Another year of change in HR

Another year of change in HR

by | Dec 12, 2022 | Fair Work, Human Resources

Latest News & Events

 

Another year of change in HR

bar loading 2023

The last few years have been among the most challenging in human resources management in memory. COVID, staff shortages, remote working and continued legislative change as well as the highest increases in award wages for many years have all contributed to this.

That trend is set to continue big time in 2023. There is a lot of legislative and regulatory change in relation to both workplace relations and workplace health and safety coming in courtesy of both State and Federal Governments and the effects of COVID on staff availability and working preferences continue to have an impact.

So here is a heads up on the HR agenda for the year ahead.

#1: SKILLS SHORTAGES

The struggle to find and retain the right people for your business will remain a key challenge in 2023 and beyond. It continues to be a candidates’ market so it is imperative that you have a real Employer Value Proposition (EVP) ie that you can tell candidates what you offer
and why they should work for you.

Explore opportunities to differentiate your business from your competitors in your industry and in your region, get the message out there and make sure that you deliver on your EVP for your employees…. so they become your greatest advocates.

#2: PAID FAMILY AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LEAVE

This year, all employees, whether full-time, part-time or casual, will be able to access 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave.

For businesses with 15 or more employees, that entitlement is available from 1 February 2023.

For small business employers with less than 15 employees, that entitlement is available from 1 August 2023.

The full leave entitlement of 10 days is available from those dates.

Paid family and domestic violence does not accumulate but it does renew on the anniversary of an employee’s commencement.

For example, an employee engaged by a large employer on 5 July 2022, would first have the entitlement to 10 days paid family and domestic leave on 5 February 2023. That entitlement would reset to 10 days on the employee’s anniversary on 5 July 2023 and on 1 July each year thereafter.

#3: POSITIVE DUTY TO PREVENT SEXUAL DISCRIMINATION, SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND VICTIMISATION

In Victoria, this duty already exists under equal opportunity legislation. Now it is also being introduced federally through the Respect@Work reforms to the Fair Work Act.

Employees can already make application to the Fair Work Commission to issue stop sexual harassment orders but this is reliant on an employee making a complaint to the Commission.

The new positive duty means that employers have to prevent sexual harassment from happening in the first place by proactively identifying and removing risks in the same way that is required for workplace health and safety hazards.

If you cannot demonstrate that you are meeting that positive duty test, it will be extremely difficult to offer effective defence against any complaint made.

#4: REQUESTS FOR FLEXIBLE WORKING ARRANGEMENTS

The Fair Work Act already provides employees in certain circumstances with the ability to apply for flexible working arrangements which might, for example, be a temporary or ongoing variation to working hours or working location.

What the new legislation introduces is the ability for the Fair Work Commission to arbitrate on a dispute between an employer and an employee if the employer refuses the employee’s application or does not respond within the 21 day period allowed for an employer to respond to such a request.

With the current post-lockdown challenges that some employers are experiencing in getting people back to the physical workplace, this could be a big issue in 2023.

#5: MANAGING EMPLOYEE MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLBEING

There are two elements to this.

The first is that we want to look after our employees so that they can perform at their best and they trust that we care for them.

The second is that, if we do not have the appropriate policies, procedures and practices in place to support mental health and wellbeing, we have little chance of being able to defend complaints of psychosocial injuries and related worker’s compensation claims.

#6: INCREASES IN COST OF LIVING AND WAGES

The Albanese Government clearly has better pay for workers as a cornerstone of its workplace relations policy platform.

Last year, the Fair Work Commission delivered its highest increase to the federal minimum wage and award wages that we have seen for decades.

Additionally, with the accelerated increases in cost of living/inflation of recent times plus staff shortages, it is necessary to raise the bar on wage increases to attract and retain good people.

WHAT THIS ALL MEANS

Over the last few years, managing people and people issues has become a lot more complicated than it already was. This new raft of changes that will present in 2023 just continue with that.

