While Ciccone thanked his parliamentary colleagues for creating a “family-friendly environment” in the Senate and encouraged other fathers to bring their kids to work, the fact Ciccone’s proud, baby-holding moment came seven years after Senator Larissa Waters became the first federal politician to bring her baby into the senate was a subtle reminder of the lag that remains in men accessing family-friendly workplace policies. 

This issue could be addressed thanks to changes in how workplaces are required to report to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. 

Most of us are well aware that the gender pay gaps of employers will be made public on the 27th of February when WGEA publishes such data from firms with 100 or more employees. But this is just one of several changes impacting workplaces that will ultimately affect employees with family responsibilities, thanks to the passage of the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023, aimed at enabling more accountability and transparency on workplace gender equality. 

From April 1, employers who report to WGEA (those with 100 or more team members) will be required to answer new mandatory questions and provide CEO pay details and remuneration numbers for those in Head of Business and Casual Manager roles. These employers will also be required to report on sexual harassment, harassment on the grounds of sex or discrimination. 

Employers with more than 500 or more team members must go a step further. In addition to providing the above details, these employers must include details of their policy or strategy for each of the six gender equality indicators. 

The six Gender Equality Indicators include: 

1. Gender composition of the workforce 
2. Gender composition of governing bodies
3. Equal remuneration between women and men 
4. Availability and utility of employment terms, flexible working arrangements, & support for family & caring responsibilities
5. Consultation with employees on gender equality in the workplace 
6. Sexual harassment, including harassment on the ground of sex or discrimination. 

WGEA has long aimed to address all six of these indicators in their reporting requirements, but these new changes will mark the first time that employers are required to have policies or strategies in place that address all of them in some way. 

All six play an important part in enabling gender equality, but the fourth GEI is particularly interesting for bringing down barriers those with family and caring responsibilities continue to come up against. 

The key word in this indicator is “utility”. Making flexible working arrangements and various support for family and caring responsibilities available is always a good step, but the more difficult and important step is ensuring such support mechanisms are actually used. This means directly reporting the number of employees using such policies and breaking it down according to areas like job level, gender and other relevant metrics. 

The results of WGEA’s 2022-23 Census, launched in November 2023, highlight the opportunity for stronger progress on areas like workplace flexibility and providing greater support to families. 

One area is on paid parental leave, where employers are increasingly evolving their policies to offer better primary and secondary carer leave, as well as much stronger initiatives around removing labels altogether to offer the same amount of leave to all new parents. But the uptick in men taking leave is not moving fast enough.  There was little change in the proportion of men taking paid parental leave in WGEA’s 2022-23 Census results, rising just 0.6 per cent to 14 per cent of those taking employer-funded paid primary carer’s leave. 

And while there has been significant progress around workplace flexibility in recent years, the WGEA results show that part time work is still being penalised when it comes to promotions and opportunities. Just seven per cent of management roles are part time, indicating a “part time promotions gap” which is a problem, particularly for women, given thirty per cent of women work part time. 

While employers have been making progress against most of the six gender equality indicators since 2013-14, when WGEA reporting requirements began, the progress is too slow. The game-changer now is for employers to report on their policies and how such policies and initiatives are actually being utilised, effectively measuring their impact on closing the gap.

At Family Friendly Workplaces, we’ve seen the power of recording and tracking the effectiveness of family-inclusive policies and practices to support employees in combining work and family commitments. Collecting such evidence sees family-friendly workplace policies and practices evolving to meet an organisation’s ESG and gender equality targets. Family-friendly policies, including flexible work, modern paid parental leave, inclusive leadership, family care and wellbeing initiatives, ultimately support gender equality efforts while making the workplace better for everything. 

Senator Raff Ciccone is one of countless dads keen on taking up workplace policies to make their work more family-friendly. In Ciccone’s case, Senate rules changed in 2016 to end a ban on children entering the house during divisions. The focus then was on allowing female MPs to breastfeed in the chamber, but really it’s an opportunity for all new parents to care for their children during the long proceedings when needed, and to also nomalise the mix of family and work for everyone. 

One thing is for certain, workplaces will need to stay ahead of the curve by by embracing family-friendly policies to improve gender equality outcomes to close the gap. 

You can read Family Friendly Workplaces’ free guide on transforming family-friendly policies and practices into gender equality solutions here. 

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One of the first things team members see on The a2 Milk Company (a2MC) CEO David Bortolussi’s desk is a black and white photo of his family.

As Chief People and Culture Office Amanda Hart says, the photograph is symbolic and sets the tone of the organisation from the very top.

Family-friendly policies start with family- friendly leadership, Hart says.

“It’s primarily about igniting the conversation with your most senior leaders first and foremost, to establish the acknowledgement of need, and from there it supports the influence that needs to be done to get decisions made,” she says.

The a2 Milk Company’s NZ beginnings 

The a2 Milk Company was founded in New Zealand in the year 2000 on the recognition that not all milk is the same. Today a2MC produces a portfolio of products made with milk from specially selected cows that naturally produce milk containing only A2-type beta-casein protein and no A1, allowing more consumers to enjoy its unique digestive and other potential health benefits.

Twenty three years later, the company has expanded to four countries around the world, with around 470 workers in Australia, New Zealand, China and the US.

One of their largest customer bases is under 12 months old, with a2 Platinum® infant milk formula providing a core revenue stream. 

