What a year it was!

So as 2012 draws to a close and Employee Matters celebrates its first year in business I thought that this is a great time to both reflect on the year and also thank our clients for their support.

We started our client-facing work in earnest in Feb 2012 with one client - TP3, but as the saying goes 'it only takes one'. Since then we have grown our client base to over 25 and they are in industries such as IT, medical, banking & finance, corporate travel, environmental & PR - but they all are SMEs who want to be confident that they are legally compliant and to get more out of their employees.

Our services have included recruitment, with one client saving $105k across four senior placements, using our recruitment service versus using a recruitment agency. We have helped our clients exit non-performing employees without being sued; we have worked on HR strategies to prepare a client's employee for exit; we have analysed employee cost impacts for a transfer of business. We have helped clients get the basics right such as position descriptions, employment contracts and visas, maximising productivity and engagement. We have mediated on employee conflicts and coached for performance improvement. We estimate we have saved our clients collectively over $250k in fines for breaches, legal fees and lost productivity.

So how have we managed to do this - well first and foremost we have a great team including a Recruitment Manager, 9 HR Partners and 2 Operations Assistants. Some of the team have worked for me before but many are new and they took a leap of faith in joining a start-up and sharing Mark's and my vision for Employee Matters and for our clients. This team are highly experienced practitioners, commercially savvy and practical when it comes to HR application for SMEs.

We have a great client base and many of them are coming back for more assistance. So, besides the offering we can provide, the great team and clients, why else are we growing? We believe that it is because of our values:

·        Authenticity in approach encouraging engagement and driving success internally and with our clients

·        Knowledgeable and client-focused. Experts in the field whose opinions are highly valued

·        Balancing Strategy and Commerciality for our clients and ourselves

·        Sustain the excitement through versatility and the variety and quality of work

·        Long term partnerships built upon trust, mutual respect and understanding

So to our clients - we thank you for being a very important part of getting Employee Matters started and wish you and your teams a very merry Christmas and a restful break with family and friends. We hope that you have a fantastic 2013, with an engaged team, growth and increased profitability. We look forward to helping you further in 2013 to achieve your business strategy.

Goodbye 2012 and bring on 2013!!!

 

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

School holidays - pleasure or pain?

For many of us, these times of the year are not relaxing - what on earth do we do with the children during the school holidays? The stress and expense of child care or organising activities to keep our young ones amused. We still have to work full-time and that deadline is still looming...

So what can employers do to support their employees during this stressful time? 'Nothing!' You may say but there are a number of possible answers; remember you are a small business you have the ability to be flexible and innovative:

·         Talk to your impacted employees to ask how they are managing and if you can be of help. Position this as a ‘win win’ situation with increased flexibility aimed at maximum productivity

·         Can they work shorter hours, to coincide with holiday care programs start and finish times? Another option might be allowing employees to work from home, where possible, work a shorter year with pro rata pay. Maybe you can utilise a time in lieu program to trade off hours during school holidays

·         Build consensus and agreement about what might be possible and look to document your agreement and implement a tracking system to record any hours owing. Check your Modern Award to confirm that your initiative is legal

The reality is that society and the workplace both need to recognise that enabling working parents to work successfully has huge mutual benefits at their place of work. What are these likely benefits?

Retention- retaining valued employees

Attracting talent - winning the war for talent, people will want to work for you and you can have a better choice of applicants.  This will improve your brand, becoming an employer of choice

Increasing engagement- the organisations with higher levels of engagement have higher levels of profit and productivity and reducing stress – your ‘duty of care’ as employer now covers managing the stress levels of your employees to a reasonable level

Reduction in absenteeism – this approach is likely to reduce unplanned absenteeism and enable you to plan for the ebb and flow of your workforce

It is worth noting that in businesses across Australia, other than those in hospitality and tourism, experience a reduction in productivity across the school holidays with large numbers of employees taking annual leave at this time. I have found that those employers who provide more flexible working conditions have very grateful, engaged and very hard working employees.

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

Ho, Ho, Ho! Five ways to protect against a Sexual Harassment complaint!

We have hit the ‘silly season’ and there is a very good reason that it is called just that. We typically eat, drink and party more enthusiastically than at any other time of the year. I had a friend, that you would describe as having ‘hollow legs’ when it came to alcohol consumption; he said it was his least favourite time to drink, as people who shouldn’t - do!  There is much to be said for this, as most of us have done or said something that they wished they hadn’t, after ‘one too many’. Remember too; it is often paid for by the company, so people see it as even more a reason to over indulge. 