There are three really important things that employers need to do regardless of size or number of employees.

The first is to learn as much as you can about what these changes are and what they mean for you.

The second is related to that – it is to have access to competent professional HR/workplace relations advice. You might obtain that from an industry or employer association, an employment law firm or a HR consultancy. Just make sure that they have the right balance between legal knowledge and cultural awareness.

The third is to engage with your people – educate them, listen to them and work with them on how to deal with all of these responsibilities in your business.

CONTACT US

Ridgeline Human Resources Pty Ltd
ABN : 24 091 644 094

enquiries@ridgelinehr.com.au

0438 533 311

PARTNER LINKS

PosWork

FMD Financial

Civil Contractors Federation Victoria

QUICK RESOURCE LINKS

Fair Work Ombudsman

Fair Work Commission

Worksafe Victoria

Safe Work Australia

Business Victoria

Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission

TELL US WHAT YOU NEED HELP WITH

New paid family and domestic violence leave coming in 2023

New paid family and domestic violence leave coming in 2023

by | Nov 30, 2022 | Fair Work, News

Latest News & Events

 

New paid family and domestic violence leave coming in 2023

women looking at camera black and white

The Federal Parliament recently passed the Fair Work Amendment (Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2022 which provides for all employees in the federal system to have access to 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave in a 12 month period.

This includes full-time, part-time and casual employees, all of whom get access to the full entitlement of 10 days upfront with effect from:

  • 1 February 2023, for employees of non-small business employers (employers with 15 or more employees on 1 February 2023)
  • 1 August 2023, for employees of small business employers (those with less than 15 employees on 1 February 2023)
  • And, in both cases, again on the anniversary of the employee’s engagement by the employer and annually thereafter.

Leave does not accumulate but resets to 10 days on each anniversary.

What is family and domestic violence?

Under the new provisions, family and domestic violence means violent, threatening or other abusive behaviour by an employee’s close relative, a current or former intimate partner, or a member of their household that both:

  • seeks to coerce or control the employee
  • causes them harm or fear.

A close relative is:

  • an employee’s
    • current or former spouse
    • current or former de facto partner
    • child
    • parent
    • grandparent
    • grandchild
    • sibling
  • a child, parent, grandparent, grandchild or sibling of an employee’s current or former spouse or de fact partner, or
  • a person related to the employee according to Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander kinship rules.

What circumstances qualify for taking paid family and domestic violence?

If an employee needs to do something to deal with the impact of family and domestic violence and it is not practical for them to do that outside their working hours, they would be eligible to take family and domestic violence leave.

This could include, for example, the employee:

  • making arrangements for their safety, or the safety of a close relative (including relocation)
  • attending court hearings
  • accessing police services
  • attending counselling
  • attending appointments with medical, financial or legal professionals.

Does the employee have to provide evidence?

If an employee takes paid family and domestic violence leave, they have to let their employer know as soon as possible. This could be after the leave has started. An employer can ask their employee for evidence to show that the employee needs to do something to deal with family and domestic violence and it’s not practical to do that outside their hours of work.

Types of evidence can include:

  • documents issued by the police service
  • documents issued by a court
  • family violence support service documents, or
  • a statutory declaration.

Employers can ask employees to provide evidence for as little as 1 day or less off work.

Confidentiality requirements

Employers have to take reasonably practicable steps to keep any information about an employee’s situation confidential when they receive it as part of an application for leave. This includes information about the employee giving notice that they’re taking the leave and any evidence they provide.

Employers are not prevented from disclosing information if:

  • the employee consents
  • it’s required by law, or
  • is necessary to protect the life, health or safety of the employee or another person.

Employers need to be aware that any information about an employee’s experience of family and domestic violence is sensitive. If information is mishandled, it could have adverse consequences for their employee. Employers should work with their employee to discuss and agree on how this information will be handled.

