Engineering firm AECOM will begin piloting a new program that gives employees 12 weeks annual leave, to be taken at the same time as the school holidays, so engineers with children can better manage work and family.
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The company says often parents are forced to take leave without pay to deal with the hectic school holiday period.
AECOM will work with online jobs and careers site, FlexCareers, to launch school term-only contracts across 20 newly advertised roles in Australia and New Zealand. The offer will also be available to up to 10 existing employees.
An engineer with five years' experience, on a full-time standard salary (four weeks leave, 40 hours per week) would get $85,000. Under its term-time salary proposal (12 weeks annual leave, 40 hours per week, with 83 per cent full-time load) he/she would get $70,550.
For a principal engineer with 10 years' experience it would be $135,000 under the standard option, $112,050 under the term-time salary option.
With less than 12 per cent of qualified engineers in Australia women, and only 6 per cent of girls studying the high-school physics and mathematics subjects necessary to enrol in engineering at university, "the retention of women engineers is a major problem for companies", says Engineers Australia board member Trish White.
For those who do graduate as qualified engineers, and are currently in the workforce, half of them exit the profession.
"Apart from the costs to business of losing staff, it also means there's a scarcity of women in engineering leadership positions to act as role models for those younger women coming through."
The roles being advertised for the 12-week leave option are for a range of technical areas, including mechanical and electrical engineering, acoustics, environmental planners and scientists, civil engineering, geotech and chemical engineering.
"There is a significant pool of talent who have stepped away from our industry because they were unable to nurture their families and their careers at the same time." AECOM chief executive for Australia and New Zealand, Todd Battley, said.
"That no longer has to be the case. We will be able to target an extensive network of parents and guardians who are seeking flexibility to manage childcare responsibilities." ???
AECOM has 32 per cent women employed across its organisation and is aiming to increase the percentage of women in leadership roles.
While women in associate director roles and above has increased from 10.5 per cent to 16 per cent, the industry-wide pool of women with between eight and 15 years' experience remains very small.
"This is typically where women leave to be primary carer," AECOM human resources director Helen Fraser said. "Unfortunately many don't return to the profession."
She said the program was cost neutral for AECOM and "should help to drive cultural change among our male employees, in the hope that many of them will also choose to adopt this new term time contract and spend more time with their children".
FlexCareers chief executive Natalie Goldman said there were more than 70,000 women in their network, many of whom have previously been unable to secure roles commensurate with their skills and experience, due to a lack of workplace flexibility.
Data from Australia's Workplace Gender Equality Agency shows across the top industries that employ engineers, construction and engineering design and consultancy, gender pay gaps are much higher than the 16.2 per cent average across all industries. The gap in construction is 21.4 per cent and in engineering design and consultancy it is 21.9 per cent.
