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How Ipswich Hospital reduced external agency use and sick leave during the school holidays.

About Ipswich Hospital

Ipswich Hospital is the largest hospital in the West Moreton Hospital and Health Service based in Queensland, Australia. The hospital provides a range of specialist health services with over 2000 doctors, nurses and other health professionals employed at the hospital.

Problem Identification 

Ipswich Hospital experienced 2 key health service challenges:

  1. Roll out of training for all staff in readiness for their largest change management process this decade and Digital Hospital
  2. School holidays saw a spike in sick/family leave use and low employee engagement

Some have even listed enabling and engaging staff as another focus. In a developed country like Australia, improved patient care is a constant focus in the healthcare industry. As a result, innovative solutions are required to achieve this goal.

Solution: Supporting their parents and carers

KidsCo ran a unique 9-day school holiday program to alleviate the stress on parents and carers during the school holidays. During the school holiday periods and in the lead-up, working parents enter what we know as “the stress zone” where finding child care during this time can be difficult and financially straining.

“This to us means more than just keeping people at work. It means we really demonstrate that we care  about our staff and we care about our community.”
– Luke Worth,  Executive Director 

We tailor our services to the organisation. Hospitals are different in their makeup and operations compared to other workplaces. Here are two main areas we focused on in tailoring our program to the hospital:

Location

Adequate space within a hospital to run a program is a common roadblock for most hospitals and healthcare institutions. Therefore, to accommodate the number of children attending the programs, KidsCo sourced a space at the local school located under 1km away from the hospital.

Hours that work for the healthcare industry

After finding that many shift workers were unable to use the service as they began work earlier than 8:45 am or finished later than 5:00 pm, KidsCo adjusted operating hours to be from  6:00 am – 6:00 pm

Results: Reduction in external agency use and sick leave

Over the holiday period, the hospital saw an improvement in the following:

  • reduction in external agency use by 443.15 hours
  • 35% reduction in paid sick leave ($76,320) during the October school holidays
  • reduction in unpaid sick leave 17.11 FTE

68% of employees strongly agreed that the provision of a school holiday program in their workplace meant they did not need to access family leave day to care for children.

With the hospital subsidising a portion of the program cost, working parents were paying $20 a day for their child to attend resulting in the program reaching full capacity at 50 children per day with an extensive waitlist – the need for the program was evident.

Improving ‘patient care’

The  Queensland hospital saw a 35% reduction in paid leave across the 2 week period. This meant that shift workers were able to maintain their regular shifts and attend to regular patients. They found their staff were more engaged at work and the program had improved their mental health and wellbeing.

See below or click here to view all the fun we got up to with our partner hospital in Queensland.

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1 February 2023

Family Friendly Workplace Case Study: HCF Australia

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 Care Programs to support working parents and carers.

HCF Australia shared their experience with Family Friendly Workplaces below:

Point of Difference

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

Since the onset of the global pandemic the lines between work and home life have become increasingly blurred. In particular, we recognised the significant challenges HCF families were facing due to the extended lockdown periods and having to juggle work, home and carer responsibilities.

 

To support our people, one initiative HCF launched was ‘KidsCo’, in partnership with Parents At Work. KidsCo is a virtual program designed to provide safe socialisation for children aged 5–12 years from the comfort of their own home. The program offered all HCF families access to qualified school teachers who engaged the children in high-quality learning activities, with a focus on fun. The online learning ran for two hours each day, giving parents and carers two hours of uninterrupted, child-free time each day to help them balance their work and family commitments.

 

The timely launch of KidsCo was key, as it gave parents comfort in knowing that despite the ongoing restrictions, their children were still able to engage in fun, educational and social activities. Our families appreciated the extra assistance during what was a stressful time for many, with parents commenting on the fantastic impacts it had on their kid’s wellbeing as well as their own.

 

This program was a great demonstration of HCF’s commitment to providing family friendly initiatives and seeking to understand the changing needs of our parents, grandparents and carers alike.

How

How have you seen your people respond to this initiative (above)?

The feedback from our HCF families was overwhelmingly positive, with many parents commenting on not only the benefits to them, but also the significant wellbeing and social benefits for their children. The great uptake of the program resulted in HCF repeatedly extending the KidsCo offering period to support the increased employee demand during lockdown. Overall, KidsCo provided support to over 85 HCF families with more than 1400 hours of learning and fun delivered.

Outcomes

What are some of the business benefits you see from being a family inclusive organisation?

At HCF, we believe in the power of a diverse and inclusive workplace. We know that to deliver the best outcomes for our members, we need to enable a workforce who are engaged, connected and supported. That’s why we’ve invested in a wide range of programs that focus on support for the whole family through practical tools and expert advice. Some of the health and wellbeing programs we’ve made available to all employees, include partnerships with Calm Kid Central, Parents At Work, Snug Health App, PHYSCH2U, EAP, Woebot and ThisWayUp.

