Page 1523 - Week 06 - Thursday, 2 July 2020
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home arrangements and other non-traditional work methods. We have seen that such matters are proven to work and, further, that people are actually enjoying the benefits and changes that they bring.
Many employees have long called for more, and better, flexible work arrangements, whether to accommodate carer duties, working parents or work-life balance. As the COVID-19 pandemic has developed, the ACT government has taken a measured and thoughtful approach to suppressing the virus in the ACT, including implementing responsible social distancing measures in line with the advice of health experts, which has meant that many workers, including public service workers, were asked to work from home and to continue their duties from there.
The ACT government was able to successfully transition to this way of working because of the nation-leading efforts of the ACT public service in supporting its workforce to work from home and engage in flexible work arrangements. The ACT public service has allowed its workers to take a new type of leave if they have been impacted. For example, if a worker needed to care for their children when schools were closed, flexible work arrangements allowed people to smoothly work from home with the help of Shared Services. Public service staff were protected through continued work from home and flexible work arrangements, where suitable.
ACT public service business units have provided advice on the circumstances relevant to individual employees in relation to home-based work. Where home-based work is not suitable or possible, local arrangements and planning have been implemented, with a focus on an individual’s wellbeing and safety.
Initiatives to ensure that workers are provided with appropriate advice on how to work from home, including being provided with work-from-home checklists, ergonomic information when working from home and guidance on borrowing workplace equipment, have all been ways that we have been supporting, and we continue to support, workers to work flexibly.
The ACT has also been well placed to transition smoothly back into work due to our strong protections for the health and safety of working people, and we acknowledge the importance of these protections in their gradual return to the workforce.
One of my top priorities as an MLA is to improve outcomes for families. As someone who has raised a family in Gungahlin, I understand wholeheartedly the struggle that working parents face when they are trying to balance their professional careers with their family and parental responsibilities. Work is important; equally, so is family. I believe that by allowing people to have more flexible work arrangements, as we have seen during this pandemic, we improve the work-life balance for many parents who are in the same boat as I have been in.
There are many milestones that parents treasure forever, and being able to witness such milestones in the home environment is one of the greatest joys for any parent. Having the choice to be able to drop your children off at school, pick them up or have a quick lunch with your partner brings extraordinary benefits to the family unit and makes for happier homes and workplaces.
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