Australia cannot afford bad flexible work
Australia’s productivity and care challenges demand urgent action. Flexible work is central to addressing both, yet too often becomes a target when economic pressures mount. Undermining it risks deepening the very problems we need to solve.
For too long, the debate has revolved around where people sit, how often they appear at their desk and whether flexibility signals a lack of commitment. Meanwhile, we risk overlooking a much more consequential question: how do we enable more Australians to contribute their skills, sustain their careers and meet the caring responsibilities that keep our communities functioning?
New research from the Working for Women Research Partnership gives us compelling reasons to change this conversation.
Released by the University of Sydney on 8 October, Good Flex, Bad Flex: Designing Flexibility for Gender Equality draws on a survey of more than 6,000 Australian workers, alongside focus groups and yarning circles involving 400 women aged 40 to 55. It examines how the quality of flexibility shapes people’s working lives and their ability to stay in employment.
For me, this research reinforces an argument I have made for years: supporting people to combine work and care belongs at the centre of economic decision-making.
In a , I urged leaders to stop weaponising working from home, hybrid work and other flexible arrangements. I challenged the use of flexibility as a scapegoat for poor workforce planning, inadequate leadership, short-sighted decisions or perceived political gain.
That concern remains. When flexibility becomes ammunition for a political headline or a convenient explanation for organisational problems, the people who depend on it bear the consequences.
And so do employers.
The research reports that more than half of women experiencing “bad flex” expect to leave their jobs within the next year. That is an intention to leave, rather than a measure of actual departures, but it should command every employer’s attention.
We should be asking what it would take to keep those women, their experience and their skills.
Australia’s economic circumstances make that question urgent. The Productivity Commission’s September update shows labour productivity fell by 0.2 per cent over the year to June 2026. We cannot afford to dismiss practical ways of retaining talent and enabling people to participate more fully in paid work.
Flexible work alone will not resolve Australia’s productivity challenges. But making employment unnecessarily difficult for capable people is hardly a credible growth strategy.
Crucially, the research asks us to be more precise about flexibility itself.
“Good flex” gives workers meaningful choice and control, supported by secure employment and opportunities to progress. “Bad flex” leaves people adapting to employer demands, with little say over arrangements that shape their income, care and daily lives. Calling both flexible obscures a fundamental difference.
That difference matters in leadership too. A separate WGEA and BCEC analysis found that although 86% of organisations offer part-time work, only 13.2% have designed management roles that can be done part-time. Flexibility needs to remain possible as responsibility grows.
This distinction should also broaden the debate beyond working from home.
A nurse, retail worker or tradesperson needs options too. A predictable roster, greater input into shifts or an agreed change to starting and finishing times can make work possible alongside care. Those arrangements deserve as much attention as hybrid policies for office workers.
The report also highlights women in their middle years, when employment can collide with caring for children and ageing relatives, alongside personal health challenges. It identifies particular barriers for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, including flexibility that fails to recognise cultural and extended-family caring responsibilities.
A policy built around one narrow idea of family will miss the reality of many workers’ lives.
In my earlier , I argued that caring responsibilities had too often been treated as an individual burden to organise around work. Employers have a vital role in changing that, through flexibility, parental leave and support across different stages of life.
I believe we also need to make it normal for men to use these arrangements. Shared care requires workplaces that support fathers and partners to participate without questioning their ambition or commitment.
For employers, the next step is practical. Talk with teams about what their work requires and where greater choice is possible. Equip managers to agree clear expectations, coordinate workloads and assess results. Examine whether employees who use flexibility have fair access to development and promotion.
Flexibility needs thoughtful management. A policy on paper achieves little if people are afraid to use it.
Government has a responsibility too. The accompanying Actionable Insights Report recommends modelling good flexibility in public employment, strengthening managers’ capability and embedding accountability in leadership expectations. These are concrete opportunities to turn evidence into workplace practice.
We can debate how arrangements work in different jobs. We should evaluate them and improve them. But Australia cannot afford a culture war that substitutes assumptions about commitment for evidence about participation and retention.
I want our leaders to focus on the people we are at risk of losing, the skills we could use better and the work arrangements that make a sustainable career possible.
This research gives us a stronger basis to do exactly that.
Let’s put it to work.
Ready to see how your workplace’s caring policies stack up? Take our Carer-Ready Workplace Health Check and discover practical steps to build a truly caring workplace.
