Australian Program To Help Small Businesses Develop Work and Family Initiatives

Julie Schwartz Weber March 11th, 2009

As the world struggles with the global economic downturn, it is instructive to see what other countries are doing to support their working families. Notably, this past week, the Australian government formally launched an innovative work-family program, called The Fresh Ideas for Work and Family Grants program. The purpose of this program is two-fold: 1) to help employees balance their work and family obligations; and 2) to improve employee productivity and retention. Another important feature of this new program is that it focuses solely on small businesses, which typically have fewer resources than medium and large businesses have to implement work and family initiatives.

Administered by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, this three year program provides grants of $5,000 to $15,000 to small businesses to help them meet the set-up costs of family-friendly working arrangements. These arrangements may include anything from establishing quality part-time work or job-sharing, to developing policies regarding unpaid leave for employees who care for children with disabilities, elderly relatives, or people with other special needs, to providing facilities for employees with young children.

The program also supports small business through “developing and distributing business and industry specific information supporting work-based family-friendly practices.”