First it was work from home. Now an Aussie boss has won over her workers with another radical idea that’s changing their jobs forever

The millionaire founder of muesli company Carman’s has revealed that staff will be allowed to ‘work from holidays’ so they don’t have to take annual leave.

Carolyn Creswell, who bought a granola baking business when she was an 18-year-old university student, said she encouraged staff to work shorter hours during holidays abroad.

‘We also have a work-from-holiday policy – so when people go on holiday we sometimes say, “If you want to work half days off holiday”, we give them five days a year to work, where they are also on holiday. world,” she said on ABC’s Q+A program on Monday evening.

Ms Creswell, the 50-year-old head of a $170 million business empire, told Patricia Karvelas this allowed staff to travel abroad with their families without using up their annual leave.

‘For the school holidays you could say: ‘We’re going to Bali for ten days, but I’m quite happy to work from nine to twelve and I like to keep it up and maybe I’ll just do that three days a week. to keep my workload under control.”

“That’s five days a year that they didn’t have to remove from their leave policy.”

Working from home became increasingly common during the pandemic during the long lockdowns in Sydney and Melbourne in 2021.

On census night in August 2021, 31 per cent of workers in New South Wales were working from home, compared to 26 per cent in Victoria, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions is now calling for working from home to be made a right where possible.

But ACTU secretary Sally McManus said WFH also needed to ensure women were still promoted, rather than just given flexibility so they could care for their children.

“If there’s an assumption – ‘Oh, the people who want to work from home are the ones who are going to be responsible for childcare’ – it’s in some sense entrenched that it’s going to be women who do that and who are more likely than not to to miss out in many other ways and not change those roles as well,” she said.

“Things can move society forward and make things better for everyone, but they can also set us back.”

Carolyn Creswell, who bought a granola baking business when she was an 18-year-old university student, said she encouraged staff to work shorter hours during holidays abroad.

Ms Creswell, the head of a $170 million business empire, told Patricia Karvelas this allowed staff to travel abroad with their families without using up their annual leave.

Ms Creswell said that despite the benefits of working from home, most employees wanted to come into the office occasionally.

“There is a human connection and we find that a lot of people want to come back to the office because they actually enjoy it more,” she says.

‘People often say, “Look, it’s convenient to work from home, but did I enjoy working from home that day?” – while we often find that people who come into the office say, “You know what, I actually had a great day at work today.”

Carman’s Kitchen, based in Melbourne, now exports to 35 countries and is worth an estimated $170 million.

The company started in 1992 when Ms. Creswell offered $1,000 for a granola-packing company in the marketplace that was about to make her cut.

At the time, as an 18-year-old student at Monash University, she had various jobs, including behind the counter at Coles and as a waitress for the St Kilda Football Club, she said last year. The Australian Financial Review’s How I Made It podcast.

Based in Melbourne, Carman’s Kitchen now exports to 35 countries and is worth an estimated $170 million (founder Carolyn Creswell is pictured with her son Will)