Whilst I am well aware that times have changed drastically, still many people are not; I can clearly remember working for a stockbroker very early in my career, being asked at the interview “are you offended by rude jokes or foul language?” I answered “no” and got the job and after working there for a couple of years, saw it all and more!  It was like that then - it isn't now.

The main issue here is that the office Christmas party, regardless of being held out of the normal place of work, is still considered an extension of the workplace: - that’s right, this is work, real work and it needs to be treated that way.

Here are five actions to ensure that your employees behave at their office Christmas party and that everyone is happy to see each other the next day at work:

Communicate to employees prior to the Christmas party event - via email and in person, about your expectations around behaviour; specifically what is acceptable and what is unacceptable.

Develop & uphold a Sexual Harassment Policy that all employees are aware of. All organisations should have a Sexual Harassment Policy to be compliant with FWA legislation.  But beware: - if you have a policy you need to follow it consistently. There is no defence to having a policy and not adhering to it completely.

Undertake Sexual Harassment training annually and, most importantly, have your employees confirm and sign that they have attended and understood the content of that training. If your organisation is taken to court regarding a complaint and you can show that you had done your utmost to appropriately educate your employees, you will reduce your risk & the possible amount of compensation.

Encourage intervention – where appropriate at the Christmas party from fellow employees, if events are getting out of hand. Encourage your team members to look out for one another and not stand by ineffectively. If someone should be assisted into a cab a little early to avoid embarrassment or to avoid an escalation of inappropriate behaviour, so be it. 

Quickly conduct a proper investigation if there is an informal or formal complaint and resolve the situation as quickly as possible. If there has been an incident, it can often be dealt with quickly & quietly to the satisfaction of all parties internally. There are very specific rules around complaints and complaint handling you should be across.

I have seen, in my career, many examples of companies losing quality employees who chose to resign quietly, rather than raise a complaint because they felt that they would not be taken seriously or that the culture of the company actively condoned or acquiesced to inappropriate behaviour, innuendo, inappropriate jokes, and unwanted advances or touching.

These simple steps will help you ‘navigate’ the silly season and help to have all of your employees feel that they ‘matter’ to you.

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd a HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more profitable. Their offering includes Recruitment, Training, Coaching, HR Management & Exit Management - find them at www.employeematters.com.au

Damage Control

There has been so much in the press about it recently, think Google, Qantas, Rupert Murdoch and GoDaddy; however it seems that businesses are still willing to take the risk. What am I talking about? Social Media -the benefits can be immense, in particular for small businesses who know that, in the words of James Tuckerman, ‘it has never been easier to own the eyeballs’.  Social Media is a very cost effective way to advertise your business and engage and interact with both your current and prospective clients.

 The risks however are just as great and there are a couple of reasons for this:

1.       Education -employees don’t fully understand how it works or how to protect themselves

2.      Speed - the speed and geographic spread at which a blunder spreads virally

3.      Ease of access – employees can access it 24/7 from phone, iPad, desktop

4.      Lack of surveillance – no ability to review and monitor employee activity

5.      Legislation - is still catching up with the technological advances of social media

So I thought that we might try something different with the blog this week to see how great the risk is to the SME market? Please take a second to complete this checklist to find out what your Social Media risk is and how to protect your business!

http://employeematters.wufoo.com/forms/z7x3p9/

Next week, I will let you know how your business compares with others in your industry segment and more importantly how to protect your business and reputation.

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management. – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

 

 

 

The Ten Commandments for a successful HR People Strategy

 

People often ask me, if I could get one thing right around my people strategy, what would it be? Unfortunately, there is not one strategy that fixes everything. For example, I had a client that I initially went in to one day a week, to help with the HR for a period of six months; this business has eleven permanent employees and six contractors. We were still there two years later and the reason for this is that the Managing Director believes his business was running more efficiently and productively with this proactive focus on the people aspect. So what are the keys to success?