Other important points

The new leave provisions will be independently reviewed after 12 months to consider the impacts on small businesses, sole traders and people experiencing family and domestic violence.

Employees will continue to be entitled to 5 days of unpaid family and domestic violence leave that is already provided for under National Employment Standards until they can access the new paid leave entitlement.

Need help?

Do you need to learn more about what this all means for your organisation or do you need to revamp your policies or contracts to accommodate these changes? If you haven’t worked with us before, we offer a free first consultation. Contact us on 1300 108 488 or at enquiries@ridgelinehr.com.au.

CONTACT US

Ridgeline Human Resources Pty Ltd
ABN : 24 091 644 094

enquiries@ridgelinehr.com.au

0438 533 311

PARTNER LINKS

PosWork

FMD Financial

Civil Contractors Federation Victoria

QUICK RESOURCE LINKS

Fair Work Ombudsman

Fair Work Commission

Worksafe Victoria

Safe Work Australia

Business Victoria

Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission

TELL US WHAT YOU NEED HELP WITH

Is an enterprise agreement the answer?

Is an enterprise agreement the answer?

by | Aug 14, 2022 | C1: Commitment, C2: Capability, C3: Competency, C4: Culture, Employee Engagement, Fair Work, Human Resources, Other stuff, Wage Obligations

Latest News & Events

 

Is an enterprise agreement the answer?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could simplify compliance with modern awards and related matters?

If you could tailor content to your workplace?

If you could have everyone on the same terms of employment?

Guess what – you can do all of those things and more in an enterprise agreement.

What is an enterprise agreement?

An enterprise agreement is an agreement made between an employer and a group of employees on wages and conditions of employment for that group of employees.

They can be made with all or some employees in a particular enterprise and have to be approved by the Fair Work Commission.

They can incorporate modern awards that have application to the group of employees or they can exclude those modern awards, totally replacing them.

How are they made?

The process starts with the issue of a Notice of Representational Rights which informs the employees concerned that their employer wants to make an enterprise agreement and that they have the right to be represented in negotiation of that agreement.

Employees nominate one or more people to represent them and they can nominate themselves if they wish to.

If an employee is a member of a union, the union has default bargaining rights unless that employee nominates someone else as their bargaining representative.

The employer and employee representatives then develop a draft agreement and, when it has got to stage where there is a reasonable level of confidence that people are OK with it, a vote of employees is organised.

If a majority of the employees who vote, vote in favour of it, it is approved subject to certification by the Fair Work Commission.

What happens at the Fair Work Commission?

A copy of the signed agreement together with an Application to Approve an Enterprise Agreement (Form F16) and a Statutory Declaration (Form F17) and various other documents are filed with the Fair Work Commission.

The Commissioner who deals with it is then primarily concerned with the following questions:

  1. Whether the Agreement satisfies the Better Off Overall Test i.e. employees are better off under the Agreement than they would be under the relevant modern award(s).
  2. Whether the group of people covered by the agreement does not unfairly exclude other employees and
  3. Whether the Agreement has been fairly made i.e. the correct process has been followed, people have been properly consulted, prescribed timelines observed and people have been properly informed about the effects of making the Agreement on their wages and terms of employment before they voted on it

If the Commissioner has any concerns, an undertaking might be required or submissions might be invited for consideration.

Once the Commissioner can answer “yes” to the 3 questions noted above, the Agreement can be formally approved and legally takes effect from 7 days after the date of that approval.

