Flexibility & Choice


Telstra

Whether it’s children, ageing parents, sport or cultural commitments, study or a community interests, everyone has different needs and responsibilities.

We understand the need to be flexible, to help our people do all the things they love. All roles flex is our promise to approach every role which means flexibility is something we’re open to discussing for all jobs – whether that’s working part-time, outside normal business hours, from different locations, or job-sharing.

We’ve adopted a very broad definition of flexibility, recognising it will mean different things for different people and different work types. We also have leave options that include parental leave, cultural leave and career breaks.

We encourage our leaders to manage flexible working by checking in with their team members regularly to see what’s going on outside work. We urge our people to trial new ways of flexible working and to take a guilt-free attitude to flexibility, because it improves productivity, engagement and results for customers.

All roles flex: our approach to flexibility

Research tells us that flexible working works, and at Telstra we see the evidence every day. Since we launched “All Roles Flex” we’ve seen very positive increases in engagement and employee retention.

We know that flexibility and choice in where, how and when our people perform their roles is better for them, and for our business. When we first trialled All Roles Flex in one business area, the results after three months were impressive – representation among female candidates increased, and 30% of those surveyed told us they had applied for the role because of our openness about flexibility. A similar number reported they were working flexibly in their new role.

All Roles Flex was adopted company-wide in March 2014. We promote the benefits of working flexibly where possible, and offer the best tools and services to connect our people anywhere, any time.

We’ve adopted a very broad definition of “flexibility”, recognising it will mean different things for different people and different work types. Flexible working at Telstra always depends on the needs of employees, customers and the business. It might be part-time work, working outside normal 9-5 business hours or working from different locations. Flexibility in a scheduled work environment, such as a Telstra store, could mean the ability to express a preference for certain scheduled shifts. Flexibility in a non-scheduled work environment could mean non-traditional working hours (for example, later starts or earlier finishes), working at other locations (e.g. from home or another Telstra office), being open to hiring candidates in different locations, job-sharing or working part-time hours.

We encourage our people leaders to proactively and regularly talk to their teams, to understand their flexibility needs and help make them happen.

Telstra does not accept unlawful discriminatory behaviour or anyone unreasonably refusing requests for flexible work. We urge our people to trial new ways of flexible working and to take a guilt-free attitude to flexibility, because it improves productivity, engagement and results for customers.

Future ways of working

Technology is evolving rapidly, customer expectations are changing and by 2020, there’ll be five generations of Australians in the workforce.

Successful companies are significantly changing the way they work to adapt to this environment – and we want to be a leader in personal productivity, innovation and collaboration.

We’re constantly reviewing the way we work, whether it’s our tools, technology, workspaces or mindsets. Future Ways of Working (FWOW) is about unleashing the potential of our people. It gives us the opportunity to create, connect and collaborate in new ways.

Here are just some of the ways we’re incorporating FWOW:

  • We’re leading the way in how we think about when, where and how work gets done. It’s important to us that flexible working and mobility mean choices for our people to live and work how and where they want to. Our people have access to a range of the tools they need to work flexibly – laptops, access to a smartphone, teleconferencing, video conferencing, cloud collaboration, remote network access, support services and apps. Flexible working is supported by our All Roles Flex initiative, which means it’s something we’re open to considering for all roles.
  • We embrace internal social media to encourage honest and open community dialogue and rapid internal collaboration. Yammer is our enterprise social tool to help us connect, collaborate, find expertise and get things done in a faster and easier way.
  • We’ve introduced activity based working in many locations. Our people can work and collaborate in innovative, shared spaces. Over time, our workplaces will look and feel different, accommodate different working styles, and create the atmosphere for different outcomes.