What’s the difference between casual employment and permanent employment? What obligations do casual employees have to their employers? And what rights do casual employees have that employers should be aware of? There seems to be a lot of confusion about casual employment. A recent court case (WorkPac v Skene) has added to the confusion and caused some to fear that they...
On 1 October 2018 new Casual Conversion clauses became effective in 84 Modern Awards (i.e. in most Awards). What does this mean? If your business employs casual employees (who are covered by one of these Awards) those employees now have the right to request conversion to permanent employment if they have been employed with your business for more than 12...
Managing a team of people can be a challenging thing and it takes skill to do it well. How many managers are good at this? I don’t believe there are many, unfortunately.
I think there are lots of managers that can come into a new workplace and maintain what’s there. They don’t really do much damage to people and they don’t really develop people;
There’s lots of risks that businesses need to manage, but I see 3 major HR risks facing businesses today. There are so many examples of businesses being caught out by these three risks and the financial costs are high and can be crippling to some businesses. Like all risks, these can be managed. By developing your knowledge and taking some...
It’s important to understand the meaning of Ordinary Hours, particularly in relation to permanent part-time employment as these contracted hours have ramifications for how you roster and pay employees. It’s common in many small businesses for part-time employees to be rostered like casual employees, but there are risks associated with doing this that you should be aware of. Part-time employees are...
HR is Human Resources (or Human Resource Management). It’s concerned with getting the best out of the people who work for you. Every time you add an employee to your business, that person can either contribute to the success of your business or to the failure of your business. They’re either adding value, or taking value away. Your business is reliant...
The Fair Work Ombudsman is targeting restaurants and cafes after uncovering widespread wage underpayments in the industry. And the fines are massive. For example, just this month a burger restaurant in Melbourne (Burger Buzz) was fined more than $300,000 for underpayment of wages, which excludes the cost of repaying the underpaid wages.
A lot of small to medium sized businesses don’t have written employment contracts in place. With more than 20 years’ experience in HR, we are aware of a lot of problems that businesses can encounter when they don’t have employment contracts in place or where they have poor employment contracts in place. A lot of these problems can be prevented.
Here are 10 reasons why it’s good practice to have employment contracts in place: