At HRwisdom we encourage you to be proactive and seek the right information to successfully manage staff.

In today’s HRwisdom blog post, we draw your attention to an excellent industry update by HR expert Ron Jones.

In his latest update, Ron has pointed out a subtle change in employment law which can have a big impact on small businesses in Australia.

The Fair Work Act has defined a small business as one with fewer than 15 employees. Employees may be full time, part time or casuals employed on a regular and systematic basis.

An employee of a small business is unable to pursue a claim for unfair dismissal unless he or she has been employed for at least 12 months.

A small business is also exempted from paying redundancy benefits in the event that the business makes an employee’s position redundant.

These measures have been introduced to assist small business growth and development and to help insulate them from some of the costs which would impede that growth.

Under the provisions of the Act, it is anticipated that as business grow, they will be able to meet the same costs as larger businesses.

However, the definition of small business has another twist . . .

As Ron Jones points out, the implications for many businesses are significant and will force a complete reassessment of the cost structures which apply to the organisation.

If you run a small business then you really must check out the latest legislative change and see how it exposes your business to unfair dismissal risks.

To see what’s changed, read Ron’s latest blog posting here: Right Work Advice

To see more of Ron’s invaluable commentary, visit his guest HRwisdom blog Q&A session here: HR Advice

HRwisdom

Many Australian businesses still face uncertain times.

An recent article in The Australian newspaper described the potential threat of a GFC 2 resulting from the debt-ridden economies of Europe.

At HRwisdom we are very much focussed on being proactive and taking positive planning steps (and we’ll talk more soon about some excellent employee retention tools you can use).

However, for those businesses in Australia which may be suffering or trying to manage their costs very closely, we have put together an excellent free HR resource which explains:

How To Manage Redundancies Without Destroying All Employee Goodwill

In this HRwisdom resource, we have turned to industry expert Jacqui Alder to offer practical advice to businesses facing this difficult issue.

In this redundancy information we look at:

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of offering voluntary redundancies versus conducting forced redundancies/involuntary redundancies?
• What are the steps involved in the redundancy process?
• How to select people for involuntary redundancy?
• How to communicate throughout the redundancy process?
• Should you march someone out immediately when making them redundant?
• How can you implement redundancies without destroying all employee goodwill?
• A case study.

You can access the information via the home page sign-up:  redundancy information

Kind regards,

HRwisdom

The Fair Work Act has led to many headaches and concerns in businesses all over Australia. The clock is ticking and the countdown has begun for the major changes to employment law which will directly affect you and your employees.

As part of our ongoing commitment to helping Australian employers manage their staff even better during these challenging times, we recently provided our free subscribers with the opportunity to ask your own specific Fair Work Act questions to our guest expert, Ron Jones.

As a very experienced and knowledgeable management consultant, Ron is heavily involved in resolving IR and HR issues for organisations struggling to cope with the ambiguities of the Fair Work Act changes.

Ron has studied the changes and believes there are two major areas of concern: a new set of National Employment Standards and the award modernisation process.

Specific Fair Work Questions Answered

You may want to know:

• Does the Fair Work Act apply to us?
• We already have an employment agreement in place – can’t we just keep using this?
• Does this mean that our letters of offer and employment contracts no longer apply?
• What exactly do we need to do before 1 January 2010?

What Were The Questions Answered?

To see the Fair Work Act questions answered by Ron, all you need to do is to scroll down to the Comments section of this specific blog posting (if you can’t see the Comments section at the bottom, you may need to click on the top title of this post first).

Share Learnings With Colleagues

Do let your friends and colleagues know about this set of questions and answers. They’ll benefit from Ron’s insights and the whole HRwisdom community can learn from the online HR discussion. The link is:

http://blog.hrwisdom.com.au/2009/10/fair-work-act-questions-ask-an-expert/

Remember that there have been many additions and updates made to the HRwisdom HR documents for the Fair Work Act. You can access the documents now here: HR Advice.

Kind regards,

HRwisdom Support

Browse the HRwisdom Library for redundancy letters, redundancy forms and redundancy templates.

In a recent HRwisdom blog posting on practical advice on how to terminate employees, we examined some of the legal aspects of termination and making staff redundant.

Thanks to our partnership with Business Essentials, we can bring you a free short, sharp audio interview with a legal expert on how to avoid staff retrenchments.

In this free interview, you’ll hear plenty of ideas and legal advice about how to avoid out-and-out staff retrenchments during tough economic times.

Part-time roles or job-sharing, for example, are more palatable than laying off staff members altogether but they’re not without risk.

You’ll learn about the benefits and the legal traps of some of the ways of avoiding staff retrenchments.

To hear the interview, just click on redundancy interview and scroll through the Human Resources section.

Kind regards,

HRwisdom Support
Browse the HRwisdom Library for redundancy letters, redundancy forms and redundancy templates.

HRwisdom.com.au is a free HR resource site dedicated to helping you find good staff, hire good staff, manage good staff, and keep good staff.

When you click on any of the individual blog posting titles, you’ll see a number of options to share the HRwisdom article with your friends and colleagues.

To keep up to date with excellent free staff management ideas and all the latest tips and tools, be sure to join our free HR advice community via our home page and keep checking back to this blog for updates.

Enjoy your free resources.

HRwisdom