But even as a business serving families worldwide, when Amanda Hart commenced her role as Chief People and Culture Officer at the company in September 2021, there was an opportunity to enhance the family-oriented benefits and policies for team members. 

“It was evident that we had a real part to play in supporting our people and promoting a family-friendly workplace globally,” she says.

With the support of the leadership team at a2MC, Hart helped develop family-friendly policies that go beyond the stereotypical nuclear family.

“A family-friendly workplace is one in which any person in our team – irrespective of their family profile or where they’re at in their life journey – feels the environment that they work in is aware of what some of their needs or limitations may be,” Hart says.

“For us, a family-friendly workplace is being attuned to each of our team members as individuals.

“They have their own challenges and narratives and we need to ensure that we’re acknowledging that through working rhythms, how we do our work, the benefits that we offer, the flexibility that’s needed to ensure that everyone can be their authentic selves.

“It may well be that (family- friendly) doesn’t involve a child necessarily, or a parent, it’s whatever you translate family to meaning for you.”

Policies

Among their primary and secondary paid parental leave policies – 18 weeks for the ‘primary’ carer and four weeks for the ‘secondary’ carer – a2MC introduced further support for all family types in 2021 and 2022.

They introduced early pregnancy loss leave, offering up to ten days of paid leave, as well as late-stage pregnancy loss leave that matches the parental leave policy.

a2MC has also introduced neonatal leave, giving an additional four weeks to new parents prior to the paid parental leave.

After establishing these policies, it was time to expand.

“This year, we’ve really looked at what needs to be done to support other team members who are at a different stage in their journey, and it doesn’t just pertain to people that are in that childbearing stage,” Hart explained.

In March 2023, a2MC introduced women’s health leave for supporting people experiencing symptoms of perimenopause, menopause and severe endometriosis, as well as people going through fertility and IVF treatments.

“That was to continue to evolve where we’re placing our focus from a more traditional paid leave perspective, but equally raises awareness,” Hart says.

“Thirty per cent of our workforce is aged between 40 and 65. So we knew that was a huge area for our people and that needed to be addressed through the programs and the initiatives that we offer.”

Feedback

The a2 Milk Company measures the success of their policies based on how the leave is used, as well as surveys of team members. 

And so far, the results have been positive.

“When women’s health leave was launched, I got inundated with emails from men and women across the business saying how proud they were, how relevant and how transformational this offering was,” Hart said.

But there have been some areas of their family-friendly workplace policies that Hart and some of her colleagues believe need improvement.

With a workforce at near gender parity, where 53 per cent of team members are women, Hart aspires to remove the ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ labels from paid parental leave and instead grant the same amount of leave to all parents.

“In a perfect world, I would want to have paid parental leave as being a generic term where we have equal opportunity for the utilisation of leave, irrespective of how you gender identify.

“We’re not there yet…I’d really like to turn the dial on that, but it may take some time.”

And in the process of implementing the family-friendly policies, the a2MC leadership team faced a small amount of pushback, largely from the leaders of the a2MC team in the US who were concerned about the financial viability of offering this leave.

“Initially, when we launched paid parental leave, the US team was resistant,” Hart said.

“It was very different for them. (Most companies) don’t offer paid parental leave in the US.

“But ultimately we got where we needed to, which is global consistency.”

Now, the whole global a2MC team have consistent, family-friendly workplace policies, and even for places like the US, where these policies seem somewhat unfamiliar, Hart said it’s becoming increasingly normalised within the company.

“I think it’s actually just part of our DNA, to be honest,” she says.

Check out more from our series profiling family-friendly certified employers here.

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The changes are subtle and seem entirely reasonable, but could significantly help to support members, their staff, and others who work at Parliament House, especially those with caring responsibilities outside of work. The changes include earlier start times to help avoid the late nights, a 6:30pm cutoff on divisions as well a ban on parliament sitting during holidays.

The changes follow recommendations from the review into parliamentary culture, by Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins. Leader of the House Tony Burke said the new government was committed to addressing these recommendations, including “absurdly late nights” that he described as “neither healthy nor safe”.  The changes come also as Burke promised the crossbench would be “guaranteed respect” under the new rules of engagement – although his government looks set to continue with the MP staffing cuts that will see their allocation drop from eight to five.

It comes as the Albanese Government has promised to “create a kinder Australia for all” on the first day of the new parliament. “Parliament will be different. More respectful debate, more diversity, more family friendly.”

However, during the first Question Time, it took around five minutes before newly minted Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was taking on the new prime minister. And the Coalition rejected the changes to the standing orders that included the earlier start times, which Labor and the crossbench supported.  

Still, there have been active demonstrations of a kinder and more inclusive culture during the first couple of days, including with the largest number of First Nations people ever included, as well as the swearing-in of a large group of female independents.

There was Senator Jana Stewart sharing a photo of herself “at 35 weeks pregnant” and “casually taking my seat in the senate”. There was new MP Sam Lim (pictured above) sharing a photograph of himself outside of his new workplace, with the packed lunchbox that his son had prepared to support him in arriving at the “unfamiliar place”.

And there was the moment during Question Time when new National leader David Littleproud crossed the chamber to greet the Prime Minister’s partner Jodie Haydon and his son Nathan Albanese. The Prime Minister described his son as his ‘greatest achievement” during his victory speech and has previously said that he has a “way of making sure that I talk to my son every day.”

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