At Swietelsky Rail Australia (SRA), we believe our most valuable asset isn’t our cutting-edge machinery or innovative track maintenance solutions; it’s the skilled and passionate individuals who make up our team. Following a leadership shift in 2023, we wanted to develop a new set of company values that would be synonymous with SRA’s purpose and align with their company goals. Our values were chosen via a company-wide workshop, and vote, with the first value chosen being Family. This signified to the leadership team that the entire team was aligned in recognising this as the most important value.
Family represents our focus on being a family-orientated business. We understand that our team don’t live to work, they work to live and support their families. Beyond the personal aspect, the value of Family also symbolises the SRA team as a cohesive unit, highlighting the mutual support that exists within the workplace, where everyone is dedicated to assisting one another.
Our people are the ones who take care of our business, so we take care of our people. When this value was identified as the most important to our team, we needed to establish ourselves as a Family Friendly Workplace with policies, support, certifications and benefits that actively lived our values. We wanted to ensure we ‘walk the talk’ through all our initiatives.
Part of our focus in introducing family-orientated practices in our business was to provide as many equal opportunities as possible to our team. Some of the employee benefits we have introduced include access to an additional five days of leave per year, known internally as a ‘Balance Break’. These additional days are available to all staff to restore the balance between work and life as it fluctuates throughout the year. The break could be anything from a mini getaway with the family, some alone time on the golf course, minding the kids to give their partner some time, or a mid-week romantic getaway.
In addition to the Balance Break, we also offer additional Long Service Leave entitlements. We provide an additional accumulated day per year for all staff during their sixth to tenth year of working with SRA, to create an extra week for their long service leave when it becomes accessible. We have a diverse workforce regarding age, so offering this additional time for our older, long-term staff members has shown positive results. We also provide 12 weeks of paid parental leave for all parents regardless of their primary or secondary carer status.
Importantly for a male-dominated workforce, we allow this leave to be taken flexibly, up to three years after the baby joins the family. For example, fathers may choose to use a significant portion of their 12 weeks of parental leave by transitioning to a four-day week for a year, to provide one day of care for their child as they approach preschool age. This saves the family the cost of one day of childcare a week and could support their partner transitioning back to work.
Our policy is inclusive of all family types such as single parents, same-sex families, foster families, adoption or surrogacy, and provides staff access to leave in the event of early, medium or late-term pregnancy loss. We also acknowledge the role grandparents play in the family unit and provide access to five days of paid grandparental leave per grandchild. In today’s world, access to genuine carer leave for unwell family members is needed more than ever. Our Family Care and Carer’s policy recognises this and aims to provide the flexibility our staff need. It also provides allowances for First Nations and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ kinship care needs.
We are an outcome-driven business and offer our team flexible working arrangements, as well as proactively supporting hybrid working arrangements. Access to flexible hours allows staff to prioritise their family first so that they can be their best self at work. We acknowledge that the work design for each role may sometimes restrict the level or type of flexibility that can be offered. We challenge ourselves to think outside the square where possible to ensure our flexible framework can be utilised by all our employees to the extent that they can still complete the work their role requires. Examples include access to modified shift times or reduced hours to cover school drop off/pick up, a mix of from-home and office work, and flexibility to manage hours so that staff can care for relatives and attend or support others in attending medical appointments.
Our Domestic and Family Violence/Families in Crisis policy further demonstrates our commitment to the safety of all employees. The policy includes access to an additional five days’ leave above the minimum national standard, steps for protection, and protocols and support for alleged or self-reported perpetrators. In addition to our family-focused practices and policies, we acknowledge the profound impact of volunteering on individual mental health, and society, and its importance for team members to get involved.
Research shows that when we volunteer, we live longer. We often think of volunteering as an activity that helps others, however, it’s also been shown to have a positive impact on our wellbeing. By offering one day of paid volunteer leave per year, along with flexible working arrangements, we’re empowering our team members to pursue their passions and contribute to causes close to their hearts. Our current team use this leave to volunteer as NSW surf lifesavers, sporting team coaches, animal rescue volunteers, and board members with domestic and family violence charities and not-for-profits.
At SRA, we believe leading by example with the introduction of our policies is vital. However, ensuring our team is using them is the critical step to understanding their impact and benefits. Since introducing our new values and Family-focused policies, we’ve seen a positive shift in the mindset of our team. Staff no longer hold concerns over taking additional leave throughout the year to spend time with their families, and can focus on growing their family, if they wish to, without concerns of pressures to return to work immediately.
Our team are actively utilising their additional “Balance Break” leave, with over 80 per cent of our workforce accessing this leave since it was introduced in January 2024. Research tells us that this flexibility provides the best foundation for mothers to transition back to the workforce, so SRA allows access to paid parental leave from the first day of employment, and the introduction of superannuation on all paid and unpaid parental leave before the new legislation, which will come into effect 1 July 2025.