Reasons for doing an enterprise agreement

There are a variety of very good reasons that might apply depending on the particular award coverage and the circumstances of the business. These include:

  1. Simplification: modern awards try to cover whole industries or particular occupations across multiple industries and we often find that much of the content in modern awards has little or any relevance to particular businesses. So we can trim it back to what is relevant.
  2. Flexibility: all modern awards have Individual Flexibility Clauses which allow some flexibility with existing employees in a limited range of matters and Facilitative Provisions which also allow some room for negotiation on some things. However, they won’t necessarily provide the sorts of flexibilities that employees might want and the employer is happy to offer and that can be addressed through an enterprise agreement.
  3. Customisation: modern awards are largely a one size fits all approach and we know that one size doesn’t fit all. For example, classification structures in modern awards are often difficult to apply to a particular business because they lack definition or they just don’t make sense. In most cases, they were developed decades ago and really don’t take account of technological and other changes to the way we work and the skills that we use today. If you pay people sufficiently above award, you can make your own structure that makes sense for your business and your people.
  4. Fairness: some modern awards have specific provisions which are just unfair for employer and employees. For example, modern awards which have Industry Specific Redundancy provisions allow an employee who resigns after at least one year’s service to receive a redundancy payment of up to 8 weeks while an employee who is retrenched after more than 5 years’ service gets less under the modern award than they would under the National Employment Standards that apply to most other employees. With an enterprise agreement, you can put everyone on the same footing with things like that.
  5. Protection: for some businesses, having an enterprise agreement of your own offers protection from coercion to enter into an enterprise agreement with a union which would force you to pay your workers at major project rates on all of the work that you do. That can make your business uncompetitive for other work. If you are in such an industry and have a non-unionised workforce who are happy to be that way, your own enterprise agreement can help you to get the right balance in paying higher rates on major project work and at lower levels on other work. Equally, a head contactor on a major project would likely want your business to have an enterprise agreement so as to avoid industrial relations disruptions to the project. All enterprise agreements are published on the Fair Work Commission’s website and you can use that to publicly demonstrate your employer value proposition to prospective employees because it is locked in by law.

Conclusions

The process for making an enterprise agreement is complicated and the Fair Work Commission’s approach to them is complex. Additionally, individual Commissioners can have their own way of dealing with them.

That means that you do need professional assistance in developing and implementing one and we can assist with that. Equally, if any of the scenarios described above fit your business situation, it can be a very worthwhile exercise that can deliver real positive change in workplace flexibility, fairness
and employee engagement.

If any of this is of interest to you, take advantage of our free first consultation to explore your options and how we can help.

CONTACT US

Ridgeline Human Resources Pty Ltd
ABN : 24 091 644 094

enquiries@ridgelinehr.com.au

0438 533 311

PARTNER LINKS

PosWork

FMD Financial

Civil Contractors Federation Victoria

QUICK RESOURCE LINKS

Fair Work Ombudsman

Fair Work Commission

Worksafe Victoria

Safe Work Australia

Business Victoria

Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission

TELL US WHAT YOU NEED HELP WITH

Creative compliance – beyond minimum standards

Creative compliance – beyond minimum standards

by | Jun 28, 2022 | C2: Capability, C3: Competency, Fair Work

Latest News & Events

 

Creative compliance – beyond minimum standards

great resignation

In this, the second of our blogs on creative compliance, we explore the question of how limiting just complying with your legal obligations can be and what might work better than that.  

Under our Fair Work system of minimum wages and employment standards, we spend a lot of time talking about the importance of compliance with those standards – to ensure that employees are receiving at least the minima that they are legally entitled to and to ensure that employers are not vulnerable to costly underpayment claims, damaging prosecution and embarrassing publicity.

Yes, of course, compliance is important but is that the be all and end all?

Does compliance with legal minimum standards constitute a real value proposition for employees or does it say: “We are doing as little as we legally have to as an employer?”

Not much of an Employer Value Proposition, is it?

And do those minimum standards really address all of the things that they need to if we really do believe that “People are our greatest asset”?

 The immediate challenge

The events of the past couple of years have shone a real spotlight on the value proposition that employers offer as individual businesses or within specific industry sectors.

The insecurities of the hospitality industry with high levels of casualisation of labour were exacerbated by lockdowns and business closures and a continued lack of access to migrant student/backpacker labour. That caused locals in the industry to look for alternative more secure employment and many have found that alternative and are not going back.

