Employment
New Year’s Resolutions for your organisation and the law ahead for 2018
Welcome to 2018! It is set to be another interesting year ahead, as the Australian Open kicks off this week, we head towards the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, we see the 2018 Commonwealth Games hosted in the Gold Coast, and we await the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. It’s also the year …
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Do you have to act on reports of sexual harassment if no formal complaint is made?
Often it is the case that victims of sexual harassment don’t feel comfortable reporting incidents of sexual harassment. As a result, the victim and the perpetrator may merely remain the subject of office gossip. This is not a healthy situation for employees, or indeed as we have seen in the news recently, the organisation’s culture. …
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Can you control what your employees post on social media?
The boundaries between public life and private life, specifically in relation to the workplace and the home, have become porous. And the question for many organisations is whether they can control what their employees post on social media. The answer, like most legal answers, is that it depends on the circumstances and more particularly what …
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Canberra’s New Reportable Conduct Scheme – child protection obligations in the employment space
The new Reportable Conduct Scheme is now effective in Canberra, as of 1 July 2017. The ACT government passed legislation introducing the Scheme subsequent to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The Scheme is designed to ensure that allegations concerning child protection are identified, reported and acted on appropriately, at an …
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AFP workforce says “NO”
Yesterday, AFP employees delivered a clear message to the AFP Executive that they will not accept the Enterprise Agreement being offered by the AFP. 87.2% of employees cast a vote, and of those 80.88% voted no, meaning that only 19.12% voted yes. To set the scene, the circumstances leading into the vote were as follows: …
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The Importance of Performance Management in a ‘Throw-Away’ Culture Era
The importance of performance management to private employers and government departments cannot be overstated. Performance management is more than the process of evaluating and managing employees to ensure that the employer is meeting its obligations. The benefits to effectively managing employees can be wide-reaching to both employers and employees, especially when you consider the huge …
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Employment contracts: does a step back from implied terms mean that the goal posts are moving?
Trust and confidence – Barker In the 2014 case Commonwealth Bank of Australia v Barker (Barker), the High Court of Australia determined that there is no implied term of mutual trust and confidence in contracts of employment in Australia. This was considered by some as a sign that the foundations relied upon in employment contracts …
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Cleaning up a Toxic Workplace Culture
In recent years, the concept of workplace culture has come into the spotlight exposing some of Australia’s largest organisations, including the Australian Defence Force in 2013, and more recently during 2016, the Australian Federal Police (AFP). The recent independent review into the workplace culture of the AFP by former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick has …
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Employment Contracts: Restraint of Trade Clauses
Restraint of trade clauses are often included in employment contracts, to restrain employees from certain activities which may threaten the business of the employer. Restraint of trade clauses are difficult to enforce, and may only be enforced to the extent necessary to protect the employer’s legitimate business interests. The types of actions that employers often …
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Upholding a respectful workplace
Upholding a respectful workplace: what can employers do to ensure that dismissals based on misconduct are not deemed unfair? There have been a number of recent cases relating to the termination of employees for misconduct relating to behaviours that could be considered improper, or not “politically correct”. Examples of such behaviour include: swearing and using …
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