Poor Leaders are Costing Employers

One of the most important qualities a leader can possess is the ability to inspire trust in the workplace, however, it is something that appears to be on the decline within organisations. When trust declines in a workplace relationship, so too does productivity. Everything will take much longer and costs will increase, all to make up for that lack of trust.

Stephen M.R Covey, author of The Speed of Trust; the one thing that changes everything, calls the extra effort that goes into checking and validating employees work by leaders the “low trust tax”.
In the same way that when there is a lack of trust productivity goes down and costs go up, when there is a high level of trust, productivity increases and costs go down.

Covey believes that the need for trust in the workplace is obvious and it is a “financial, not just social requirement”. “"You can put a value on it," he said. "The ability to create trust is the number one competency of leadership needed today, more than any other”.
Trusting your employees, as a leader, makes you better at everything else that you need to achieve at work.

The thirteen behaviours that high trust leaders possess, according to Covey, are;

1. Talking straight – They say what is on their mind, and don't hide their agenda. Most employees don't believe their bosses are communicating honestly.
2. Demonstrating respect – Actions show leaders care. They should be sincere. People will notice if an action is motivated by a lesser reason.
3. Creating transparency – Leaders should tell the truth in a way that can be substantiated. Transparency is based on principles of honesty, openness, integrity and authenticity.
4. Righting wrongs – To right a wrong is much more than apologising. It involves making restitution. With customers it might include that free gift along with the sincere apology.
5. Showing loyalty – Leaders need to give credit to the individuals responsible for success. A leader should never take credit for the hard work of others.
6. Delivering results – The fastest way to build trust is to deliver results. 
7. Getting better – When others see leaders continually learning and adapting to change, they become inspired to do the same. Covey suggested two ways to get better. First, seek feedback from those around you. Second, learn from your mistakes;
8. Confronting reality – If leaders are honest about the difficult issues and address them head-on, people will trust them. 
9. Clarifying expectations – It is important to focus on a shared vision of success up front. When expectations are not clearly defined at the beginning, trust and productivity both decline. A lot of time is wasted due to leaders not clearly defining expectations.
10. Practising accountability – Leaders must hold themselves accountable, and take responsibility for poor results. It is a normal response to blame others for failure, but when leaders fail, they need to take responsibility for themselves.
11. Listening first – Actively listening builds trust. Leaders need to learn not to go through the 'mechanics' of listening and give the impression they are listening when really they are not.
12. Keeping commitments –This is one of the most important components of inspiring trust in the workplace. When leaders keep a commitment they build trust. Leaders must be careful when making commitments, and make only those they can keep. 
13. Extending trust - Leaders should extend trust to those who have earned it and are still earning it, but show caution to those who have given reason to believe that they are not capable of being trusted.

Essential HR Disciplines for Salesforce Effectiveness

Often, when HR professionals are asked why they aren't more involved, common responses include, a common response is that “Sales kind of does its own thing." Sales leadership does carry the main responsibility for sales effectiveness, however, Human Resources need to increase their involvement in salesforce effectiveness. Why? Basically, companies that do not involve HR in salesforce effectiveness stall their growth.

Here are three of the core Human Resources disciplines that help to drive salesforce effectiveness;

Talent

HR partners will often be requested to help Sales Management with recruiting specific job roles. Sometimes, the Sales team accuses the HR team of not understanding the skill set required for those jobs. The Sales & Human Resources teams need to work together and be able to strategise together. One key strategy would be to focus on talent, this includes; managing poor performance and providing better training for the sales team.

Motivation

The next core element of Human Resources that is vital to maintaining a high-performing sales team is motivation. Sales employees often have a different perspective from the rest of the employee population and are usually more motivated by product quality, marketing influence and achievable goals than their non-sales colleagues, and less motivated by performance management and equity rewards.

Compensation ranks high on their list of concerns, but are these organizations more productive because they pay more, or are they paying more because they're more productive? Paying at or above the market doesn't mean performance will follow. Pay and performance are vital components of salesforce engagement and motivation.

Productivity

There is a strong relationship between sales force effectiveness and time allocation. Companies who spend more time on sales, and less on other duties, such as administration, often have greater sales productivity.

Within any sales organization there is opportunity for productivity to increase and can directly translate to the company's growth. Sales organizations need HR disciplines to align talent with strategy, assess opportunities for increased motivation, and identify barriers of productivity. HR has a very relevant, hands-on role in contributing to sales force effectiveness.

Coraggio News Piece on Annette Dixon

Annette believes that humans are your greatest resource.  However, in reality, Annette also understands that your staff can be the cause of your biggest headaches.  End 2 End Business Solutions is to HR what aspirin is to headaches.  Annette eases HR pains by delivering various tools and support systems around the employee lifecycle - from identifying a specific need and hiring, all the way through to the exiting of an employee.

Annette shares in her client's’ vision and offers flexibility to take various paths in order to achieve the required results.  Having run a line operation that was customer focused, Annette brings a full understanding of the challenges facing managers.  Instead of focusing on the technical aspects of HR, her team understands pragmatic issues around the commercial aspects of running a business and delivers her services accordingly.

