Official statistics indicate that Australian organisations are not providing enough flexibility to enable employees to balance competing work and family demands.

• Only one in ten enterprise agreements contain family friendly measures. Only 4% of enterprise agreements include paid personal leave, 3% include job sharing, 3% include paid parental leave and 9% include unpaid personal leave (ACIIRT 1998).
  
• Research demonstrates that employees experience considerable stress associated with being unable to effectively balance work and family commitments (AWIRS 1995).
  
• Women not returning from maternity leave or resigning because they are unable to combine work and family demands is expensive for organisations. NRMA estimates that it costs $48,000 to replace a manager, $29,000 to replace senior specialists and $12,000 to replace other staff.
  
• One in 18 male employees was working more than 11 hours a day in 1974.
  
• One in 8 male employees was working more than 11 hours a day in 1997.
  
• One in 6 women reported feeling rushed in 1974.
  
• Seven out of 8 felt life had become more frantic in 1997.

All of these statistics serve to emphasise a core issue that many employers in Australia are now coming to terms with as they seek to recruit employees. 

As both male and female workers confront rapidly changing patterns of paid work opportunities and work time arrangements, it is often those companies perceived to care about the ‘people’ aspect of business – such as work/life issues, for example - that are attracting and retaining the best talent.