OPINION: There is a strong justification for employers to normalise part-time employment and flexible work within their organisations
OPINION: It's for good reason that part-time employment has long been considered a valuable work alternative for much of Australia’s workforce.
For employees, it provides scope to reduce paid work hours to balance other commitments, such as caregiving, education, or other pursuits.
And it enables employers to balance fluctuations in demand and manage labour costs, as well as gaining access to a wider talent pool of workers unwilling or unable to commit to a full-time role.
But there are disadvantages to the part-time work option.
Working part time can limit pay and career progression, resulting in long-term economic disadvantages, including lower lifetime earnings and reduced retirement savings.
This is especially the case for women, who make up three quarters of the total part-time workforce.
This makes part-time work a gendered issue, and any change in prevalence or outcomes for part-time workers will have a gendered impact.
But does part-time work retain the same relevance to Australia’s labour markets now as it has done in the past?
The formal definition of part-time work used by the Fair Work Commission entails working less than 38 hours per week, with regular hours and fixed start and end times each day.
However, we are seeing a growing demand for flexible work arrangements, with employees seeking more input into the structure of how, when and where they work, including hybrid or remote work options.
And according to a new report by the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre and the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, this is driving a change in the nature and incidence of part-time work.
The report shows that the proportion of women in part-time employment has dropped by 3.2 percentage points to 29.7 per cent in the past five years, with the share of women in full-time jobs
The pandemic enforced a global working-from-home experiment that may have changed the attitudes of some employers towards non-traditional models of working.
Whatever the driver, more than half of all full-time employees and 70 per cent of managers can now work flexibly.
Taken together, these trends suggest that an evolution of the Australian labour market is under way, with better matching of working arrangements to employees’ preferences.
I regard this to be a positive development.
Not all business leaders are on board, of course, with vocal and public resistance from some CEOs to flexible and remote working arrangements.
Fortunately, this attitude is the exception rather than the norm.
There is a strong justification for employers to normalise part-time employment and flexible work within their organisations, reinforced by positive role modelling of job flexibility by senior management.
Flexible work arrangements provide employment opportunities to a broader group of workers and offer benefits to employers from improved workforce wellbeing and performance, increased loyalty and motivation, greater retention and reduced turnover.
The more that organisations explore flexible working arrangements, part-time and job share options as appropriate for the nature of the role, the better the outcomes for both businesses and employees.
• Professor Alan Duncan is director of the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre at Curtin University.
