Create work life balance and get the most out of your day with flexible working
With changes occurring to the Macquarie Park transport network over the coming months, it’s a great opportunity to explore flexible working options by working at home or retiming your journey to the off peak period.
What is flexible working?
Flexible working includes any work arrangement which changes the traditional Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 arrangements, including:
• Working from home or a co-working space
• Changes to start and finish times
• Patterns of work (e.g. split shifts).
Flexible working benefits
• Add time back into your day by cutting out or reducing the commute
• More comfortable travel options by avoiding travelling during the peak
• Balance work and personal commitments
• Reduce costs associated with your commute like petrol, parking and cheaper fares
• Reduce stress and improve health and wellbeing.
Making it work
Consider your organisation’s flexible working policies or follow these steps to make your plan a success:
• Work out a plan of how you can work flexibly and what the benefits are
for you and your business
• Discuss the plan with your manager to identify how it will work
• Keep your manager and team up to date with your plan
• Monitor and review your flexible working arrangement on an ongoing basis.
Why flexible working should matter to you
Research has consistently shown that individuals, teams, businesses and organisations all benefit when flexible working arrangements are made available to employees.
Employer benefits:
- Work can be scheduled when there are more customers and across longer portions of the day to extend customer service, because staff can travel to and from work outside the peak
- Increased staff retention and attracting the best new talent
- Support for creating an anti-discriminatory workplace
- Increased productivity by ensuring staff make the best use of their working day
- Fewer staff demands for parking on site or subsidies.
- A better work-life balance that suits your circumstances, by reducing or re-timing your travel outside the peak
- Start late and/or leave early to allow time for sports and leisure activities or to make more time for a relaxed school run with the kids
- Support for every stage of your working life, like when you need to care for older parents
- Ability to schedule quiet times to write/read documents without being disturbed
- Retiming commutes to avoid peak make for a more comfortable journey
- Reducing travel and parking costs.
For more information on flexible working toolkit and the Travel Choices program, go to: mysydney.nsw.gov.au/travelchoices
