Chris Capel (Longreach, Qld)

Mrs Chris Capel has teleworked a variety of jobs from her remote home, a sheep and cattle station in Central Western Queensland since 1997. Having talked the Queensland Government into outsourcing a Brisbane based public service role she commenced her first role as part time Senior Project Officer for the Brisbane based Office of Rural Communities (ORC) in October 1997. ORC went on to trial the teleworking concept, then employed a further two home based teleworkers from other regions in Queensland who teleworked similar roles. Chris worked in a further three roles over eleven years while working for the state government including her role for the Department of Primary Industries as Manager of Communication and Information in 2008.

Since 2008 she has developed her consulting business Chris Capel Consulting from the same home based office and has worked on a wide range of work projects including: scoping studies on men’s health and regional pest management, senate and other submissions, media articles, funding submissions and research project work including on gender and community engagement. She also does face to face facilitation work but her office remains at home.

Chris has been an advocate of teleworking through the Foundation for Australian Agricultural Women and other groups. She spoke to the national inquiry – Australian Telework Advisory Committee into teleworking and at the Going Virtual conference in 2005 on rural and remote area teleworking benefits and barriers.

While President of the Foundation of Australian Agricultural Women (FAAW) the group obtained funding from the Australian Government Office for Women in 2006 to research teleworking barriers and opportunities for rural women. The project report “Teleworking: Building capacity, sustaining rural and regional communities, and creating opportunities for women” is available from capel@tpg.com.au.

She is currently still teleworking: continuing with her consultancy work as well as doing a PhD through Monash University from Central Western Queensland.

Chris remains a great advocate of teleworking for rural and remote employees and employers.