Conversely, many frontline workers who have had to lift a very heavy load during the pandemic have sought alternative employment that is less stressful and they are not going back.

Added to that we have had the problems of not having access to migrant workers in both of those sectors and the lowest unemployment  rate that Australia has had for decades. These are affecting businesses across all sectors.

That raises the question of how you are going to attract and retain the people that you need ie how you can offer an attractive value proposition if you just comply with your legal obligations. Why would someone want to work for you as compared to other employers?

Let’s take off the compliance blinkers

One of the problems that looking at anything through the lens of compliance and risk management is that we don’t open our eyes to possibilities for something that might better match the needs of our people and our business. We are so focused on not doing the wrong thing that we don’t consider what might be the best thing.

That also influences the tone of conversations that we have with our people in relation to things that happen in their lives. If we talk in compliance terms, that can be a disappointment at a time when the employee would value a more supportive approach from their boss, HR Department or employer. And that can make a real difference to how the employee sees their employer and how that impacts on the employment relationship.

Here is a story that illustrates what I am talking about here.

That’s not in the rules

This was in the early 1990s before Carer’s Leave was introduced. An employee had been with their employer for five years and hadn’t had a single sick day off in all of that time. He approached management about whether he could use a few days of sick leave to cover a short absence that was necessary so that he could look after the children while his wife was in hospital having essential surgery. He was told that he would have to take annual leave because he wasn’t sick. From that point on, he took every single day absence as a sickie that he legally could – they lost him for 8 days each year. We do have carer’s leave now but there are other minimum standards that are equally problematic such as Compassionate Leave. That provides an entitlement to take up to 2 days of paid leave per occasion on the death or threat to life of a member of your immediate family or household.

That doesn’t provide you with an entitlement to paid leave if a best mate or a good friend or a loved uncle or aunt or cousin or niece or nephew happens to die. It doesn’t cover bereavements for a boss or a subordinate or a work colleague. It doesn’t cover bereavement for a pet. All of those situations are things which cause us grief and which we need to process and that means we are certainly not going to be at our best in doing our job while we work through that.

So, rather than just comply with the minimum standard, could you extend a bit of flexibility by offering either extended compassionate leave or access to personal/carer’s leave?

Get smart

The Fair Work Act, modern awards and other legislation just provide minimum standards that you have to comply with but that is all they are – the minimum that you have to do as an employer.

If you want to give people a reason to want to work for you, give them something more than that. Sit down with your people and work out what you can do to provide an Employer Value Proposition that works better for your business and your people.

If you want to show that you are absolutely committed to that and put it out there as a guaranteed EVP, you might even consider doing an enterprise agreement. These are all published on the Fair Work Commission website for all to see.

Interested?

If you are, we can help because we have both the compliance knowledge and the imagination and perspective to go beyond that constructively (in a legally and culturally appropriate way) . If the theme of this blog resonates with you and you would like to explore possibilities, give us a call to arrange your first free consultation on 0438 533 311 or email enquiries@ridgelinehr.com.au.

CONTACT US

Ridgeline Human Resources Pty Ltd
ABN : 24 091 644 094

enquiries@ridgelinehr.com.au

0438 533 311

PARTNER LINKS

PosWork

FMD Financial

Civil Contractors Federation Victoria

QUICK RESOURCE LINKS

Fair Work Ombudsman

Fair Work Commission

Worksafe Victoria

Safe Work Australia

Business Victoria

Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission

TELL US WHAT YOU NEED HELP WITH

Creative compliance – classification structures

Creative compliance – classification structures

by | May 28, 2022 | C1: Commitment, C2: Capability, Fair Work, Wage Obligations

Latest News & Events

 

Creative compliance – classification structures

great resignation

This is one of our creative compliance blogs where we explore options for being a little innovative within the constructs of the Fair Work system.

The Challenge

One of the difficulties that employers and employees can have with modern awards is understanding the classification and wage structures ie where a particular employee’s job fits and what the minimum rate of pay for that job is.