Employee Story

Bryant Da Silva, Head of Claims Operations

To quote my wife, ‘KidsCo was a lifesaver!’ We’re a family of four, with two awesome boys aged five and three years old. This was our first lockdown experience where my youngest was in kindergarten and my wife and I both working busy corporate roles. With schools closed, it was difficult to juggle our work and home responsibilities, and it can be easy to sometimes feel like you’re not doing enough at home or at work.

 

At first we weren’t sure what to expect when HCF offered KidsCo, but thought why not give it a go, if nothing else it might just help to break up the routine! My son was a little shy at first, but the facilitators were fantastic and quickly got him involved in the fun activities and before long he was connecting with other kids and telling them stories about his favourite toys. I was really impressed with the virtual games and activities they came up with, from designing custom Pokemon symbols to creating a mini stage to act out a play with his action figurines. Whilst we were within reach in case he needed support, KidsCo gave us some much needed space to focus on work, or to take a break.

 

I feel very fortunate to work for an organisation that takes family support seriously and understands the importance of work life balance. When people are happy, you can tell they’re more engaged and motivated in their day-to-day work and this ultimately leads to better outcomes for them, the team and our members.

 

Read the full case study on the Family Friendly Workplace website here.

Chat to us about how we can support your working families and help your organisation get certified here.

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30 March 2022

Family Friendly Workplace Case Study: Colin Biggers & Paisley

 

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, provide a framework and guidelines, develop and certify employees.

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.

 

Colin Biggers & Paisley shared their experience with Family Friendly Workplaces below:

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

One of the strengths of our practice is the way we look after each other, and at the heart of this are our values of loyalty, respect, balance, and integrity. We understand that many of our people have parenting and caring responsibilities that often intertwine with their roles at work, even more so with the Covid lens applied.

 

Being recognised as a Family Friendly Workplace will help us continue to build a positive and inclusive culture where open communication about finding balance is encouraged. At CBP we understand that life changes when someone becomes a parent or a carer –priorities shift, balance at work becomes even more important, time becomes a more precious commodity and values can shift. We want to continue to support our people with these competing priorities.

 

Being formally recognised as a Family Friendly Workplace will also help us continue to attract and retain the best talent, an important strategic objective for our practice.

 

Point of Difference

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

 

Wellbeing

At the centre of our Strategic Plan is our purpose to collectively build and secure the future of our clients, colleagues and community. At the core of this purpose is a commitment to maintaining an environment that is safe, respectful and supports our people to be the best version of themselves whilst contributing to the success of our practice. To achieve this, we must create balance and foster their general wellbeing.

 

A commitment to foster and maintain physical, mental, social and environmental health and safety will see our practice continue to support and grow high performing teams, reduce lost productivity, and substantially improve the wellbeing of our people. It is a chance to:

  • Improve morale and engagement;
  • Collaborate within and across teams and build social networks;
  • Increase productivity;
  • Reduce absenteeism;
  • Strengthen job satisfaction.

 

Distributed and Flexible Work

Our Distributed and Flexible Working Guidelines were implemented to help guide our transition back to the office during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our approach to distributed and flexible working was aligned to our approach to the pandemic which was ensuring our people remain safe, productive and connected so that we continue to achieve our strategic goals. Each role was categorised and this meant that nearly all of our roles could be performed remotely. This was a huge shift for our practice and it gave our leaders and people a framework to work within to ensure that flexibility continued while continuing to meet the needs of our clients.

 

Back Up Child Care Allowance

In 2016 we implemented our Back Up Childcare Allowance Policy to show our commitment to supporting our employees and their families. This policy provides a daily financial allowance to the employee where their usual work pattern has been distributed due to work commitments or their regular childcare arrangement was unavailable to assist with the costs of day-care or a nanny.

 

Families@CBP

In 2020 we relaunched our Parental Leave Program and created Families@CBP. The priority for this program is to create a positive and inclusive culture where open communication about balancing family life is encouraged. We understand that everyone has unique needs and our Families@CBP program is tailored to provide support to each individual and their own personal circumstances.  As part of this program, we partnered with Parents at Work to provide our people with expert Executive Coaches to assist with the transition on to parental leave, while on leave and when returning from leave.

 

KidsCo Program

We wanted to make life a little bit easier for our working parents in lockdown so we partnered with KidsCo to deliver a special virtual kids after school program. The program was available to everybody and ran for two weeks.

Forty one kids attended the KidsCo program and we received great feedback from our employees. It was a great opportunity for the kids to make new friends and connect with other kids of parents at Colin Biggers & Paisley.

 

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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30 October 2021

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

Read More
16 August 2021

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