Keep Employees, Look After Their Children | BTalk Australia

Research has shown that more women would return to work, or work longer hours, if they could find affordable child care for their children.

Today on BTalk Australia Phil Dobbie talks to Anna McPhee the Director of Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency. With well over one million children below school age in Australia, helping with child care and maternity leave is an effective way of attracting and retaining staff.

Click on “Play” above to hear the podcast.

Add your thoughts and comments by clicking “Participate” at the bottom of this post.

See also:

• Australia’s Top Business Women | BTalk
• Mia Freedman on Working with Blokes | BTalk Australia
• No Place for Women in the Aussie Boys Club | BTalk Australia

• Today’s Transcript

Phil Dobbie: Good day, I’m Phil Dobbie. Today on BTalk Australia: keeping employees by looking after their children. There are well over one million children in Australia below school age. And a shortage of child care places. A couple of years ago, research by the government showed that only 3 percent of organisations provided child care centres for their staff. Is this the key to hanging onto women in business? We’re joined by Anna McPhee the director of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency. It’s an Australian government agency. Anna, do we know how many women are not returning to work or delaying their return because they can’t find anyone to look after the children?

Anna McPhee: Child care is a key outcome for women who are seeking to participate in the workforce. The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency recently conducted some research that we call Generation F. And we asked women who were wanting to return to the workforce in a year’s time or who were working part time if they could access affordable child care who they seek to work more hours? And a third of the women respondents said, yes, they would seek to work more paid hours if they were able to access part-time child care.

Dobbie: Right. So this is reflecting a shortage of child care places in the community generally then, do you think? Or is it a question of cost for them as well?

McPhee: Cost is a big issue. Many people choose to have their child care in a whole range of different forms, whether it be formal child care, whether it be extended family, whether it be day care centres or community centres. There are shortages in some areas across the country and then there are areas where child care centres are closing down because they cannot fill the places. So it is a tough policy challenge for government to get the balance right.

Dobbie: So what’s the government’s approach on it? What can the government do? Isn’t it really largely a private enterprise issue? A lot of the provision of these child centres?

McPhee: It’s mixed: both private and government funded at different levels. So I think both private sector and government are looking at and focusing on how can they provide and meet the need.

Dobbie: Now we had the human resources institute talking to us a couple of weeks ago. They reckon it costs about one and a half times the salary of a person to replace that person irrespective of whether they’re a man or a woman. But if you’re losing a particular key member of staff who’s gone off to have kids, I’d imagine you know there’s a big incentive to provide the support that person needs and, particularly for larger companies, providing child care centres on the premises. But is that happening a lot?

McPhee: Some research that we conducted of our employers around 3 percent of organisations that report to EOWA provide child care centres for their staff.

Dobbie: That’s not a lot, is it?

McPhee: It’s not a lot. But many more, 21 percent, provide some formal assistance to their employees in relation to child care, whether it be information on accessing places or other forms of assistance. It’s a tough issue for employers. Yes, retention is very important. But some employers might not necessarily have the demand. Child care is not their core business. Setting up a child care centre is incredibly costly and the regulations around child care centres is a mine field. So I think that is a barrier for many organisations themselves who would consider setting up child care centres. But also there’s the equity issue for it for an organisation which is dispersed and has many places of work. How do they provide the appropriate response to their employees needs?

Dobbie: But maybe it’s just not the focus of the senior management team — could insurance be an issue as well?

McPhee: Yes. The costs and regulations around child care centre have been prohibitive for some employers who have gone down the road of researching the possibility of setting them up. And it’s come down to a decision that it’s not something that they can pursue in the long term.

Dobbie: Which is a shame. Parliament House has set a good example at long last. I mean they’re getting their child care centre.

McPhee: Yes like the 3 percent of other organisations. They’re setting up a a creche.

Dobbie: And making a big compromise as well because they’re converting a bar.

McPhee: Oh, I don’t think it’s been a bar for some time. But it certainly will be, perhaps for the politicians themselves but also the many support staff that work in Parliament House and support the parliamentary process, which has often family unfriendly hours, very long hours. This will be of some support.

Dobbie: Now for women who want to stay at home for a while after they’ve had their children, there is some good news it seems: paid maternity leave is on the increase.

McPhee: Yes, 49 percent of organisations which report EOWA are now providing paid maternity leave. And with an average provision of six weeks. But what’s interesting is that more and more organisations are providing a period of 12 weeks or more paid maternity leave.

Dobbie: Now the situation overseas, you can probably tell from the accent my origins are in the UK and I was a little bit surprised when I first came to Australia — it just wasn’t the norm that you got paid maternity leave irrespective of your job. What’s different?

McPhee: Yeah, Australia, like the US, is one of only two countries in the ICD that do not provide paid maternity leave. The current government has sent to the productivity commission an inquiry into looking at recommending an appropriate model for the introduction of paid maternity leave. Obviously, the maternity payment and the bonus, the baby bonus are payments that are made to all mothers in the community and have been paid for some time.

Dobbie: Now companies that are choosing to pay maternity leave to employees tend to be doing it largely to people in professional roles, people that they want to hang onto. In other industries where people are more replaceable we’re less likely to see that happen.

McPhee: Paid maternity leave is provided across industry, across the country. We’re seeing the provision of paid maternity leave in the retail sector and, yes, as you mentioned in the professional services, in mining sectors, in engineering, in banking — it really crosses the business spectrum of where paid maternity leave is offered. Organisations that are providing paid maternity leave provide it because they recognise that it is a tool to attract and retain women. Organisations which provide paid maternity leave have a greater rate of return in their workforce than organisations which don’t provide paid maternity leave. So the provision of paid maternity leave really is key to long-term attachment to the workforce for women.

Dobbie: Do you think the situation is getting better? I look at the ABS, there’re some statistics here saying that female participation in the workforce, irrespective of whether they’ve had children or not, it’s 55.8 percent in May which is a good 4 percent higher than 6 years ago. So there are more women participating in the workforce now.

McPhee: We certainly have more women in the workforce than ever before. And we also have more women with young children in the workforce than ever before. Over 58, 59 percent of women with children under the age of 4 are now working either full time or part time. So the assumption that women will leave the workforce once they have children and never return is really outdated and organisations need to focus on how can they support parents, both men and women, balance work and family.