Part-time management: A path to better flexibility and inclusivity

Businesses are increasingly looking to flexible work arrangements as a way to engage and retain top employees. Why, then, are leaders not making better use of part-time management?

Research has demonstrated that businesses with more gender-diverse leadership tend to enjoy better company performance, greater profitability, and productivity. Greater representation of women at the executive level is also understood as a way to mitigate gender pay disparity challenges.

This week, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) released new research that points to what it dubs the “part-time promotion cliff” that disproportionately holds back working women.

Approaching the cliff

Across all industries in Australia, only 7 per cent of managers are employed part-time, compared with 22 per cent of non-managers. Put differently, part-time employees are more than three times as likely to be non-managers than managers.

While the 7 per cent figure has risen from where it was a few years ago, progress has been very slow, said WGEA. Since 2018–2019, the proportion of managers who work part-time has risen by only 1 per cent.

The likelihood of working part-time hours decreases as seniority increases. Only 3 per cent of chief executives work part-time, while only 5 per cent of key management personnel are employed on a part-time basis.

The promotional cliff, therefore, refers to the relative infrequency of part-time working arrangements at levels of seniority.

“Part-time workers who want to take up leadership roles in their workplace, or to make the change from full-time or casual work, face a sudden drop off in availability of management level jobs that could otherwise contribute to advancing or sustaining their career,” said WGEA chief executive Mary Wooldridge.

Gendered management

The true scope of the problem comes into view when considering women are far more likely to work on a part-time basis than men. While 30 per cent of women work part-time, the proportion of men in part-time roles is only 11 per cent. In raw figures, the number of women working in part-time roles nearly doubled between 1982 and 2022, while increases in full-time work increased more modestly.

More instructively, 67 per cent of men work full-time, whereas only 43 per cent of women are employed on a full-time basis. This accounts for casual employees. The consequences of the relatively high casualisation of females are far better understood. On average, casual employees earn 28.6 per cent less than full-time employees. Women are worst affected by the pay disparities here. The costs only rose over the pandemic as women were more likely to face job losses and to, as a result, take on casual work.

Eighty per cent of part-time managers are women. This is down from 82 per cent in 2018–2019. These roles are scarce in all industries but are most prevalent in female-dominated industries such as healthcare and social assistance. They are least prevalent in wholesale trade and public administration and safety.

“A high proportion of Australian women work part-time (30 per cent of women, compared to 11 per cent of men), so limited access to flexible working arrangements has a disproportionate effect on women’s earning capacity and contributes to Australia’s gender pay gap,” explained Ms Wooldridge.

“Women are more likely to want or need to work part-time, and sometimes more than once in their careers. This new analysis shows there are severe constraints on them doing so at senior levels and helps explain why we see much lower proportions of women in leadership roles.”

Part-time management

To combat the problem, WGEA recommended employers should be more flexible when it comes to the design and performance of leadership positions.

“To attract and retain talent from diverse genders and of all ages, employers need to offer flexible working arrangements, reconsider what it means to be a leader in the workplace and implement part-time or job-sharing opportunities at managerial and executive level,” said Ms Wooldridge.

“This is a call to action for all employers to actively develop and promote part-time management roles. Providing opportunities for women and for men to work part-time as they progress to management and leadership roles will have significant benefits for both employees and their workplaces.”