Work/Life Balance
What is Finance’s view on Work-life Balance?
Finance endeavours to promote a work life balance as part of its culture. Finance recognises the benefits in this blend and actively promotes its merits through such tools as Christmas closedown, part time working arrangements, time off in lieu, purchased leave, supplementary leave, leave at half pay and performing an ordinary working day.
Does Finance have Christmas Closedown?
Christmas closedown is a benefit available to all staff. Closedown is the period between Christmas and New Year exclusive of the Public Holidays in lieu of Christmas day, Boxing day, the Public Service holiday and New Year’s day. Christmas closedown is with pay and counts as service for all purposes.
Parental Leave
On 1 July 2006, Finance introduced a Parental Leave policy covering paid and unpaid Maternity, Paternity and Adoption Leave. Parental Leave is designed to provide both consistency and equity between employees giving birth and those adopting their children.
The Parental Leave benefits, in addition to paid and unpaid leave entitlements currently available under the Maternity Leave (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1973, are:
- 12 weeks’ paid leave for the primary care-giver of an adopted child;
- one week’s paid leave for spouses/partners; and
- up to two years’ leave (paid and unpaid) in total for the primary care-giver of a newly born/adopted child.
What other benefits are there at Finance?
- Gym
The Finance staff gymnasium located in the John Gorton Building has been established to assist staff in the achievement of a healthy lifestyle within the limitations of the equipment and facilities provided.
All staff are entitled to apply for gymnasium membership. Membership is subject to terms and conditions and gym users are required to complete a membership application and a pre-exercise questionnaire. - Childcare
The Abacus Early Childhood Centre (Abacus) has been in operation since July 2002. The accredited long day care centre has 19 qualified permanent staff caring for up to 79 children aged between new-born and school age. Abacus has five large, colourful, and airy rooms for the children, as well as two secure, landscaped outdoor play areas.
Abacus Early Childhood Centre is situated in the Parliamentary Triangle, on the ground floor of the Treasury Building.
The priority of accessing Abacus is given to families where at least one parent is a current employee of Finance.
Finance staff using Abacus can nominate to have their childcare fees salary packaged. - Carer’s room
The Carer’s room provides a temporary, safe and quiet work place to enable staff to carry out aspects of their normal work while caring for their dependant(s). It is an alternative to taking leave in order to care for a dependant(s) for whom care is temporarily unavailable.
The Carer’s room is also an alternate facility for nursing mothers. - Coffee shop/Cafeteria
John Gorton, Minter Ellison and Treasury Buildings have on-site cafes. The majority of Finance buildings are in close vicinity of privately run cafes and eateries. - Social Club
The Finance Social Club conducts a range of regular activities during the year including fortnightly Happy Hours, charity fundraising events, lunchtime sporting events, an annual ski trip, a Trivia Night, children’s Christmas party, adult Christmas party and the premier social event, the Finance Ball.
Examples of services offered by the Social Club include discount movie tickets. - Lunch time Activities
On a regular basis, there are various sporting activities which occur during lunchtime such as football and softball competitions. These are held on the lawns in front of the John Gorton Building. - Exercise Classes
As part of the Health Promotion Program, classes in Boxercise, Pilates and Yoga are being offered to all ongoing and non-ongoing staff on a user pays basis.
Other programs offered from time-to-time include Boot Camp, Street Funk Dance and Group Personal Training. - Women’s Network
The Women's Network is a formal networking arrangement for women in Finance. Since its inception in 1990, the Network has acted as an agent of cultural change and continuous improvement within the Department by providing a forum for the receipt of ideas, and providing collaborative advice to the Executive. - EL 2 Network
The EL 2 Network aims to encourage greater interaction between the Department’s EL 2 staff to assist them to develop their leadership skills and achieve departmental initiatives.The EL 2 Network operates seminars on the role of EL 2 staff in the APS and how EL 2’s can best help make departmental working group outcomes happen.
What is Finance’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP)?
Finance’s EAP is a professional confidential counselling service available for use by Finance employees and their immediate family members, for both personal and work related problems.
Contact for information on this page: Recruitment and Retention Team