Family Friendly Workplace Case Study: carsales - KidsCo

Family Friendly Workplace Case Study: carsales

Family Friendly Workplace Case Study_ carsales

Family Friendly Workplace Case Study: carsales

 

What is Family Friendly Workplaces?

Parents At Work and UNICEF Australia have united with industry and community leaders to develop National Work + Family Standards in a response to results of the National Working Families Report and the impact of COVID-19 on families and workplaces. The aim in establishing these standards is to:

Educate employers
on the importance of embracing family friendly policies and practices as an enabler of workplace diversity and inclusion, health and wellbeing

Provide a framework and guidelines
for employers to foster a family friendly workplace culture

Develop
a sustainable way of providing employers with ongoing best practice work + family research, policies and guidance

Certify employers
that meet core standards and recognise those that go above and beyond as an Employer of Choice

Family Friendly Workplaces aim to improve work life wellbeing, inclusion and equity outcomes for families by introducing a set of certifiable National Work + Family Standards for employers. As proud supporting partners, KidsCo helps organisations in terms of Family Care Standards with our School Holiday and Virtual Lockdown Care Programs to support working parents and carers.

carsales shared their experience with Family Friendly Workplaces below:

Why is your organisation committed to be a family friendly workplace?

We’re committed to be a family friendly workplace because it aligns with our passion for fostering a culture of inclusivity for all.  We want everyone at carsales to feel a sense of belonging and respect, and to have equal access to opportunities no matter what their personal circumstances may be. We celebrate and respect all the diverse qualities of our team – this includes, but is not limited to, their age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, relationship status, ethnicity, family and caring responsibilities, religious beliefs, disability, diversity of thought, or knowledge and skillset. After all, it’s these diverse characteristics that not only give us a wide range of perspectives and innovative ideas, but also accurately represent our diverse customer base – which helps to propel us forward to achieve our purpose. Put simply, we wouldn’t be able to achieve great things around the world if we were all the same. And being inclusive and supportive of our team members with children and associated family and caring responsibilities forms a big part of this.

 

At carsales we aim to be an organisation where people can grow their experience and careers regardless of what stage of life they may be at. Being recognised as a family friendly workplace will help ensure we have all the right support mechanisms in place to help our people reach their full potential as their personal and professional lives change. A significant portion of the paid workforce in Australia are tasked with simultaneously juggling careers and caring responsibilities, so it’s important that workplaces such as ours are committed to supporting our working parents, as well as those with disability and/or elder care responsibilities. Being certified as a family friendly workplace will also assist us in setting a benchmark of best practice guidelines and an action plan so that we can continue to evolve and further embed family friendly practices into our already supportive workplace culture.

 

We feel that being recognised as a family friendly workplace will be of particular benefit to our female team members, as these practices will allow us to continue to support, grow and develop them. As a digital business, we’re passionate about doing everything we can to improve the underrepresentation of females in technology-based roles. We’ve been driving our diversity strategy for seven years and place a particular focus on gender equality for this reason. We’ve been recognised as a WGEA Employer of Choice since 2015 and being formally acknowledged as a family friendly workplace will further help us to be recognised as an inclusive and supportive workplace that both welcomes and embraces women with family caring responsibilities. Many mothers want to pursue careers alongside raising their children and we want them to be supported by us in every way possible to be able to do this.

Point of Difference

Share a family friendly workplace initiative that your organisation excels with and the impact it is having on the workplace culture?

 

As an organisation we recognise what a difficult time school holidays can pose for families with caring responsibilities. We have a culture that allows people to make the flexible working requests they need throughout the year to suit the changing demands of their personal lives. However, to further support working parents during school holiday periods, we have partnered with KidsCo since 2018 to provide on-site and more recently, virtual, school holiday programs.

 

We further support carsales parents by subsidising the cost of this program by 60% with parents just paying the remaining fee for placement.

In our most recent employee opinion survey, 92% of our employees responded positively when asked to assess the flexibility carsales offers when it comes to their work/life balance.

We also know the value and importance of this program from all the anecdotal employee feedback that we receive, and are pleased to be able to provide this innovative childcare solution to our teams.

How have you seen your people respond to the above initiative?

 

This initiative has been really well received by our people and due to its popularity, we have been able to increase the number of days per year the program runs.

 

Sharon Koh, Head of Tax and Treasury, says of her experience with KidsCo:

 

KidsCo holiday program has been a great benefit of working at carsales and has taken some of the pressure off my family during the school holidays. As a full-time working mother, it is great that I can bring my son to work and there is a fun and engaging program he can get involved in. He really looks forward to coming into work with me during this period and having a service like this really does make for a much easier juggle between work and family.

 

Read the full case study on the Family Friendly Workplace website

Chat to us about how we can support your organisation in becoming family-friendly here

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