STATISTICS DON’T LIE Since 2010, the rate of absenteeism in Australia has risen by 7%, while as much as 5% of the Australian workforce calls in sick on any given day. On average, Australian employees take 8.8 unscheduled days off per year with over 90 million working days being lost through unexpected absences. However, the real killer […]

How well are your systems and processes documented? As regulatory burdens, and competition for attracting and retaining quality employees increase, it’s hard for employers to maintain effective and compliant people and safety processes. The above chart shows employer success rates at arbitration for unfair dismissal applications are declining – this is concerning especially considering these […]

Are your documents up-to-date with ever changing workplace laws? As a HR manager, do you have time to keep updating your policies? Is the latest version of each policy easily accessible to the relevant people? Are you able to track who has downloaded and read each policy? Do you only have the policies your business […]

Have you checked your organisation’s employment contracts and letters of offer? New regulations commenced on 18 December 2018,1 allowing an employer to make a claim to have a clearly identifiable “casual loading” taken into account if an employee makes a claim for payment of NES entitlements because they were not a “true casual”. However, stringent conditions […]

The Federal Circuit Court has handed down its decision on the penalty to Workpac for failing to give its employee—Mr Paul Skene—annual leave, because he was engaged as a ‘casual employee’. We have outlined the details of this case in a previous EMA note. In summary, an employee engaged as a ‘casual’ employee was entitled to […]