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Australia is at a crossroads in how we balance workplace productivity and caregiving, and the consequences will shape our economic future.
The way we design work around the realities of modern families affects productivity, workforce participation, gender equality and broader family wellbeing.
This is not a niche issue. It affects most employees, women and men, at every life stage.
Across Australia, combining work and care is becoming more complex and more strained.
Our 2024 National Working Families Survey found that 74% of women and 57% of men feel stressed balancing work and family commitments.
We are navigating profound structural shifts:
- AI is reshaping how work and productivity are defined.
- Care costs continue to rise.
- Access to flexibility and hybrid work is becoming less certain.
- Our population is ageing.
- Birth rates are declining, and the next generation expects work to look very different.
We are living through what I describe as a demographic squeeze.
These pressures are structural, which means they can be redesigned.
Five years ago, we launched Family Friendly Workplaces with a bold ambition: to move beyond goodwill intention and develop practical, fit-for-purpose standards that enable employees to combine work and family, embedding care as a core element of workplace design, not an afterthought.
Today, we have the evidence that this approach works following the release of our 2025 Impact report.
But we also know there is much more to do.
Why Family Friendly Workplaces Matter
Family Friendly Workplaces has become a practical lever for systemic change.
It connects workforce participation, gender equality, productivity and family wellbeing into one coherent framework.
It provides employers with:
- A clear benchmark
- A structured roadmap
- A credible certification standard
- Measurable accountability
This is not simply a certification badge of honour. It is a culture change framework that embeds how organisations think about designing work, care and wellbeing and how they measure and improve over time.
When work is designed with care in mind:
- Families experience less financial and emotional strain
- Men are enabled to share caregiving
- Women are more likely to remain and progress in their careers
- Organisations are more likely to retain experience and capability
- Children’s overall wellbeing benefits
Five Years of Scale and Impact
In just five years:
- Over 165 employers have achieved certification
- More than 754 employers have benchmarked against the Standards
- Nearly 900 organisations have engaged through education and campaigns
- Certified employers now represent approximately 3–4% of Australia’s workforce
The Big Insight: Policy Is Not Enough
When employers first benchmark against our Standards, most do not pass.
In fact, 71% of benchmarked organisations failed to meet minimum certification standards.
The gaps are consistent:
- Leadership capability
- Family care supports
- Measurement and accountability
Most responsible employers genuinely want to support their people. But without clear standards, structured leadership accountability, and measurable outcomes, progress stalls. Policy without cultural permission does not change behaviour.
Certification shifts organisations from intent to impact.
What Changes in Certified Workplaces
Where organisations commit to certification, the differences are measurable.
Compared to non-certified organisations:
- 97% have embedded flexible work frameworks
- 93% provide return-to-work transition support
- 96% have formal domestic and family violence policies
- 87% provide superannuation on paid parental leave
- Employees in certified organisations report higher work-life balance satisfaction by seven percentage points.
These are not cosmetic improvements.
There are structural shifts in how work is designed, measured and led.
Shared Care Is Economic Reform
One of the most important shifts we are seeing is progress in shared care.
Certified employers are significantly more likely to remove “primary” and “secondary” carer labels from parental leave policies.
Language shapes behaviour.
When men are actively encouraged and culturally supported to take leave and work flexibly, it accelerates gender equality. You cannot close the gender pay gap without redesigning care norms. Shared care is not just a family issue. It is an economic reform.
Three Trends Shaping the Future of Work and Care
- Care Is Workforce Infrastructure
Care is no longer peripheral to workforce strategy. Almost 1.2 million employees now work for organisations that have benchmarked against the Standards. Certified workplaces report significantly higher work-life satisfaction.
Importantly, 40% of certified organisations employ fewer than 500 people. This proves that family-friendly work is not limited to large corporations. Small and medium enterprises are leading innovation.
- The Policy–Permission Gap Is the Real Barrier
Most organisations already have policies. The difference in certified organisations is cultural embedding:
- Flexible work is actively promoted
- Leaders are trained and accountable
- Employees feel safe to use entitlements
Employees in certified workplaces are significantly more likely to access flexible work, without fear of career penalty.
- Whole-of-Life Care Is the New Benchmark
Care responsibilities do not begin and end with parental leave. Certified employers are more likely to provide:
- Wider carers’ policies are not limited to parents
- Domestic and family violence supports
- Breastfeeding support
- Gender neutral parental leave
- Mental health and wellbeing initiatives
Employees today are often part of the “sandwich generation”, caring for children and ageing parents simultaneously. Organisations that recognise this are more likely to retain capability across life stages.
Why This Matters for Employers
For business leaders, the case is clear. Family-friendly work drives:
- Stronger retention
- Greater trust and engagement
- Reduced burnout
- Enhanced employer reputation
- Measurable performance outcomes
Certification provides a structured pathway to embed these benefits. In a competitive labour market and in an era of AI transformation, human capability is the differentiator. Organisations that redesign work around care will future-proof their workforce.
Why This Matters for Policymakers
At a national level, Family Friendly Workplaces has become a catalyst for systemic reform.
It provides:
- A clear benchmark for good work design
- A measurable accountability mechanism
- Alignment with gender equality and productivity goals
- Stronger child and family wellbeing outcomes
Family-friendly work is no longer a “nice to have.” It is a workforce sustainability strategy. They are essential infrastructure for a resilient economy. And as AI automates tasks, it’s our human capability that becomes the differentiator.
Organisations that retain experienced leaders, support shared care, and prevent burnout will outperform those that revert to presenteeism models that ignore caregiving.
The question is not whether change is needed……The question is who will lead it.
A National Call to Action
To accelerate progress, we need a unified effort between government and employers.
We call on Government to:
- Continue to invest in affordable early childhood education and care
- Commit to a pathway toward 52 weeks of Paid Parental Leave by 2030
- Support men’s caregiving as a workforce objective
- Endorse National Work + Family Standards and incentivise employer adoption
Care must be treated as economic infrastructure. Because it is.
We call on Employers to:
- Benchmark against the National Work + Family Standards
- Invest in leadership capability
- Remove barriers to shared care
- Strengthen carers’ support across life stages
- Measure what matters: retention, wellbeing, leave uptake, productivity outcomes
The organisations that do this will lead.
The Opportunity Ahead
The next phase is scale.
We must:
- Expand certification nationally
- Strengthen data and impact measurement
- Align with government frameworks
- Build leadership capability
- Position Australia as a global leader in work and care reform
We have the framework. We have the evidence.
Now is the moment to embed care at the centre of how we design work and secure Australia’s workforce future.