1.       Focus on the People - People are critical to the success of your business and you should never underestimate how much having the best team working with you can impact your results. Ensure that your people know both the Vision, Mission & Core Values of the business and that you regularly celebrate their successes. Communicate, communicate, communicate and invest time in managing your team

2.      Adverse Action - This is where an employee can bring an Adverse Action claim where a workplace right has been breached or is threatened to be breached. Adverse action is the ‘sleeping assassin’ and it is critical that you understand this legislation and the potential implications for your business so that you can protect against such claims. The onus of proof is reversed, that is, it is deemed that you are guilty until you prove you and your company innocent. Claims could be brought around discrimination, refusing to offer employment or injuring an employee.  Claims can be brought within 6 years and payouts are uncapped

3.      Policy Manuals - The benefits are that everyone knows the rules and there is a consistency of application however, the risk is compliance; that if you have a Policy you must follow the policy at all times. If an employee was to bring a complaint to the Fair Work Ombudsman you would need to show that you have followed your policy correctly.

4.      Employment Contracts - You need to ensure that your employment contracts are reviewed and updated every two years, especially if there is a change in legislation. I would encourage you to ensure that you are protected around intellectual property, confidentiality and client and employee-poaching. Remember that any new employee must be sent a copy of the Fair Work Information Statement when they start otherwise you are in breach of the Fair Work Act

5.      Engagement -In the Australian workplace at the moment 63% of employees are Not Engaged, that is not happy and they just do their job; 20% are disengaged which means not sufficiently challenged - funnily enough these are usually the really smart people.  The sad thing is that only 17% of employees are engaged; these people are happy and love their job!  These employees have much fewer health risks and possibly take lower levels of personal leave. The trick here is to survey your people regularly to understand your team’s Engagement Factor and then develop an action plan to improve Engagement. Just an increase of a couple of percentage points can have an incrementally positive effect to your bottom line

6.      Accountability - It is very important that your team are accountable for their work and that you manage their performance both informally and formally. From a formal Performance Appraisal perspective, this does not have to be a complicated or convoluted process. It can be as simple as meeting twice a year to discuss three things; What they do well? What they need to focus on?; Where do they want to go? Never forget the power of a simple ‘Well done George your work on that project was superb’. This is hugely motivating to team members

7.      Terminations - This is an area that managers typically avoid; they know who their poor performers are but are reticent to actively manage performance, let alone terminate someone who is a long term non-performer. This also has a detrimental effect on other team members who end up carrying the load. By all means seek advice about how to terminate appropriately but small businesses, or any business for that matter, cannot afford to retain non-performers

8.      Recruitment - In Australia, the current unemployment rate is 5.2% - thus it is a tight applicant market and you need to be targeting the passive candidate who is not actively looking for a job. You need a very proactive recruiter who knows your business and can tap into social media such as LinkedIn to find the perfect new employee

9.     Coaching for Performance - Investing in a coach to increase employee performance and ultimately create high performing teams is a cost-effective way to increase productivity. In the example I mentioned at the beginning of the article, coaching was the main tool used to improve teamwork, customer service and individual performance

10.  Business Plan - What are your 1 year and 5 year business plans and are you reviewing and actively working to these goals? Or are they documents that you wrote years ago and haven’t looked at since. Or, for that matter, you have not written as yet. I have heard it said that the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is that the millionaire reviews their goals once a day and the billionaire reviews them twice a day.  You need to remain focused on the goals of the business

So make improving your HR People Strategy one of your Top 5 goals for FY 2012 and see the results flow on from this. Exceed your expectations; excite and engage your employees so they help your business to excel!

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

Where did you go?

It hurts doesn’t it? When someone in your team decides to leave you after you have invested significant time and money in them. Just think about it - there was the recruitment drive, recruitment fees, onboarding, induction, on the job training, external training and time till they were fully functional. Plus the financial  ‘on costs’ which include superannuation, worker’s compensation and payroll tax etc. adding up to an additional 22.5% on top of the base salary. Now you have to start the process all over again, taking a hit on productivity and profit in the interim.

It will hurt more if this person played a key role in your team or was one of your high performing employees. So why did they take the decision to leave, especially given the current market stability? Do you know? Do you care? What could you learn from asking?

