Work & Family

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Making working time more flexible

Varying the length of shifts

Rosters are generally drawn up to ensure that peak periods such as mornings, late afternoons and early evenings are adequately staffed. However the full-length morning and afternoon shifts can often cut across key times for families, such as getting children to child-care or school, collecting them in the afternoons, supervising homework and evening meals.

One option that aged-care employers might adopt to create more family-friendly shifts attractive to part-time workers with young children while still covering peak periods is to offer shorter shifts to part-timers, perhaps 3.5, 4 and 5 hours length, in the morning, early afternoon and early evening.

Shorter shifts may be more successful where employees are drawn from the local area. Where employees have to travel some distance to work, they may find the impact on their caring arrangements and the time taken in travel excessive in relation to their earnings for the shorter shift.

If an aged-care employer is considering introducing shorter shifts, it is advisable to consult fully with staff and the relevant employee associations.

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Varying shift starting and finishing times

If an employee has difficulty complying with the starting or finishing times of a shift because of family responsibilities such as dropping off or collecting children from child-care or school, the Roster Manager may consider allowing the employee to vary starting and finishing times. This might involve, for example, allowing the employee to start half an hour later and finish the shift half an hour later.

When considering a request to vary starting and finishing times on a short or long-term basis, the Roster Manager would need to assess specific tasks to be carried out, the workload of other team members, flow-on effects on the adjoining shifts and any occupational health and safety implications that may arise from the rest of the team 'working short' to cover the later start, as well as the feasibility of the employee working a varied shift on a longer term basis if necessary.

Where most or all employees live locally, aged-care employers may find it useful to discuss shift changeover times with the staff to identify any potential to tailor starting and finishing times to fit better with hours of local schools or child-care providers, or to benefit from local transport arrangements.

If it is proposed to revise shift changeover times generally, the employer needs to ensure that the new arrangements are consistent with the requirements of relevant industrial awards or agreements, and may need to consult with the relevant employee associations as well as employees. Where new arrangements proposed differ significantly from those under the relevant awards, it may be appropriate to negotiate a localised industrial agreement with relevant employee associations to cover those arrangements.

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Juggling meal breaks to allow employees to attend to family responsibilities

If employees need to pick up children from care or school to deliver them to after-school or other forms of care, Roster Managers may consider allowing them to juggle meal breaks to enable them to do so.

In general, any requirements about timing of meal breaks in the relevant industrial award or agreement should be taken into consideration when assessing this option, but in the absence of strong evidence to the contrary, it would be considered reasonable to allow an employee to vary their meal breaks for this purpose ⁴.

'Making up time' arrangements in aged-care sector awards can also be used to cover situations of this type.