The Department of Education is committed to flexible work and offers many possible arrangements for Education support staff.

Flexible work is about rethinking the how, when and why your work is done, in a way that maintains or improves service delivery to students in NSW, teachers and school communities. At Education we understand that flexible work can benefit everyone, and so flexibility is available to Education support staff on an ‘if not, why not?’ basis.

Flexible work at the Department of Education

Education support staff have access to a range of flexible work options. These can include:

• working from home anywhere in NSW, with manager approval

• working from one of the department’s many offices around NSW

• for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees, working on Country from anywhere in Australia

• accruing flex time when you work additional hours. This can be used to take half or full days of flex leave in addition to any other leave

• changing your hours of work to better accommodate commutes, school pick up or other complexities life throws at you

• working part-time

• job sharing.

Why work flexibly?

Flexible work arrangements can benefit both you and us.

For you, flexibility can allow you to better balance your work and home life, which can result in more time to spend on the things you care about most and have positive impacts on your health.

For us, we know that access to flexible work improves employee engagement levels, increases productivity, increases workforce participation and is a major attraction and retention tool for the best and brightest talent.

What does ‘If not, why not?’ mean?

All Education support staff are expected to work principally from a department workplace and are entitled to request a flexible work arrangement. Managers will work with the employee and their team to try to accommodate a flexible work request, as long as service delivery is maintained or improved as a result, and the employee attends their office for collaboration and face-to-face time with their team as agreed.

How we support flexible work

We have a range of tools and resources to support our Education support staff and managers in discussions about flexible work, and in coming up with solutions which are suitable for you, your team and the school staff and students we serve.