A room specially designed for employees to express their breastmilk is just the first step for a local business striving to improve the experience of women in the workplace.
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PinnacleHPC Accountants is one of nine companies across the country currently taking part in Career Revive, an initiative designed to help regional employers attract and retain women who are returning to work after a career break.
People and culture assistant Ashlee Ammendolia said as PinnacleHPC already has a woman-dominated workforce, the initiative has taken on a new focus.
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"We don't have trouble getting women in," she said. "For us it's about reducing that fear when they come back from maternity leave and how to balance family life and work life."
As part of the program, PinnacleHPC now has a "personal room". The room can be used by all staff at any point if they are feeling stressed, but it is also a secure place for women who have recently given birth to express their breast milk.
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"That was something that was raised and we've worked with Career Revive to come up with ways to make it easier for those women to return to work," Ms Ammendolia said.
"If we didn't have that space, those women might feel they still need to stay off work even if they didn't want to."
Over the next few months PinnacleHPC will continue to work closely with representatives from KPMG, a major international accounting firm, to come up with other issues faced by women in the workplace and possible solutions to them.
We have a lot of women at different stages of their work career and this seemed like something Career Revive could help us with
- Ashlee Ammendolia
The next challenge will be centered around making a workplace which is less daunting for women who have been out of the workforce for multiple years.
At the end of the program, PinnacleHPC will be given a toolkit which will include information on all the issues faced by the participating businesses and the solutions they came up with.
"So even if some things maybe aren't a big issue for us now, we'll have all the info on them if they do come up in the future," Ms Ammendolia said.
All staff at the company have also filled out a survey on their experiences, and will do so again in two years to see what progress has been made in making it more female-friendly.
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Ms Ammendolia said she is "so excited" to be taking part in the program.
"We're predominantly female based and the initiative is women in business so that caught our eye," she said.
"We have a lot of women at different stages of their work career and this seemed like something Career Revive could help us with."
Minister for Farrer Sussan Ley met with PinnacleHPC this week to discuss the program.
Career Revive is a government-funded program being run by KPMG.