Why is this difficult?

Sadly, it is because classification structures in many awards simply don’t describe the work that people do. Some make no reference to tasks performed, some have some generic content around level of supervision or degree of independence which isn’t very helpful and some have stated qualification levels which, in some cases, are not actually relevant. 

How can that be the case?

Back in the early 1990s, employer associations and unions negotiated new so-called “skills based classification structures”. Ostensibly, this was about aligning job classifications and wage rates with industry training and qualification levels.

However, what actually happened was:

– Industry training people built the training curriculum and qualifications frameworks;

– Industrial relations people separately negotiated structures for each industry against a set of job benchmarks framed as a % of a tradesperson’s rate in the context of the particular awards relevant to the particular industry or occupation and the wage structures that already existed in those awards;

– Some industries simply set award classification levels by reference to the qualifications framework for the particular industry or occupation with little or no definition of tasks performed;

– Others set award classifications by aligning existing award wage levels for particular jobs (eg for a trades assistant or a forklift driver) with the closest benchmark % of the tradesperson’s rate, largely ignoring the qualifications framework in the negotiation process but including references after setting the wage levels; and

– While there were guidelines and the Australian Industrial Relations Commission nominally oversaw the process and had to approve the award classification structures, each industry pretty well did its own thing.

Some awards kept schedules of the pre-existing classification levels as references which were helpful.

Note: Ridgeline HR Practice Leader, Peter Maguire was a member of the Australian Textile Employers Industrial Relations Council and participated on the working party that developed the structure for the textile industry.

Then, with the advent of the Fair Work system, modern awards were created and there has been an ongoing modern award review process going on in the Fair Work Commission for the past 9 years.

With some awards, those reference schedules have been removed in these processes.

Of course, there is the other problem – that the way work is performed and the skills and knowledge required to perform that work effectively today can be very different to what it was when those so called skills-based classification structures were created 30 years ago.

Shouldn’t the Fair Work Commission fix it?

What is clear is that the award modernisation process really hasn’t been effective in modernising awards. It has largely been a rationalisation process to reduce the thousands of awards that operated federally and in States and Territories to a more manageable number. The Fair Work Commission has been effective in getting that number down to a bit over 120.

It has also been effective in standardising some provisions across awards to provide consistency but classification structures have largely been left alone and that is likely to remain the case.

What can you do about it?

If you are paying your people significantly above award, you have the opportunity of creating your own classification structure – something that you and your people see as being fair and that makes sense for your business.

You can do something entirely different to the award structure as long as people would all be paid more under your structure than they would be under the award structure.

What is important in implementing something of this sort is:

1. There are clear descriptors for each level which clearly differentiate between one level and the next

2. Your people are educated and consulted about the structure and are accepting of it as a fair way to recognise peoples’ skills and contributions

3. You have a process for people to seek reclassification based on their skills and abilities as they relate to your classification structure

4. Your classifications and remuneration satisfy the “Better Off Overall” principle i.e. they are above the award minimum rates for the corresponding award classifications

5. If other monetary award conditions (eg allowances or penalty payments or loadings) are to be factored into overall wage rates within your structure as well, your structure should include detail on what is included in the rates and how the calculations have been made

6. You update the rates every time there are award wage increases – generally these happen on 1 July each year via the federal minimum wage review conducted by the Fair Work Commission

7. You ensure that your contracts of employment and remuneration policies and procedures are aligned with your classification structure and processes.

You might also consider developing your own enterprise agreement and having that approved by your employees and the Fair Work Commission which makes it legally binding on all parties. It also serves as evidence that your pay and conditions are both fair and above award.

Conclusion

We do have strict compliance requirements under employment laws and modern awards but that doesn’t mean that you cannot be  creative and compliant.

If you want to explore opportunities to get creatively compliant, book in for your free first consultation by calling us on 0438 533 311 or emailing us at enquiries@ridgelinehr.com.au.