 

Here are five things you can do to learn from the experience and ensure a smooth exit:

 

1.       Exit Process – we generally make a fuss when new hires choose to join our company and help us achieve our company goals but the same does not tend to happen at the Exit.  It is critical that we treat people professionally as they exit. This includes ensuring timely & appropriate communication, the return of security passes and keys and ensuring systems access ceases. Make them feel good about their contribution to the business, a thank you card and cake does wonders

 

2.      Handover – as soon as you are aware of the resignation, you need to plan for the exit. Who will be doing the role until the individual is replaced? Is this an opportunity to reduce headcount or split up the duties between other team members? Ask the exiting team member to write a detailed handover document covering off all aspects of their role

 

3.      Exit Interview & analysis – conduct an exit interview with all individuals who have resigned. This shows that you value their thoughts and inputs; they may be more inclined to share information now that it will not affect their promotion opportunities or salary. You will be amazed at what you will learn. It does not stop there, after a while you will capture trends and information that is extremely valuable to the growth of your business

4.     Alternatives to losing people – if you are managing your people effectively and closely and I don’t mean micro - managing them, resignations would not come as a surprise. I would recommend avoiding a counter-offer situation but it is an option available to you if you desire. It may buy you more time to develop a strategy to cross train team members to cover other roles or look to start the recruitment process again. Most individuals who accept counter-offers tend to resign again within six months because either the promised changes do not occur or there is resentment harboured as it took them to resign before you paid them what they felt they were worth all along. Managers need to understand and know what drives and motivates their team and take responsibility for removing blockers

 

5.      Alumni – it is a small market out there and sometimes former employees become competitors or clients or they might discover that the’ grass was not greener’ and seek to return. This can be a real bonus but how can you pave the way for this to happen? A good idea is to develop an Alumni program. What does this involve? Not a lot. Make sure that you have contact details for the terminating employee and send out a newsletter each quarter sharing what is happening in your business. They may become an advocate or source of new clients for you or even just a great friend.

I am still great friends with my first boss, she hired me at 18 years old when I knew nothing and then again at 21 when I am not sure I knew much more and then she became a client of mine. Now she is much more than that and was on that yacht in Croatia I talked about in a previous blog.

Losing people is inevitable but you can maximise the opportunity as it presents itself rather than make a bad situation worse.

 

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management. – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

 

 

Recruitment - how can I do it better?

Most managers have had to do it at some point in their career but most have never been taught how and they bumble through doing the best they can. Make no mistake, it is still a 'war for talent' in the market and to improve the productivity levels of your business and beat your competition you need to be hiring the right people, at the right time, in the right place.

Effective recruitment practice is a process but also a skill and you can definitely get better at it. It's also critical for your business as hiring mistakes can be costly - both financially and how they impact on your team and their levels of engagement.

So answer some questions for me; do you do most of the talking in an interview? Can you articulate why the candidate wants the job with you rather than with your main competitor? Can you tell me post interview how that candidate would handle a crisis in your workplace, if they experienced one? Do they have the qualifications they say they have? When I was working in India, we found that a number of candidates had forged their University qualifications. Many were actually performing well in their roles but they were still terminated on grounds that integrity was a core value for the organisation.

Here are some things you can do to improve your Employee Talent Pool:

 

1. Scope the recruitment process - articulate the process from end to end and follow it consistently; at the beginning when you need to confirm there is a vacancy, for the position description, the sourcing strategy, interviewing, the decision process and finally the offer

2. Due diligence - once you have made a hiring decision don't stop there. You should conduct reference checks with the last two previous employers. Ensure you speak with their former manager rather than a friend.  You should consider conducting background checks; this might include credit, police and employment history or academic checks.

3. Interview skills - brush up on these skills (we can assist you here), use both a technical and a behavioural interview format. You should be competent in controlling the interviewee and use probing questions effectively. You also need to document the interview as these notes can be called up as evidence up to seven years after the event.

4. Measurement - look to measure your recruitment performance; your ratios for interview vs. offer, offer vs. acceptance and advertisement vs. application.  How long do recruits stay with you? Did the role live up to their expectations? How will you find this out?

5. Sourcing strategy - where is the best source to find your candidates; good people know good people. Ask your team and pay a finder's fee. Use LinkedIn; you can pay an annual fee enabling you to access every CV in the system. This can be a very cost effective way to recruit. Use SEEK or Hire Me Up (specialist part time, contract, virtual or project job board).

6. Recruitment Management System (RMS) - depending of the volume of your recruitment it may be worth considering purchasing a Recruitment Management Tool - we use Jobadder and think it is fantastic.

7. Induction - many resignations occur early - either due to the role not being as described at interview or after a poorly managed induction. This is not difficult - give them a buddy, make sure the desk and IT are ready, arrange meetings with the key people, take them out for a sandwich, check in with them formally at the end of week 1, 4 & 12 and run them through an orientation of the company. This can be very effective to integrate new team members well into your organisation.

It is really important to get this right as in the majority of cases your team are critical to your success. What do you think? Make recruitment matter.

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management. – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

The cruellest cut of all

Everywhere you look at the moment there is doom and gloom and there are some organisations doing it really tough - hoping that the market will pick up but, if it doesn't, what can you do? Some organisations may need to consider redundancies for the greater good of the business; so can you make roles redundant to reduce your overall cost base? The answer is yes, but here are ten things you need to know:

1.      Under the changes to the Fair Work Act, all permanent and part time and, possibly, some casual employees are entitled to a retrenchment pay out

2.      The length of service is calculated only from 1st January 2010, regardless of how many years service the employee may have

3.      There is a formal process that all businesses need to follow to ensure procedural fairness. This includes a consultation period where both parties need to attempt to find alternative employment within the company (redeployment) or associated companies for the impacted individual

4.      Where possible, but not a legal requirement, offer additional support such as an Employee Assistance Program or Outplacement

5.      Check your Modern Award to confirm whether you have any additional requirements around advising your Union

6.      Communicate well, both with the individual and the organisation, as redundancies do unsettle teams. Also the organisation may have an obligation to advise the employees as soon as is practical after a decision has been made

7.      The process of identifying the employees impacted needs to be carefully assessed, managed and documented

8.      You cannot rehire into a redundant role for a period of 12 months

9.      Redundancy is not a replacement for active management of poor performing employees, which is a cheaper option (and not, necessarily, hugely time consuming if done well)

10.   Invest back into the remaining team to reassure them about the future, ensuring that you do not lose any additional employees through resignations. Ensure that the work that now needs to be completed elsewhere in the business is reassigned and factored into position descriptions

Redundancies are not only tough on the individual but on everyone. They are a tool at your disposal if you need it, but use it correctly.

When business starts to pick up, think about changing your team mix, enabling you to flex resources using a combination of permanent, part-time, virtual and casuals. The businesses that do this effectively are successful as they can buffer the market troughs.

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management. – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

So why would you do it really?

As I watch the Olympics, I am inspired by these wonderful athletes and their desire for success and Olympic medals. But why do they do it? I mean, really, four years or more of preparation for sometimes 10 seconds of competition and it is over, mostly forever. There are a lot of sacrifices for that 10 seconds, so why do they do it? More importantly how can we apply to our businesses what we learn from this?
 
1. Goals - there is a goal and a looming deadline with milestones along the way. There is a clear vision of what the end goal is and what the athlete is working towards. Many athletes use visual prompts, for example, Natalie Cook had the Union Jack printed on all her equipment in her lead up

2. Team work - every single Australian athlete, regardless of whether their sport is an individual one or not, is part of a team, the Australian team

3. Motivation - every athlete has a motivating factor or factors driving them whether it is to represent their country, doing it for Mum and Dad or that they want to be the best in the world. Their coach is acutely aware of these motivators and uses them to pick the athlete up, when they flag

4. Opportunity - there is the opportunity, often fleeting but inspiring all the same. Think of all the sportsmen and sportswomen who undertook all that preparation over the past four years only to fail to make the national Olympic team, sometimes by a fraction of a second

5. Engagement - levels are really high and sustained and with engagement comes increased performance - the same as in business

6. Olympic values - the Olympics Values are clear and aspired to by the majority of athletes and those who emulate them are remembered. Just think of 'Eric the Eel' - who else was in his race? I know I can't remember, but I remember Eric 12 years later

7. Being part of something bigger than just you - there is that sense, with a history and future beyond your role. It is the magnitude of the event including more than just sport, but art, dance, singing and music

 8. Money - for some there may be a financial reward but, for most, their families have sacrificed money, holidays, time and sleep - but I suspect if you asked them whether they would do it all again, they would

9. Reward - for most the reward is knowing that they performed at their best, they made it to the Olympics, they were cheered on by a nation and they pushed their bodies and their minds to the limit

 It also makes me think of the fabulous Volunteers who receive no monetary reward but apply in their droves for an opportunity to be involved and largely do an excellent job, with minimal training and no previous experience.

