Government support to attract and retain women returning to work after a career break

The Department of Education, Skills and Employment is supporting businesses to make cultural changes to better recruit and retain women seeking to return to work after a career break. The Career Revive program provides businesses selected to participate in the program with advice through KPMG consultants who will: 

• Review your business processes and policies benchmarked against industry best practice.
• Undertake culture diagnostics to determine strengths, challenges and development areas for HR, leaders and staff.
• Co-design an action plan which enables the HR team and leaders to tailor their actions to their organisational priorities.
• Provide mentorship and coaching.
• Facilitate capability workshops for leaders and individuals across the business.
• Provide access to toolkits and supports to aid ongoing maturation.
• Provide networking opportunities with other businesses and HR leaders committed to helping women to enter and thrive in the workplace. 

Businesses need to be willing to participate in a range of activities including weekly challenges, co-designing an action plan, mentoring sessions, action learning groups and workshops. Participating businesses will need to nominate an executive sponsor to support implementation of actions. For more information on what will be expected of businesses participating in the program check out the Information for businesses resource.

Previous participants in the program have reported value from having an experienced consultant provide practical advice on how to do things differently, improving recruitment, attraction and retention processes, increasing the number of female employees, providing a mechanism for promoting cultural change at the management level.

Applications are open now until Monday 28 February 2022.

APPLY NOW

If you are shortlisted by the department they will contact you to organise a 15-minute interview in March 2022. It is expected businesses will start working with KPMG in July 2022. This will provide time to integrate participation in the initiative into planning schedules and allow the allocation of resources to participate.

If you would like further information contact CareerRevive@dese.gov.au or visit www.dese.gov.au/career-revive.