At HRwisdom, as an HR resources website that helps SA businesses with staff and human resources issues, we have high expectations when it comes to providers of good workplace law advice SA.
This is particularly important when we continue to face ongoing changes to legislation that affects employers in SA.
This includes pay and conditions, unfair termination, occupational health & safety, anti-discrimination and other such areas.
Being well-organised and having the right advice before things go wrong is the best thing to manage any business.
Good Workplace Law Advice of SA
The types of problems that businesses in SA regularly seek expert advice on include:
Handling unfair and adverse action claims
Restraint of trade clauses
Dealing with} under-performing employees
Handling workplace redundancies
Drafting of employment contracts
Dealing with awards
Occupational health & safety incidents
Discrimination and harassment claims
Fair Work Ombudsman issues
Bargaining for enterprise agreements
Buying and selling businesses
Union representative right of entry
Responding to government inspectors
And other such legal issues
These are the types of hurdles that can seriously impact on the performance, profitability, and well-being of any employer.
We have been lucky to find a number of friendly and professional workplace law advice firms that really know their stuff.
One of the key things we like about these legal firms is their focus on being proactive so that you can prevent dramas before they arise.
This is important because unfair dismissal claims, employment documentation disputes and other such hassles tend to appear just when your major report is due or just as you’re about to give a significant briefing.
Having your workplace systems and processes audited and properly in place is definitely the best way to prevent the majority of workplace claims and disputes.
Good Workplace Law Advice in SA
Whilst it is your decision which lawyer you use, HRwisdom trusts and enjoys dealing with these smart, pleasant and on the ball workplace legislation advisors.
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.
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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.
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However, as a sidebar, our investigation into Australian strike activity led us to a golden oldy from an old union campaign.
The union movement’s ‘YourRights At Work’ was, by most assessments, an extremely successful media campaign which had a significant impact on Australian politics at the time.
Here at HRwisdom we’re wondering if the video below rings any bells for fans of Monty Python?
If so, feel free to share this excellent re-working of an old classic.
Enjoy . . .
Warning: A couple of rude words make an appearance during the video.
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As always, feel free to Like/Share this HRwisdom Blog Post on Facebook and Twitter.
With high profile strikes being seen in recent times in the education sector, aviation industry as well as the construction sector, HRwisdom has taken a quick peek at what’s actually happening from a numbers perspective.
This investigation also led us to a golden oldy…
How Strikes Are Measured In Australia
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) produces regular updates on industrial action and strikes in Australia.
Here’s how the ABS measures industrial disputes in Australia . . .
The Industrial Disputes (ID) collection produces quarterly statistics on the number of industrial disputes, employees involved in industrial disputes, working days lost and working days lost per thousand employees where at least ten working days are lost as a result of the dispute.
The following types of industrial disputes are within the scope of the ID collection:
unauthorised stopwork meetings;
general strikes;
sympathetic strikes (e.g. strikes in support of a group of workers already on strike);
political or protest strikes;
rotating or revolving strikes (i.e. strikes which occur when workers at different locations take turns to stop work);
unofficial strikes;
work stoppages initiated by employers (e.g. lockouts).
Excluded from the scope of the collection are work-to-rules, go-slows and bans (eg. overtime bans).
Also excluded are effects of disputes on locations other than where the stoppages occurred, such as stand downs because of lack of materials, disruption of transport services and power cuts.
Knowing the categories and definitions is useful to understanding what’s going on for employers.
Highest Number of Working Days Lost To Industrial Action Since 2004
Now let’s turn our attention to what’s actually happening in the bigger picture.
