I pass on an article that made quite a debate over the last week here in Sydney Australia as AECOM announced it would be trialling “12 weeks annual leave scheme for working parents”. This of course came with the associated pay cut, but spread out over the year wouldn’t make a significant difference in your weekly pay.

The idea is to advertise for ‘school term only’ positions to allow parents (presumably predominately women who can’t get flexible work currently) the opportunity to maintain/grow a career. The scheme would be open to everyone, encouraging men to also consider the roles to spend more time with their children. The article outlines some of the issues that we have also identified in our WICGE survey about the lack of females in leadership roles and the challenges of retaining high quality female employees.

So would you work for less pay if it meant that you could have more time off to spend with your kids? Would more flexible hours help you?

The full article can be found here: http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/aecom-trials-12-weeks-annual-leave-scheme-for-working-parents-20171020-gz5c8w