Flexible work policies urged to reflect kinship duties
A new flexible work guide is urging employers to go beyond working from home and account for Indigenous employees’ caring, cultural and ceremonial obligations.
The Centre for Indigenous People and Work’s Truth to Practice guide on Indigenous-Inclusive Flexible Work is due to be launched later in August 2026. It sets out how employers can enable flexible work hours and locations that respond to caring obligations, particularly for Indigenous women, as well as cultural and ceremonial responsibilities.
Carers Australia figures cited alongside the guide show about 14% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are carers, compared with 10.5% of non-Indigenous people.
Centre for Indigenous People and Work Director Professor Nareen Young said mainstream workplace policies had often treated flexible work as a one-size-fits-all arrangement. “For Indigenous people, flexible work might mean time to attend to Sorry Business, to care for Elders and other community members on an ongoing basis, or to take part in cultural obligations to community and Country,” Young said.
Deputy Director Josh Gilbert said some Indigenous workers would need those arrangements on a permanent basis because of their life circumstances and caring responsibilities. “It is not the same as simply logging on from home on a laptop a couple of days a week,” Gilbert said.
Research on Indigenous women
The guide coincides with new research, Unsettling flexibility: Indigenous women’s experiences of flexible work at work, which found Indigenous women used flexible work arrangements more often than non-Indigenous women but had less control over the conditions of use.
The research found a mismatch between Western care assumptions and Indigenous kinship care and community obligations. It also identified managerial gatekeeping, with Indigenous women describing the use of flexible work in a setting of heightened scrutiny and distrust.
The guide will be unveiled at an online panel discussion facilitated by Young, featuring Susan Kibukamusoke, Chief People Officer at the National Indigenous Australians Agency, and Lara Watson, Indigenous Officer at the Australian Council of Trade Unions.
