Research

I think one of the key misconceptions about the four-day work week is that it's a compressed work week. The four-day work week actually  represents a 20% reduction in time at work, whereas a compressed work week is actually just  fitting the same amount of hours in four days.

Unilever were interested in trialling this new four-day work week which is called the 80 /100 model and that means to deliver 100% 
of business outcomes in 80% of the time but you retain 100% of your pay. Rather than  a 25% pay rise, a four-day work week has improved incredibly attractive to the high achievers in the labour market.

The four-day workweek has led to reduced  absenteeism, greater worker engagement, improved work-life balance, improved 
employee wellbeing, but critically, all the business outcomes, the profit targets, the sales targets, were exceeded. It was helping address gender inequity in the workplace. So women were able to return to work sooner because it made it easier to secure childcare arrangements for 
example. Women were also able to take up more senior roles that they wouldn't have previously had access to because they were part-time.

Really the next step for the four-day workweek research is to create the evidence base that is adopted by policymakers, progressive political 
parties, unions, employers, to actually push for the four-day workweek and other improvements to be legislated as a workplace right. To date, most of the research has just been done in white collar situations.

So that's something that we're really mindful of as we contribute to the policy agenda moving forward.

So as a researcher of operations and supply chain management, I, myself and my team are working on how to minimise the negative environmental and social impact of supply chain operations and how to quantify the environmental impact, social impact, economic impact, to design effective and efficient supply chain strategies.
I myself, and and my team worked on measuring environmental impact of point of sale printed receipt and digital receipt supply chain. By environmental impact, we have quantified the resources usage and carbon emissions so that we can understand what is the difference between the options.
In Australia, in a year, around 10.6 billion receipts are printed. More than 150,000 trees are used for that. There’s more than 10 billion litres of water, and there’s more than 100 million kilowatt of energy used.
And based on these, policymakers can take a decision that is effective and efficient for minimising environmental impact and social impact.
The research that we are doing right now, we are trying to investigate the impact of digital transformation in surgical and medical device supply chain, impact of digital transformation in customised medical grade footwear supply chain, 
Another research project that we are conducting is part of the environmental impact of green textile, as opposed to traditional textile.
As a researcher, I try to make impact and I feel happy whenever my research output can solve some of the problems that are existing in society.
That gives me immense pleasure because by my research I am contributing to society.

One third of people living in Australia are actually coming from overseas and these people come to Australia to build a new life.

So the integration and settlement of these migrants and refugees is really important for the overall wellbeing of the society in Australia.

Community led organisations play an important bridge between government and the migrants and refugees.

However, they don't receive the recognition that they should have. Africulture is a platform for everybody. The people we see is the food lovers, food bloggers, people who love sports…

Basketball was happening… music…Six hours of full entertainment.

At the 2023 event, we counted 43 out of the 54 African countries present. So the goal is to have all the 54 countries represented.

So to study more about the role of community-led organisations, we’ve partnered with Somali Welfare and Culture Association, who organises the Africultures Festival.

We looked at the social impact of the festival and what's the sense of community the festival is creating, such as understanding, empathy, connection between people coming from different cultures.

In Najmeh and Pavlina, we found researchers who could really articulate what Africulture was. It's just not that one festival, which is great, that brings people together, but there's a lot of community engagement, social empowerment and community cohesion.

One of the key insights is that sense of community is not created necessarily by assimilation or similarity. It's actually created by celebrating national diversity.

Najmeh and Pavlina put up the foundation for us. As we continue, we'd like to really focus on why Africulture happens and how we can support them so that they can grow into their own social enterprises and be empowered to make a living out of their art.