I truly believe that applying these some attributes with your employees can help productivity and let's face it we all need this help with Australia ranking poorly in comparison with other OECD countries measuring productivity. Do you know what motivates your employees? What would motivate them further? Do they understand the goals of the business? Are you rewarding them and I don't mean purely from a monetary sense. Maybe it is time to put some Olympic spirit into your business and go for gold!!!!

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

School holidays - pleasure or pain?

For many of us, these times of the year are not relaxing - what on earth do we do with the children during the school holidays? The stress and expense of child care or organising activities to keep our young ones amused. We still have to work full-time and that deadline is still looming...

 So what can employers do to support their employees during this stressful time? 'Nothing!' You may say but there are a number of possible answers; remember you are a small business you have the ability to be flexible and innovative:

·         Talk to your impacted employees to ask how they are managing and if you can be of help. Position this as a ‘win win’ situation with increased flexibility aimed at maximum productivity

·         Can they work shorter hours, to coincide with holiday care programs start and finish times? Another option might be allowing employees to work from home, where possible, work a shorter year with pro rata pay. Maybe you can utilise a time in lieu program to trade off hours during school holidays

·         Build consensus and agreement about what might be possible and look to document your agreement and implement a tracking system to record any hours owing. Check your Modern Award to confirm that your initiative is legal

The reality is that society and the workplace both need to recognise that enabling working parents to work successfully has huge mutual benefits at their place of work. What are these likely benefits?

 Retention- retaining valued employees

 Attracting talent - winning the war for talent, people will want to work for you and you can have a better choice of applicants.  This will improve your brand, becoming an employer of choice

 Increasing engagement- the organisations with higher levels of engagement have higher levels of profit and productivity and reducing stress – your ‘duty of care’ as employer now covers managing the stress levels of your employees to a reasonable level

 Reduction in absenteeism – this approach is likely to reduce unplanned absenteeism and enable you to plan for the ebb and flow of your workforce

 It is worth noting that in businesses across Australia, other than those in hospitality and tourism, experience a reduction in productivity across the school holidays with large numbers of employees taking annual leave at this time. I have found that those employers who provide more flexible working conditions have very grateful, engaged and very hard working employees.

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

Current employment contracts – is it really that important?

By: Natasha Hawker

To have a contract or not - that is the question! Can you rely upon a handshake? I have found when dealing with SMEs that it is very common for the new business to grow quickly and an employment contract is pulled together hastily in order to bring on new employees. Most business owners borrow a mate’s employment contract to get something to use.  What often happens then is that various managers amend them (unbeknownst to the owner) and they end up with numerous versions, or in some instances no contract whatsoever, for their longest serving employees.

Why is this problematic then? Here are the top five reasons why you need to get your housekeeping in order:

Sets the scene - when someone is considering joining your organisation, one of the first impressions that they receive is the employment contract. This begins to set the tone for what they can expect life to be like as an employee of your company and what is important to the business. This can assist you in attracting the ‘right’ kind of employee

Consistency – imagine Jeff in accounts has negotiated into his contract an additional week of annual leave; first, this is a concession that has been agreed to and second, you immediately have an equity issue – do you reduce Jeff’s allowance back to four weeks or up everyone’s to five weeks? It is important to ensure that everyone is treated the same, especially as you grow

Not compliant with FWA changes – The Fair Work ACT came into effect 1^st January 2010 and with it comes a number of minimum standards which all employees across Australia are entitled to. Do you know what these are?  If not, you are in potentially in breach of the FWA and you should correct this immediately

Uncertainty of rights & expectations - To save any confusion everyone should be very clear about their rights - both employer and their employees and this generally reduces potential conflict

What happens when someone leaves? - It is a business reality that people will leave your organisation and when they do, are you protected against them taking with them client information, intellectual property or poaching your employees?  Unless this is in the contract it is ‘poor form’ but perfectly legal

A couple of other points to note, you are legally required under the FWA Act to supply any new employees with the Fair Work Information Statement when they join.  If you don’t you are breaching the Act.

I would also recommend that you regularly review and potentially amend your employment contract every 2-3 years and especially if there are changes in legislation. Remember the employment contract sets the framework for the way that you employ people and it protects your business in the long term. It shows that your employees matter to you!

Are your employment contracts current and do they protect you? It would be great to get your feedback.

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management – find them at www.employeematters.com.au