Flexibility - Corporate Responsibility

Flexibility

Balancing Work and Life: Our Approach

ANZ understands that employees want flexible working arrangements to enable them to effectively balance their work and personal commitments.

Research by Managing Work/Life Balance International (2006) found that flexible work practices help to reduce staff turnover and absenteeism, enhance employee productivity and improve customer service.

ANZ is accredited as a Gold Flexible Employer by Managing Work Life Balance and Part-Time Online.

Flexibility Options

ANZ's My Flexibility options include flexible hours, job sharing, telecommuting, 12 weeks' paid parental leave, part time work, child care, career extension for people aged 55 and above, and carer's, lifestyle and study leave.

Flexible arrangements

Flexible arrangements	Giving employees the flexibility to	Country
Flexible working hours	Start and finish work at a time that suits them	Australia New Zealand
Roaming work	Work from any ANZ site or any offsite location, such as home office, airport, hotel etc	Australia New Zealand
Job sharing	Share the responsibilities of the one position with another employee and still receive the same entitlements as full-times, subject to the number of hours worked	Australia New Zealand
Part-time work for employees aged 55 and over	Take a gradual approach to retirement or make a career switch	Australia
Lifestyle leave	Tailor their salary over the year to take an additional four weeks leave for any purpose	Australia New Zealand
Long service leave	Take double long service leave at half pay	Australia New Zealand
Parental leave	Take 12-weeks paid parental leave and up to two years unpaid leave for the primary caregiver	Australia New Zealand
Carer's leave	Care and support family members of the household	Australia New Zealand India
Part-time work child care policy	Work part time hours as full time employees to care for children under the age of five or those who are pregnant	Australia
Childcare services	Enrol their children in an external professional childcare service throughout Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia and New South Wales	Australia

Case study: Helping employees balance work and life
After Casey Morecroft completed her finance studies, she sought an employer who would allow her to achieve her career aspirations while still pursing her passion for tennis. Casey is a Manager in Capital Solutions, part of ANZ's Institutional business, and is also Head Supervisor for the Australian Open's "ballkid" program: "With ANZ's flexibility policies I am able to take additional unpaid leave each year to work at the Australian Open tennis tournament It gives me new experiences in people management, media and marketing - skills that I can apply to ANZ." ANZ's Head of Initiative Management for Retail Asia, May-Suan Lim, takes advantage of flexible start and finish times to complete her Master of Business Administration. "Having flexible working hours has made part-time study and full-time work much more manageable."

Case study: Helping employees balance work and life

After Casey Morecroft completed her finance studies, she sought an employer who would allow her to achieve her career aspirations while still pursing her passion for tennis. Casey is a Manager in Capital Solutions, part of ANZ's Institutional business, and is also Head Supervisor for the Australian Open's "ballkid" program:

"With ANZ's flexibility policies I am able to take additional unpaid leave each year to work at the Australian Open tennis tournament It gives me new experiences in people management, media and marketing - skills that I can apply to ANZ."

ANZ's Head of Initiative Management for Retail Asia, May-Suan Lim, takes advantage of flexible start and finish times to complete her Master of Business Administration.

"Having flexible working hours has made part-time study and full-time work much more manageable."

Progress in 2008

This year we introduced 'My Flexibility', a program designed to assist ANZ employees and their managers to discuss and plan more flexible workplace arrangements.

It provides resources for employees to prepare a proposal for more flexible working arrangements and guidance for both employees and managers on how to discuss and negotiate the options proposed by the employee. It also describes the process to formalize agreed flexible working arrangements and review them regularly to ensure they continue to work for everyone involved.

We also conducted a survey with over 7,000 staff in November 2007 about how they use our flexible workplace policies and how they can be improved. While our policies are popular, the survey found that some staff are hesitant to access them for fear of having their commitment questioned.

My Flexibility survey responses
	2008*	2007
Flexible work options allow me to achieve other personal goals	58%	83%
I am satisfied with the flexible work options I have in my current role	62%	76%
Spend more quality time with my family and increase my work/life balance	Family: 66% Work/life balance: 69%	78%
Employees benefiting from ANZ's flexible work arrangements	60%	52%

* 2008 My Flexibility survey questions included slight variations to the 2007 survey. Core themes remain the same.

Parental Leave
	Australia	New Zealand
Total number of staff on parental leave	1030	182
Total number of staff returned from parental leave during 2007/2008	811	280
Staff returning as part-time employees	58.2%	35%

The future

The staff survey suggests managers need more support in understanding the benefits these policies bring to their staff and to the business generally, and this will be a key focus in 2009.