commitments, giving employees equal opportunities to fulfil their work responsibilities and career goals while looking after their family and personal wellbeing. 6,289 parents and carers across Australia completed the survey. The results reveal that parents and carers across Australia are finding it difficult to balance work and family commitments and report their personal wellbeing and family relationships suffer as a result.

To read the full report with a summary of the key recommendations visit - parentsandcarersatwork.com/wpcontent/uploads/2019/12/National-Working-Families-Report-2019_1.pdf

For more information about the report and to read the Executive Summary visit - aplen.pages.ontraport.net/WorkingFamiliesReport2019

About APLEN

APLEN is a network of organisations established as part of a commitment to lead UN global gender equality efforts to advocate and advance parental leave equality in Australia. To find out more visit aplen.com.au