Looking for a job with flexible working conditions? Here’s some!
I often think there is a disconnect between what employers mean by flexibility and what employees mean by flexibility. The latter is generally referring to flexibility of time or location either on a daily or weekly basis — can I work from home, can I come in late, can I work three days a week.
For employers, flexibility can have an entirely different meaning. In these straightened and low-growth times, flexibility can refer to having a flexible workforce. Contract workers for example, or ideally a ‘bench’ of workers. Having a bench is the dream of many employers because it gives them a pool of workers known to them, who know the firm and how it works, as opposed to traditional contract labour, where the contractor might go from employer to employer and not know the ropes of any particular organisation.
For this audience of professional women — and more particularly professional mothers —these two definitions can often collide. Highly-skilled women who have left the workforce for childcare reasons, and are looking to return on a flexible basis, seem like the obvious answers for employers looking to establish a bench; in theory these ex-employees know the firm and the clients, and could be an excellent source of flexible labour.
However, setting up ‘benches’ has been a goal of organisations for nearly a decade and they have proved hard to set up. For mothers the vagaries of childcare mean that the short-term flexibility that benches require (as in, “can you start tomorrow and work for 2 weeks?”) makes it difficult for them to drop everything and be on call. I also think that this kind of work requires an increased risk appetite, as you can never really know how much work you will get.
I’ve written here before that I am a fan of contract work for mothers, particularly when they are trying to get back into the market. It’s difficult, I know, but, if you are struggling to get back in, sacrificing a large part of your new wage to get a nanny so that you have total flexibility can be a good long-term investment.
With that in mind this job at Clayton Utz caught my eye. It’s a 10-month maternity replacement role for a business development adviser that could get a mother sitting on the sidelines back to work.
I always love when I see a senior part-time role in the market. I rail on about it but so many part-time roles are junior roles with little scope for development. Minter Ellison has a role in Brisbane for a resources & energy lawyer where it says it is open to part-time work.
I saw what looked like a good AML analyst part-time role with Bank of Queensland on Linkedin this week and Westpac has also got a part-time financial advisor role advertised on Seek.