Change is a comin’ when it comes to flexible working in Australia. New legislation has been proposed to increase employee rights to request flexible work and employers will have to go through a more rigorous process if they want to refuse a request by someone wanting to work flexibly. For the low down you can get up to speed on the case here.
But the law is just a reflection of both a cultural shift in more of an acceptance of the need of employees to work flexibly and also the economic data that evidences the necessity for businesses to embrace flexible work to boost our economy and deal with the skills shortage. Anecdotally we know that the skills shortage in the legal profession is felt most keenly in certain areas of the law such an employment, commercial and other specialist areas.
But after working as an employment lawyer, and practicing for over a decade, and now having experienced working flexibly myself (after the birth of my first child two years ago along with now being pregnant for the second time), I realised that there’s often a disconnect between employee and employer. I wanted to share my knowledge about both the law and negotiation tactics to help many other parents work flexibly. This led me to publish my first ever book- “Let’s make it work, baby!” - a kick arse guide to personal and professional success for new parents. With the launch only a month ago, I’ve already received so much positive feedback about all the resources I’ve in
cluded in the book (for both genders) and the stories I’ve shared about all sorts of different families working flexibly to provide for their tribe.
My goal is to share the publication as widely as possible to help many others parents so please check it out at the links below and touch base with me via LinkedIn or Instagram @letsmakeitworkbaby
Read also ''Lawyers can be real change agents'' by Catherine Brooks on this platform here.
More about Catherine, her passions, professional interests and experiences being a mother, business owner and female leader can be found here.