The three-times finding
The Behavioural Insights Team, working with the National Careers Institute in the Australian Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, ran a trial with 460 women returning to work. Participants chose between paired job ads that were identical except for how flexible work was described. Six versions were tested, from nothing at all through to fully specific.
Two results matter for anyone writing job ads.
Ads with specific flexibility detail plus a supportive-culture signal made candidates three times more likely to choose that role over an ad that only said "we offer flexible work."
And the finding that should change how you write tomorrow: "flexible work available on request" performed no better than saying nothing at all. The most common flexibility phrase in Australian job advertising is worth precisely zero.
Larger-scale evidence points the same way. In UK research across roughly 100,000 employers, 780,000 ads and over 20 million applications, ads offering flexible working attracted up to 30% more applicants. When Zurich began advertising all vacancies as part-time, job-share or flexible with gender-neutral language, female applicants rose 16%.
Why vague language backfires
It's tempting to think "flexible working available" is a safe middle ground — you've signalled openness without committing to anything.
Candidates read it differently. They've been burned. The phrase has been used so often to mean "we'll discuss it and then say no" that it now reads as a warning rather than an invitation. Experienced candidates — the ones you want — have learned to treat unspecified flexibility as no flexibility.
Vagueness also puts the burden on the candidate to raise it, which means asking for something before they've been offered the job. Most won't. They'll self-select out, and you'll never know they were in your pipeline.
What "specific" actually looks like
The test is simple: could a candidate plan their week from your ad?
Before:
We're a flexible employer and support work-life balance. Hybrid working available.
After:
This role is 3 days in our Sydney office (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) and 2 days from home. Core hours are 10am–3pm; outside those, you choose your start and finish. The role is available full-time or at 0.8 FTE. School-hours arrangements are workable — two people on this team currently finish at 2:30pm.
The second version takes thirty seconds longer to write and answers every question a candidate would otherwise have to ask.
The five things to include
1. Days. Which days in the office, which at home. Not "2–3 days" — name them, or say explicitly that the candidate chooses.
2. Hours. Start and finish, or core hours with flexibility either side. If a 9:30 start works, say so — it's the single most requested arrangement in the country.
3. Part-time and job-share options. State whether the role is available at less than full-time, and at what load. If you'd consider a job share, say it — almost nobody does, and it's a genuine differentiator.
4. School-hours suitability. The ABS consistently finds this is the highest-rated factor for parents returning to work. If your role can accommodate a 2:30 finish, that single line will out-perform every other sentence in your ad.
5. A culture signal. This is the one most employers miss, and the trial found it's what separates a good ad from a great one. Facts about hours tell candidates what's permitted. A culture signal tells them whether using it is safe.
Something like: "Several people on this team work flexibly, including at senior level. It's normal here, not an exception."
That matters because half of Australian working parents believe their commitment gets questioned if they actually use family-friendly arrangements. Your ad is where you address that fear — or confirm it.
Where to put it
Not in the benefits list at the bottom, next to the fruit bowl and the birthday leave.
Flexibility should appear in the role description, near the top — ideally in the first screen a candidate sees. If it's buried at the end, the candidates who most need to know have already decided the role isn't for them.
What to avoid
Don't write
Why
"Flexible working available on request"
Research shows this performs no better than saying nothing
"Hybrid (negotiable)"
Reads as "we'll say no later"
"We support work-life balance"
Says nothing actionable
"Flexibility considered for the right candidate"
Signals flexibility is a reward, not a policy
"Occasional after-hours work required" (buried)
Contradicts everything above it — and candidates will find it
A template you can adapt
How this role works
Location: [X] days in [office], [X] days from home. [Name the days, or state the candidate chooses.]
Hours: [Core hours], with flexible start and finish either side. [State if a school-hours pattern works.]
Load: Available [full-time / at 0.8 FTE / as a job share].
Culture: [One honest sentence about who already works flexibly here, and at what level.]
Four lines. It will do more for your application rate than the rest of the ad combined.
One warning: don't write cheques the manager won't cash
The fastest way to destroy trust is to advertise specific flexibility and then have the hiring manager renegotiate it in week two.
Before you publish, confirm with the manager that what you've written is real. An unfilled role costs you weeks. A hire who leaves in three months because the flexibility evaporated costs you between half and two times their salary to replace — and a reputation among exactly the candidate pool you were trying to reach.
Making flexibility a field, not a sentence
The underlying problem with job ads is that flexibility lives in free text — so it can't be searched, filtered or compared, and it's easy to leave vague.
On Rebalance, flexibility is captured as structured fields on every listing: days in office, core hours, school-hours suitability, part-time load, job-share availability. Candidates filter on them. You can't accidentally be vague, because vagueness isn't an option in the form.
For employers who want to go further, Rebalanced Certified verifies that your flexibility is genuinely practised — the hybrid cadence, the part-time pathways, whether managers are actually equipped to support it — rather than taking your word for it.