CONTACT US

Ridgeline Human Resources Pty Ltd
ABN : 24 091 644 094

enquiries@ridgelinehr.com.au

0438 533 311

PARTNER LINKS

PosWork

FMD Financial

Civil Contractors Federation Victoria

QUICK RESOURCE LINKS

Fair Work Ombudsman

Fair Work Commission

Worksafe Victoria

Safe Work Australia

Business Victoria

Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission

TELL US WHAT YOU NEED HELP WITH

What’s Labor’s Workplace Relations Agenda?

What’s Labor’s Workplace Relations Agenda?

by | May 23, 2022 | C1: Commitment, C2: Capability, Fair Work, Human Resources, News

Latest News & Events

 

What’s Labor’s Workplace Relations Agenda?

great resignation

 There hasn’t been a lot of talk about workplace relations in the lead up to the federal election and it hasn’t really been put forward as an election issue. However, if you look at the workplace relations/employment policies on the ALP website, there are some big changes in the wings.

Even if the ALP is not successful in obtaining a majority in the House of Representatives in its own right, there are plenty of worker friendly partners in both Houses of Parliament for them to get their legislation through. 

So what do they have in mind?

The central themes are around security of employment, equal pay and security of worker’s legal entitlements.

Specific changes proposed include the following:

  1. Inclusion of job security as an Object of the Fair Work Act so that the Fair Work Commission would have to consider job security in all of its decision making
  2. Extending the powers of the Fair Work Commission to make orders for minimum standards for new forms of work such as gig workers.
  3. Restoring the common law definition of a casual worker to undo recent Court decisions that placed primacy on the employment contract entered into at the start of an employment relationship rather than the character of the employment relationship during  the relationship.
  4. Introducing a requirement for employees engaged through labour hire to be paid the same as workers directly engaged by the host to do the same work.
  5. Limiting the use of fixed term contracts for the same job to a maximum of 2 back to back contracts for a maximum aggregate term of 2 years. 
  6. Including superannuation as a National Employment Standard so that workers’ superannuation entitlements are better protected and  can be pursued as a workplace right if underpayment occurs.
  7. Making wage theft a crime but not overriding current legislation in States or Territories (it is currently a crime in Victoria).
  8. Consulting on the development (where practical) of portable entitlement schemes for Australians in insecure work.
  9. Legislating 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave extending the recent decision by the Fair Work Commission to award-free employees.
  10. Legislating to require employers with 250 or more employees to publicly report on their gender pay gap and to abolish pay secrecy clauses and implementing all 55 recommendations of the Respect@Work Report
  11. Strengthening the ability of the Fair Work Commission to order pay increases for workers in low paid, female dominated industries.
  12. Reforming employment practices in the federal public service by only using non-permanent employment where it is essential and reducing the incidence of labour hire, outsourcing and back to back contracts. 
  13. Introduction of a Secure Australian Jobs Code as a criteria for performing government funded work and government procurement.
  14. As expected, Labor will abolish the Registered Organisations Commission and the Australian Building and Construction Commission which were both primarily established to regulate unions and penalise unlawful behaviour by unions and officials.

So, there is a lot in all of this and there are major structural and commercial implications for businesses in a number of areas. In the months ahead, we will unpack these policies in more detail and keep you posted on developments.

Any questions can be addressed to us at enquiries@ridgelinehr.com.au or on 0438 533 311.

CONTACT US

Ridgeline Human Resources Pty Ltd
ABN : 24 091 644 094

enquiries@ridgelinehr.com.au

0438 533 311

PARTNER LINKS

PosWork

FMD Financial

Civil Contractors Federation Victoria

QUICK RESOURCE LINKS

Fair Work Ombudsman

Fair Work Commission

Worksafe Victoria

Safe Work Australia

Business Victoria

Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission

TELL US WHAT YOU NEED HELP WITH