Employment benefits
Enjoy a variety of leading leave entitlements including four weeks recreational leave, plus additional paid leave days during the University’s Christmas closedown, generous paid parental leave and flexible ways of working.
Your leave options
At Deakin, we offer several leave options to support staff members, from recreation leave to compassionate leave. Other leave types available, such as gender affirmation leave, blood donor leave and infectious disease leave are outlined in the Deakin University Enterprise Agreement 2023.
- Recreation leave: four weeks per year plus Christmas closedown leave for fixed-term and continuing staff (pro rata for part-time staff).
- Parental leave: both paid (up to 26 weeks on full pay or 52 weeks at half pay) and unpaid parental leave options (subject to meeting eligibility criteria) and support for staff who experience pregnancy loss or still birth.
- Personal (sick and carer’s) leave: three weeks per year (pro rata for part-time staff).
- Wellbeing leave: ability to use up to two days of personal leave per year without evidence to proactively support physical and mental wellbeing.
- Cultural leave: up to 10 days per year for fixed-term and continuing staff members who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people.
- Compassionate leave: up to five days per occasion for fixed-term and continuing staff or three days unpaid leave for casual staff.
- Long service leave: 9.1 weeks available after seven years of continuous service, accruing 1.3 weeks for every additional year of service after that (pro rata for part-time staff).
Deakin is committed to fostering a dynamic, flexible and inclusive work environment where the focus is on the nature of work balanced with individual, team and social connections that enable you to thrive. Our vision acknowledges that some teams may need to be on campus every day, while other teams are able to work across a range of settings.
Our approach to ways of working focuses on the nature of work, not the quantity of days on campus. Our position encourages leaders and team members to successfully navigate working at Deakin together. We encourage leaders and team members to make decisions about ways of working informed by: work type, workspace, individual, social and team needs. All new continuing and fixed-term staff members also receive a one-off Home Workspace Equipment Contribution Payment to support the set-up of their home office.
Flexible work arrangements
In addition, flexible arrangements can be put in place for a range of reasons, including:
- carer responsibilities (for children, older people and partners with long-term illnesses or disabilities)
- health issues or disabilities
- study and professional development activities
- community responsibilities
- transitioning to retirement
- managing everyday life responsibilities and wellbeing
- breastfeeding (including the provision of breastfeeding facilities at all campuses and support to take time off to breastfeed and/or flexible meal breaks and work commencement and finishing times).
