Pub­li­ca­tions

Mar 27, 2017

Rea­son­able notice on ter­mi­na­tion of employ­ment has it a future?

Intro­duc­tion Ter­mi­na­tion of a con­tract of employ­ment upon rea­son­able notice has long been regard­ed as part of the employ­ment law land­scape. It bridges the gap where the par­ties to the employ­ment rela­tion­ship have failed to spec­i­fy in the con­tract of employ­ment, the peri­od of notice nec­es­sary to end the rela­tion­ship with­out…

Feb 22, 2017

How to lose a busi­ness — with­out lift­ing a finger

‘The share­hold­ers own the busi­ness, right? After all, they own the com­pa­ny, which pays the rent and the staff and the bills that keep the lights on and the pho­to­copi­er hum­ming. The cus­tomers are cus­tomers of the busi­ness, aren’t they? Sure, your employ­ees have the direct rela­tion­ship with the cus­tomers…

Feb 13, 2017

The Fair Work Com­mis­sion — Has it lost its way?

Trust — the key ingredient There is no mys­tery as to what lies at the heart of healthy staff/​management rela­tion­ships in a busi­ness – the key is trust! (See my Decem­ber post) So, what hap­pens to employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in our coun­try when the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty los­es faith in the Fair Work Com­mis­sion…

Jan 17, 2017

Cal­cu­lat­ing redun­dan­cy pay­ments does pri­or ser­vice as a casu­al count?

Aus­tralian law has for a long time recog­nised the con­cept of ​“casu­al” employ­ment. It is gen­er­al­ly under­stood that casu­al employ­ees are engaged on an ​“as need­ed” basis. There is no oblig­a­tion on the employ­er to offer a casu­al work and, equal­ly, there is no oblig­a­tion on the employ­ee to accept work when offered…

Dec 13, 2016

Trust me — I’m your employer

Com­ing into this sea­son, we tend to reflect on the year that was and what mat­ters most in our lives. For many of us, this will be nur­tur­ing healthy rela­tion­ships. Rela­tion­ships found­ed on trust. This year, I have made it my busi­ness to seek out and spend time with peo­ple who have…

Sep 7, 2016

Do we have to do what we are paid to do?

In Oliv­er Stone’s film Pla­toon, we see the expe­ri­ence of a young recruit in Viet­nam. His sergeant rein­forces his intol­er­ance for any devi­a­tion from the com­mand and con­trol man­age­ment sys­tem at the core of the mil­i­tary in a con­flict zone thus: “Now, I got no fight with any man who does what he’s told…

Sep 7, 2016

The Hunger Games have arrived: HR are now the hunted!

One of the pur­pos­es of some­one form­ing a com­pa­ny is to enable an enter­prise to trade to the extent of the resources of the com­pa­ny. The inten­tion of this struc­ture is to allow peo­ple to start an enter­prise — be inno­v­a­tive — and if it does­n’t work, to be able to…

Jul 26, 2016

Min­imis­ing employ­er redun­dan­cy obligations

A pro­vi­sion exists in the Fair Work Act, which enables employ­ers to apply to the Fair Work Com­mis­sion to min­imise their statu­to­ry redun­dan­cy oblig­a­tions to staff whom they retrench. The basis for such an appli­ca­tion (which is made under s. 120 of the Act) is that the employ­er has found…

Jul 8, 2016

Employ­ment law changes from 1 July 2016 

In Brief It is a con­stant chal­lenge for employ­ers to remain up date with changes in the dynam­ic envi­ron­ment of employ­ment law. This arti­cle looks at a num­ber of impor­tant changes in this area which came into effect on 1 July 2016.As well as increas­es to min­i­mum wages and the ​“high income thresh­old”…

Jun 22, 2016

The com­plex­i­ty of employ­ment law in Aus­tralia has no future in the ​‘future’

When we engage staff now we do so in an envi­ron­ment where uncer­tain­ty and dimin­ish­ing employ­ment secu­ri­ty is the new norm for all. This reflects the greater com­pe­ti­tion fac­ing busi­ness­es both from tech­nol­o­gy and the glob­alised envi­ron­ment. Yet it is inter­est­ing how so many peo­ple believe that staff can be…