The employment philosophy at UWA is a committment to ongoing or fixed term employment wherever practicable to provide staff with a sense of security and opportunity for planning so important to work/life balance.  The University recognises the importance of proactively supporting flexible work practices and work/life balance initiatives that assist it to remain an employer of choice, thus enabling it to attract and retain high quality staff in an internationally competitive labour market.

To promote UWA offers:

• A flexible academic promotion and tenure system that has dismantled structural barriers impeding staff wishing to play active parenting or caring roles
    
• A performance management system that encourages all supervisory staff to be proactive in supporting flexible work practices and an appropriate work/life balance, and to model this behaviour themselves
    
• An individually negotiated phased retirement system that supports staff making the transition from full time work to full time retirement
     
• Access to quality, affordable and accessible child care
    
• A centrally funded grants program (Diversity Initiatives Fund) to assist organisational units to develop targeted strategies that enhance, as a priority, work/family/life balance
    
• Access to a family friendly Re-entry Postdoctoral Research Fellowships that supports the further professional development of staff who may have family responsibilities
   
• A range of flexible working arrangements through the Enterprise Agreements. These include flexible working hours, permanent part time work, job sharing arrangements, purchased leave, deferred salary scheme, working from home arrangements and parental leave arrangements.  The University adopts a very wide interpretation of family and recognises, among others, same sex relationships and those determined by cultural and other differences.