You’ve had a great year and the Christmas decorations seem to have been in the shops…well… just a tad early this year. Like organising who will host the family Christmas lunch this year, you know this means it’s time for you to start also planning the Christmas / New Year shut down for your business. Or perhaps you need to plan working through for your customers (e.g. like many in the hospitality industry for example)? Either way, this crazy time …
Picture this… one of your casual employees has asked to see you tomorrow morning to discuss wanting to go permanent. They really caught your attention when they mentioned something about you ‘have to let them because they heard on the news last night that all casuals can now go permanent if they ask‘. Given the sometimes complex and varied changes in our industrial relations systems in Australia, you can be forgiven for being on the backfoot with this question. However, …
Records – in particular, records relating to employment. *yawn* But….what if we told you this is often the one area that employers wish they’d paid attention to before they were hit with penalties by an industrial regulator? In our travels, we regularly see missed record keeping requirements that would fail an inspection by an industrial regulator. For example, not having the correct pay level recorded, no date of commencement of employment…or there being no record of the termination of employment! …
Over the years, we’ve helped many of the companies and the clients we’ve worked for realise a BIG mistake….hiring the wrong person. And it wasn’t necessarily during the shortlisting or face-to-face interviews where we made the connection to something fishy in candidate-town. How have we done this? We simply made sure that reference checks were carried out….and also that they were with the right people, addressed the ‘niggles’ found during interviews and were treated like an interview themselves! You want …
In our travels, we are often asked some standard and not so standard questions. For those who have asked questions from time to time, you probably already know that Rob will have an answer – but will often then surprise you with a follow up email with links and further reading because, well, he is a happiest when researching and giving advice! We decided to share some of the most recent answers to questions we have been asked, knowing that …
A knowledgeable and thoughtful word from CBSW Tax and Business Advisors For over 20 years employers have had a legal requirement to pay superannuation for their employees with respect to their ‘Ordinary Time Earnings’. The current rate for superannuation is 9.5%, which has steadily increased over this time and is scheduled to continue its increase over the coming years. Sometimes, for a range of reasons, employers have underpaid or not paid the correct superannuation contributions. The Australian Taxation Office (“ATO”) …
Hands up if you know that casual staff can’t claim for unfair dismissal? If that’s you – think again. In the 2018 decision Gwatkin v Sai Group of Businesses t/as Premier Hotel Pinjarra*, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) held that a casual employee was entitled to an unfair dismissal remedy on the basis they met the minimum employment period, that their work pattern was ‘regular and systematic’ and they had an ongoing expectation of work. [cue sound of record needle …
Have you ever wondered about the privacy of information and the responsibilities the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APP) may place on your business? You wouldn’t be alone if you have, especially given some high profile data breaches that have hit the media in recent memory (*ahem* Facebook). All these high profile data breaches have made many consumers think of how you use and store their personal information as a business. The 2017 Australian Community …
In the same way that all business owners are in the business of sales and marketing – all business owners with staff are in the business of human resources (HR). Why do we say that? It can cost up to 50% of a team member’s salary to replace them if you don’t recruit the right person first time around – yep, that’s $35,000 for someone on $70,000 Wages are the single most reported cost pressure for WA businesses – so …
“Staff engagement” is a hot topic and there’s lots written about the positive impact it can have on your business. Studies suggest that high levels of staff engagement are linked to improvements in customer ratings, profitability, productivity, safety and quality amongst other things (source here). Rob met Fabio Suffell of Qbit at a recent event and heard about some of the ways Qbit support and engage their team to deliver excellent service. We persuaded Fabio to share some of the …
