Workplace

The vaccine, which has been approved for individuals 16 years of age and older, is currently expected to begin a rollout in late February.

Was your business forced to implement a redundancy programme, as the COVID-19 downturn began to impact turnover and profits?  If so, you’re far from alone. ABS data suggested a million Australians lost their jobs soon after social distancing measures came into effect. As business activity ground to a halt around the country, enterprises of all […]

Automation can remove manual, time-consuming processes in nearly all areas of business, and human resources (HR) is no different. Many of the HR tasks that companies are forced to labour over can be streamlined, which gives leaders more time to focus on growing their business and helping their people succeed.  The ELMO 2019 HR Industry […]

Sailing the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race is an experience of a lifetime; one that teaches you plenty about yourself and sailing. Ocean racing has also provided me with great insights about building and leading high-performance teams in a business context. In 2015, one-third of the fleet did not finish the race. Our boat was […]

It’s always challenging for new employees to hit the ground running, and even harder if they work from home. An office environment subtly reveals much about how a company operates, so managers need to provide additional support to recruits who are working remotely. When staff members retreated to their home office back in March 2020, […]

The High Court of Australia has granted labour-hire company WorkPac Pty Ltd special leave to appeal the controversial decision in WorkPac v Rossato in an attempt more clearly define casual employment in Australia. The labour-hire company has been granted the leave in order to appeal the controversial decision of the Full Court of the Federal Court in WorkPac […]

What happens if two business partners don’t agree on the direction of a business? With no deciding vote in director’s meetings, it can be difficult to intervene – leaving one business partner vulnerable should the other go rogue.  A common scenario  Take the following example. Let’s say you have a very good business which has […]

A new report has found that women, already disproportionately affected by job losses during the pandemic, face further disadvantage from job hiring algorithms and human bias.  The research from the University of Melbourne, commissioned by UniBank, has found that subconscious gender biases greatly influence decisions by human recruiters and are exacerbated in algorithmic sorting models […]

A few months ago we were still unsure whether remote working would last. Many assumed that as the COVID-19 situation eased up and gatherings of people would be allowed again, everyone would be back into the office.  But it is now clear: remote working is here to stay. Most companies in Australia have decided to […]

In a digital address to the McKell Institute today, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Technology and the Future of Work Clare O’Neil warned of the “tsunami coming for workers in predominantly male industries.” In June, Ms O’Neil outlined how COVID-19 disproportionately affected women because of the havoc it wreaked on female-dominated industries such as hospitality and […]

A former rider for Deliveroo has taken the food-delivery service to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) in an unfair dismissal case. Diego Franco’s contract was terminated in April after working for Deliveroo for three years. Mr Franco claims that he was an employee and was sacked without warning at the height of the pandemic. The […]

Australia’s unemployment rate increased to 6.9 per cent in September, however Australians should be focusing on another more troubling labour statistic. The latest ABS data showed that the underemployment rate also increased to 11.4 per cent in September (3 pts higher than a year ago). “Even before the pandemic, underemployment in Australia was persistently high,” said Matt […]

In a bid to weather the economic fallout from COVID-19, some businesses have asked their employees to take a temporary pay cut as a means of keeping the business afloat and keeping people employed. But is this actually legal? And what recourse do employees have if their employer does the wrong thing? Extraordinary times, extraordinary […]

The results of an Atlassian study examining how working remotely has impacted knowledge workers during the COVID-19 pandemic provides valuable insights into how to lead a fragmented workforce. The three-monthly long global study, which surveyed over 5,000 employees, found an employee’s readiness for remote work was based on three key factors: Household Complexity – the […]

The Government has unveiled the JobMaker Hiring Credit to incentivise businesses to hire young job seekers over the next 12 months. It is expected to create around 450,000 positions for young Australians and cost the Government $4 billion from 2020-21 to 2022-23. What is it? From tomorrow, eligible employers will be able to claim $200 […]

Official ABS figures released today show that the unemployment rate has fallen to 6.8 per cent in August, down from 7.5 per cent in July. This drop contrasts widespread predictions of rising unemployment. Despite stage 4 lockdowns in Melbourne and stage 3 lockdowns across regional Victoria, national employment increased by 111,000 people between July and […]

Research from payroll and HR software solutions provider, Ascender, shows that more than one in three (37 per cent) of Australians are willing to take a pay cut in order to work from home for the rest of 2020. What does the research say? The research involved 1000 Australians from all states in late June. […]

Industrial relations changes have been critical in helping small business employers keep their doors open and staff on their payroll throughout the pandemic. The flexibilities that apply to employers on the JobKeeper wage subsidy, particularly small to medium-sized enterprises, give them the ability to change their duties, their total number of ordinary hours, days and […]

Employers breathe a sigh of relief as the Fair Work Commission releases draft flexibility clauses that help employers and employees discuss flexible working arrangements during and beyond COVID-19. On Monday, Fair Work Commission president Iain Ross published a “draft award flexibility schedule” outlining the ideas that modern awards could adopt to help SMEs achieve flexible […]

Recent data from Telsyte has shown that nearly half (45 per cent) of Australian organisations are looking to increase cloud infrastructure spending in 2020, and 46 per cent of Australian businesses now have ‘cloud first’ policies when it comes to making new investments. Murray Dickson is the Director of Sales Enterprise (South Pacific) at CommScope, […]