How to make sure your business is prepared for the new Fair Work Act.
click here to get a free trailDear Reader,
When an employee starts arriving late to work regularly, your initial reaction may be to discipline them straight away.
But sometimes, there may be an underlying reason for their behaviour, and you should take steps to deal properly with their lateness.
Dear Reader,
Sooner or later, you will need to recruit new staff.
And regardless of your industry – or the type of role you have on offer – you should always verify their qualifications, employment history and identity.
Running thorough background checks on all your potential employees during the recruitment process will help you ensure you choose the right person for the job you have on offer.
Dear Reader,
Last Wednesday, Fair Work Australia’s minimum wage panel passed its first ever decision.
They chose to increase modern award minimum weekly wage rates by $26 – that’s up an extra 69c an hour.
And you haven’t got long to adjust either…
The new minimum wage rates take effect from the first pay period on or after 1 July 2010 – that’s less than a month away!
Dear Reader,
I got an interesting question from subscriber earlier this week – one I think you will want to know the answer to as well.
So today, I thought I would share the question (and its answer!) with you…
Here goes…
Question: I have a long term employee who has been with our organisation for 12 years. She performs her role adequately, but due to a downturn in business, we can no longer justify paying her current salary for the role.
Dear Reader,
My, this year is really flying by! Can you believe that it’s June already?
That means winter has officially begun… so it’s time to start preparing for those inevitable disputes over temperature in the workplace.
Employees rarely agree on an ideal temperature for the office – I know I don’t!
It always seems that when I’m cold, someone else is too warm or vice versa.
Dear Reader,
At one point or another, you’ve probably had an employee complain to you about something.
The way they clash with another employee… the fact that they feel their manager is unfairly expecting too much of them…etc…
In a recent case, Harley v Aristocrat Technologies Australia Pty Ltd [2010] Fair Work Australia (FWA) ruled an employer guilty of unfair dismissal after it found that the employee in question had actually been constructively dismissed, or in other words, forced to resign.
The employee resigned from his job in late 2009 after the company sent him a letter asking him to prove why he should not be dismissed. According the company, the employee had a poor sales performance record and they had received a number of customer complaints against him.
In last Thursday’s Bulletin I went over the things you can never discriminate against an employee for.
But you need to be sure that you never discriminate against anyone in your workplace in any way.
So I thought today would be good chance to recap exactly what is meant by discrimination.
Dear Reader,
The Federal Government has recently announced that they intend to introduce a single, comprehensive Commonwealth anti-discrimination Act at some stage in the near future.
Even though this new, streamlined Act isn’t being brought in for a while yet, you may hear little tidbits in the news about changes to discrimination laws and new draft discrimination legislation over the coming months.
Earlier this month, the Federal Government released draft legislation for the much-talked about paid parental leave scheme that is due to begin on 1 January 2011.
Just to remind you, the paid parental leave scheme will provide the primary carers of newborn children with 18 weeks paid leave at the national minimum wage.
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