Digital platforms have brought about significant convenience in the way people access many essential services such as accommodation, transport, food, odd jobs and maintenance work through apps such as AirBnB, Uber, UberEats, Deliveroo and Airtasker, commonly referred to as the “gig economy”. Unsurprisingly, this rapidly growing industry does not seem to be slowing down any time soon.
The right of individuals to disclose wrongdoing has long been stymied by the conflicting right of employers keeping confidential information, confidential. This conflict has been recently highlighted by the plight of Richard Boyle who is currently facing a 161 year prison sentence for blowing the whistle on the Australian Tax Office. His decision to disclose confidential information regarding the conduct of the ATO, has come at a significant cost to him. It is also clear that the failure to protect whistleblowers has had a real detriment to the disclosure of problematic conduct.
Few departments handle as many responsibilities and manage as much information as human resources. Technology makes the task of recruitment, performance evaluation, payroll, and benefits administration more manageable and allows human resource personnel to engage the company’s employees better.
AI or Artificial Intelligence is a powerful technology that is being used in many fields and is revolutionising many sectors. HR is an area where AI is being used extensively. In fact, the gradually increasing use of AI in HR has given rise to fears that it may lead to a situation where the ‘human’ in HR may become irrelevant.
There are discussions on how HR departments may be entirely taken over by AI bots leading to the loss of jobs for humans. Is this really a possibility? What impact would AI have on humans carrying out the HR function? Read on to find the answers to these questions.
Welcome back to all our readers and best wishes for a successful 2019!
It is fair to say that the new year is certainly underway and with it, a raft of key changes to legislation have been ushered into the employment law arena. In this client alert we discuss the consequences of the Fair Work Commission Full Bench decision in Huntsman Chemical Company Australia Pty Ltd TA RMAX Rigid Cellular Plastics & Others [2019] FWCFB 318 (“Huntsman”) delivered on 18 January 2019 which considers the effect of the Fair Work Amendment (Repeal of 4 Yearly Reviews and Other Measures) Act 2019 (“Amending Act”) which provides a mechanism for the Commission to dispense with minor procedural errors relating to the making of enterprise agreements where it is concluded the enterprise agreement has otherwise been “genuinely agreed”.
It is now 12 months since the insidious discriminatory and sexually predatory behavior of powerful Hollywood moguls was exposed by a few very brave women. It is also 12 months since the phenomena of the #metoo movement. The fallout from all this publicity is certainly a heightened awareness of the unacceptable behaviours that occur at work, mostly against women. Now with the Christmas and New Year period upon us, many employers will be celebrating the end of 2018 with their employees. This is a fertile breeding ground for employees to “forget” they are required to adhere to a certain standard of behavior. However, with all employees more emboldened by the current climate, unacceptable behavior is far less likely to be tolerated and certainly much more likely to be reported.
The #MeToo movement has continued to expose the frequency of sexual harassment that occurs and continues to occur against women on a global level. Sexual harassment continues to be front and centre as a growing number of victims have come forward with their own #MeToo experiences.
In this week’s article we consider the continued effect of the #MeToo movement on Australian workplaces, the legal definition of sexual harassment and an employer’s responsibilities in relation to sexual harassment in the workplace. Most importantly, we consider what steps employers should be taking within their business to reduce the risks in this area. We also examine a recent decision which demonstrate the changing attitude of the Fair Work Commission towards sexual harassment in the workplace.
With the start of the new financial year and the annual increase in minimum wages, many businesses have most likely reviewed their pay rates and modern awards to ensure their company’s compliance in this regard. However, many businesses are failing to get some of the other basics right when it comes to record-keeping for their employees. In this week’s article we review an employer’s obligation in relation to payslips and employee records, the Fair Work Ombudsman’s current campaign on this issue and we review a recent decision which has imposed a record fine as a result of inadequate record-keeping.
Ordinarily, there is nothing very comic about legal contracts. In particular, employment contracts can be long, difficult to understand and full of legalese. As a way of tackling this, there is an emerging trend to think outside the box when it comes to contract law and expressing legal concepts. In this week’s client alert, we discuss the creative innovations that are being considered in contract design, specifically through the use of illustrations, diagrams and other comic-book like imagery.
If your business has a matter before the Fair Work Commission (“FWC”) you may automatically think that the you are entitled to legal representation in that matter and that your legal representative is able to appear for the business in the FWC proceedings. You would be wrong. The issue of legal representation before the FWC has become a hot topic as a result of a number of recent decisions. In this client alert we consider the extent to which employers have a right to be legally represented in FWC proceedings, and what this means for companies involved in such matters.
The environment in which work is conducted is no longer constrained by traditional notions of a workplace where certain tasks and activities are completed, between the hours of 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday. The modern workplace is constantly changing, and employers are having to adapt in order to keep pace. More frequently than not, work is now performed in a more dispersed and flexible manner, with emphasis being placed on the delivery of outcomes rather than satisfying attendance requirements or endless performance milestones. Employers now need to consider the consequential legal ramifications for themselves and individual staff members created by these seismic shifts in the way we work.
There have been a number of interesting and noteworthy cases determined by our judiciary in the employment law space in the last quarter. In this legal briefing we provide an overview of two significant cases. The first of the two highlights the challenge faced by employers in relying upon the opinions of medical professionals in determining whether (or not) an employee can perform the inherent requirements of the role for which they are employed and how employers ought to go about reconciling conflicting medical opinions about an employee’s fitness for work. The second matter relates to the exception available to employers under the National Employment Standards from the obligation to make severance payments in the case of a redundancy in circumstances where the impacted employee’s position is no longer required “due to the ordinary and customer turnover of labour”.