In addition to supporting team members and their families outside of the business, holding Family as one of our Values has created a positive workplace culture for our team. It reminds everybody that we are a family as well, and as a family, we encourage and support each other, whilst keeping ourselves and our families safe.
We understand that working in the rail industry involves being away from home and working long shifts in all kinds of locations. This can create stress on family life which reinforces how important it is to find the balance between being away and home; and creating a safe work environment that allows our staff to be 100 per cent present in their home life when they return from work. Because of this, we’ve learnt that focusing on our staff’s families and providing them with the opportunity to spend more time with them has improved the culture within our business and the expectations around overtime to try and acquire more leave. Our value of Family largely focuses on everyone returning home to their families at the end of the day, safely, and looking out for each other in the workplace.
While we believe the SRA family is critical to the success of our business, our value is focused on family first, always and the SRA family second. Because, at the end of the day we work to live and spend time with those we love. We don’t live to work, but we do spend a lot of our time at work, which is why at SRA we believe that a positive, respectful, safe and happy workplace culture is necessary to support staff to genuinely thrive at home. With our family-focused practices in place, our team are given the flexibility to navigate family and work balance easily and help minimise the stress of juggling both during work hours. Our work to create a family-inclusive culture has earned SRA significant recognition within the Hunter region and the Australasian Railway industry. We were awarded WHS Business of the Year and Best Health and Wellbeing Program (SME) at the 2024 Hunter Safety Awards and recognised at both the Business Hunter and the Australasian Railway Industry Awards as finalists in safety diversity and inclusion categories.
“As the HR Manager at SRA, I’ve seen the first-hand effects and impacts our policies and procedures have had on the team and experienced them myself. We’re working towards creating a stronger, safer team and our recognition as a Family Friendly Workplace is a testament to our team and demonstrates we’re more than on our way to this goal.”
“I have extensive experience working in the rail sector and during my time at SRA, I can see that the Company Values are more than a statement on the wall. The commitment to supporting our team members and their families is unwavering and inspiring. I am proud to be part of the team that provides support and cares for our employees.”
Gary Milligan has been with SRA for 7 years and is at the latter end of his career. As a Project Lead at SRA, Gary’s role involves changing shift times, long hours and rail shutdowns. Because of these hours, Gary utilises our flexible arrangements when he can to ensure he makes the most out of spending time with his family when he’s not at work.
“Family has always been my number one priority, and SRA provides a lot of flexible arrangements to ensure I’m showing up to be my best self for my family after every workday,” Gary said.
While he enjoys his role as Project Lead at SRA, Gary’s future will likely include more grandchildren, and he is excited to spend as much time with his growing family as possible. And thanks to our grandparent’s leave, Gary will have access to five days of paid grandparental leave per grandchild to be there for his family. “I’m looking forward to spending time with my future grandchildren, and knowing I have the opportunity to help out with taking care of them if my family needs it, thanks to SRA’s carer’s leave and grandparent leave options,” Gary said.
“It’s hard to find a business that supports you throughout your career, no matter your age or family structure, but I’m extremely grateful for the additional leave SRA has implemented and proud to work in a business that offers these opportunities.”
Nathan Latu has been working with SRA since 2014 and is a leader and multi-skilled member of our Ballast Cleaning team. With a ten-year tenure, Nathan has access to his long service leave entitlements which he has already begun to use. With our long service leave policy which provides additional accumulated days per year for all staff during their sixth to tenth year of working with SRA, Nathan has an additional week of leave to enjoy at his leisure.
“After working with SRA for a decade, I’ve seen the steps the team have been taking to support our team, including long-standing employees like myself,” Nathan said.
“Having the additional week of long service leave allows me to spend the leave how I want whether it’s a holiday or personal time with my family. It also means I have additional time to recharge and come back to work as my best self.”
“Swietelsky has been such a great help for me and my family. The support during my time here is above and beyond my expectations. I am forever grateful.”
“Being recognised as a Family Friendly Workplace was a goal I wanted to achieve when I started as Managing Director at Swietelsky Rail Australia. And this didn’t just mean introducing policies and keeping them in the drawer. It was about living and breathing our values of Family, Integrity, Respect and Excellence, focusing on ensuring that every team member understood the opportunities, benefits and support available to them. Workplace flexibility and family policy options are useless if the team aren’t aware of them. They need to be communicated regularly, and staff educated on what options are available to them. At SRA we aim to provide a workplace environment for our staff that is unique to the industry while staying aligned with our values. We hope that our Family Friendly Workplace accreditation showcases to our staff and potential future talent that we’re more than just a workplace, and we live and breathe our values.”
