Tag: Hr policy (Page 6 of 6)

Written Warning Template for Australian Employers

Warning Letter Template For Australian Employers

December 17, 2012 / HRwisdom

If you are looking for a warning letter template for Australian employers to help manage an underperforming employee in your organisation, HRwisdom has one for you to download for free now.

You can buy HR documents here.

Whilst there is no legal requirement to provide formal written warnings, it is good business practice to do so. It will also strengthen your case should you ever be faced with a claim of unfair dismissal.

If it does go from underperforming or poor behaviour in the workplace through to termination and an unfair dismissal claim, the industrial commission will examine whether you warned the employee and provided a reasonable opportunity to improve their performance and conduct.

You should always seek expert advice in disciplinary matters because warnings may not be deemed appropriate in some cases of serious misconduct.

When disciplining an employee, the Australian Government recommends:

Clearly identifying the performance or conduct issue. This involves looking at how serious the problem is, how long it has existed and what actions you are going to take to address it.
Meet with the employee to identify and resolve issues before the situation becomes worse, clarify your expectations of the employee, and agree on solutions to improve the situation. During these discussions, it is very important that you do not set requirements or targets that are discriminatory, unlawful or otherwise unreasonable. Again, this is where professional legal advice is highly recommended.
Your disciplinary letter should include the details of the performance or conduct issue of concern, what has been discussed with the employee about the issue, what the employer will do to assist, an action plan of what steps the employee needs to take, and a reasonable time frame in which the changes or improvements need to occur.
Employees are not required by law to sign a copy of the letter.

Of course, regardless of how well your conduct your performance management process, the employee may still make an unfair dismissal or discrimination complaint or claim against you.

However, the better prepared you are and the more thorough you are in your processes, the better the chance of defeating the claim.

Warning Letter Template

If you would like to download a Government template for written warnings, click here:

Download Written Warning Notice Template

The ‘Colourful’ HR Video We Were Too Scared To Show You

December 5, 2012 / HRwisdom

Recently, the HRwisdom Blog post examined an unusual publicity campaign called: Nothing HR Can’t Sort Out In The Morning.

Since posting the article, we have been contacted by the company involved and they have provided us with a copy of a ‘colourful’ HR video on the theme of Nothing HR Can’t Sort Out In The Morning.

We admit it. As an HR website, we are too scared to share this HR video with you here on the HRwisdom Blog (but we’ll show you where to see it).

The company behind the video (Strike) began by asking its fans for their worst experiences of an office Christmas party.

According to the company: “Almost all responses from people who had a Christmas party in their workplace, reported that the party had been pretty bad, and listed so many things that were absolutely cringe-worthy, things like the CEO’s wrestling with staff, songs running off an iPod on repeat all night, terrible food, warm beers. The responses kept coming in.”

Using these replies, the company and their agency Loud&Clear have recreated the most common or ridiculous responses, in a quick walk-through of a truly terrible Christmas party.

Think, The Office.

Due to the ‘colorful’ nature of the video (though probably still rated G), we were too scared to share the video with you here on the HRwisdom Blog.

However, we have posted the video straight onto the HRwisdom Facebook Page (just note this as our ‘Viewer Beware’ disclaimer).

Watch the video if you dare (we’ve also included details of the company’s giveaway of a party for one viewer and 25 of their colleagues to experience a Christmas party with a difference).

Don’t forget to Like the HRwisdom Facebook page.

Watch the video and hopefully you’ll see that it was nothing that H.R couldn’t sort out in the morning.

HRwisdom

Employment Law and Social Media Part 2

November 6, 2012 / HRwisdom

In this HRwisdom Blog post, we bring you the second half of our article on employment law and social media.

The post comes courtesy of Tim Capelin, a Partner based in the Sydney office of law firm Piper Alderman.

Tim has acted for leading organisations in most industry sectors including food and beverage, retail, health & hospitality, pharmaceutical, logistics, resources, construction, government, finance and insurance. He frequently presents on workplace law topics, is a regular contributor to industry and legal publications and is sought by the media for comment on workplace law issues.

[box type=”alert”]Have you attended one of our free daily online workplace law Employer Briefings yet? To attend, click here: Free Employment Law Briefing [/box]

Over to Tim for the second half of his HRwisdom Blog update on employment law and social media . . .

When drafting a social media policy, the content should be organisation specific to a certain degree, but should address the following topics:

A definition of social media.
Your organisation’s view of and approach to social media.
Who is authorised to use social media as a representative of the organisation.
If authorised to represent the organisation within social media, what guidelines should be followed.
Whether non-authorised people are allowed to identify themselves as someone connected with the organisation when using social media in their private lives.
Whether access to social media will be allowed during work hours and if so, what limits should be followed.
How the organisation will monitor usage and what it will do with information gained from such monitoring.
The need to protect the organisation’s confidential information.
Whether employees have a positive obligation to inform the organisation if they become aware, even in their private use of social media, of comments made about the organisation.
Potential ramifications of breaching policy.
Who the policy applies to, namely does it only apply to employees or does it apply to all workplace participants.

Further to Tim’s excellent advice, HRwisdom always recommends that employers be proactive and plan ahead.

Such an approach is just smart business, particularly when it comes to the new world of social media.

[box type=”alert”]Have you attended one of our free daily online workplace law Employer Briefings yet? To attend, click here: Free Employment Law Briefing [/box]

To get in touch with Tim Capelin, you can find his contact details here: employment law advice Sydney.

HRwisdom