The term 'work life balance' describes a person’s ability to effectively manage their paid work commitments with their career goals, family, carer's, personal, community and cultural responsibilities, interests and obligations.
To assist staff to achieve a work life balance, the University provides staff with access to flexible employment options, leave and other support. These include:
Flexible employment options:
- Part-time or part-year / sessional work (refer to the clause on modes of employment in the relevant collective agreement for definitions). Under the Temporary Variation to Hours or Mode of Employment Principles and Procedures, staff may apply to temporarily vary their appointment from full-time, part-time, and part-year / sessional employment
- Job sharing, which occurs when two or more part-time staff share one full-time position. It may be viable when a position needs to be filled on a full-time basis, though not necessarily by one person
- Alternative working hours for support staff - for example to compress working hours into a mix of longer and shorter days or into fewer days per week or fortnight
- Flexible hours options for support staff – ie flexitime and rostered day off
- Workload for academic staff – the personal and family and carer’s responsibilities of staff will, where possible, be taken into consideration in determining workload schedules
- Superannuation flexibility – including contribution flexibility, salary packaging of additional contributions and access to superannuation before retirement.
Leave
- Personal leave
- Sick leave (can be taken for carers responsibilities)
- Annual leave
- Leave without Pay
- Parental leave
- Long Service Leave
Other support
- Return to work support (part of maternity / adoption leave) – refer to Parental Leave Guidelines
- Children on campus
- Study support through:
- financial assistance to staff studying award courses at UTS
- study time for support staff where staff can be release from duties to undertake courses of study which are approved by the University and which lead to a recognised qualification
- Wellbeing Program
Examples of how to use work-life balance options
A staff member’s ability to effectively manage their work life balance can be facilitated by access to the above balance options. How staff might utilise balance options at different stages of life are demonstrated in the examples provided.
Responsibilities in relation to work-life balance options
Both staff and supervisors have responsibilities when making changes to work arrangements to accommodate life needs.