One of Annette’s most memorable clients had legal issues maintaining SLAs with their primary customer.  Whilst the situation was being resolved through the supreme court, Annette took over the management and operations over a 4 year period without missing any single criteria in the SLAs.  Once the legal issues had been resolved, the business had to be de-merged.

This new smaller business consisted of 40 staff and 5 customers.  Annette worked intimately with the business and lead the business in sales, service, regulatory and HR, delivering integrated human resource strategies and processes.  She rebuilt it over 2 years, successfully growing it to 170 staff servicing 70,000 customers.  This new business was then sold and returned $20M to its shareholders.  Annette offers these same strategies and processes to the customers of End 2 End Business Solutions.

Scaling up her business, Annette is looking to online technology to take her the next step.  She resonates with Richard Branson’s view - that if you look after the staff, they will look after the customers and profits.  It is reflective of what Annette has seen and delivered through good human resources practices.

Over the last 4 years, as a member of Coraggio, Annette’s strategic thinking and learning has increased.   Annette thrives on taking her clients from being a small entity with few staff and customers to growing them rapidly and delivering profitable returns to shareholders. 

Original Article here http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=36a02bd3794feb7684d7f1cdd&id=64d499a57a&e=5d40509c82

Do you need to fix your culture so leaders can thrive?

If you have invested a lot of time and money into developing your leaders but are still not seeing the results you had hoped for then maybe you are focusing your attention on the wrong area. It does not matter how talented a leader is if they are working in a place where the culture towards them is negative. This may mean that you have to work on your culture in order to get the most out of your leaders.

How do you know if there is a culture in your workplace that is negative towards leaders?

Here are a few common signs:

• Staff have an “us against them” attitude with leaders and clearly view them as the enemy.
• Team members have not actually ever met their senior leaders and do not recognise them or know their names.
• Staff are often trying to catch out their leaders and belittle them
• There is often negative talk amongst team members about leaders
• Team members deliberately creating problems or testing their leaders to see how they will cope.

If you have noticed this kind of behaviour within your organisation then it might be time to work with your senior leaders to form better relationships with team members before investing any more time, money or effort into developing new leaders.

Here are a few ways to strengthen relationships between team members and leaders:

• Encourage understanding of shared goals and task. For employees to work together effectively, they must understand group and individual goals. When this understanding is poor, work inefficiencies, lower work quality and low employee morale often are the result. Lack of understanding over goals is often misdiagnosed as an individual performance management problem, when actually the team member is unsure of what the organisation expects from them.
• Provide team members with sufficient Knowledge and Resources. Managers can’t have a high performing organisation without capable and knowledgeable employees who are provided with the right resources and tools required to do their jobs. If staff are made to do work they are not qualified for, they will not be happy and their performance and the quality of their work will suffer because of it. Without proper knowledge and training, employees are likely to use resources inefficiently and become disheartened which leads to frustration and higher staff turnover.
• Communication. Ineffective employee communications lead to inefficient coordination efforts. Miscommunication causes poor information sharing and makes it difficult to get the right people involved at the right time to make the best decisions.  Effective interaction can encourage opportunities for combined learning for both manager and employee and greatly enhance employee job satisfaction. Effective interaction creates a culture of collaboration and encourages sharing of ideas and information.

Community Service Leave

Employees, including casual employees, are entitled to take community service leave for particular activities under the Fair Work Act, including:

• Voluntary emergency management activities
• Jury duty

With the exception of jury duty, community service leave is unpaid.

An employee is involved with a voluntary emergency activity when:

• The activity involves dealing with an emergency or natural disaster.
• The employee participates in this activity on a voluntary basis
• The employee was either requested to participate in an activity , or it would be reasonable to expect such a request would have been made if circumstances permitted
• The employee is a member of, or has an association with a recognised emergency management body.
• A recognised emergency management body is:
• A body that has a role or function under a plan that is for coping with emergencies or natural disasters.
• A fire fighting , civil defence or rescue body
• Any other body which is mainly involved in responding to an emergency or natural disaster including SES, the Country Fire Authority and the RSPCA.

Community service leave is likely to carry greater consequences in high risk and rural areas, especially during the summer when the threat of bushfires is much greater.

There is no limit on the amount of community service leave an employee can take however an employee who takes community service leave must give their employer notice of the absence as soon as possible and the expected period of absence. The employer can require the employee to give the employer evidence that would satisfy a reasonable person that the absence is because the employee has been, or will be, engaging in the eligible community service activity. An employer can face serious penalties for dismissing an employee that tries to take community service leave. A violation of a provision of the National Employment Scheme can result in penalties of up to $10,800 for an individual and $54,000 for a corporation.

Community service leave to volunteer in an emergency situation is unpaid leave under the National Employment Standards, although some State and Territory laws have created an obligation to pay employees for the time off. Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia all expect you to pay ordinary wages during an employee’s absence.

Under the National Employee Standard, you are obliged to pay an employee jury duty for their first 10 days of service at their usual base rate of pay.

Minimising Workplace Negativity

There is nothing more detrimental to workplace morale than unrelenting workplace negativity. It drains the energy from a workplace and steals attention away from work.

As a manager it is important to stay closely in touch with employees throughout the company as this will allow you to sense any workplace negativity in its early stages.

It is essential to pay attention to employee complaints, exit interviews and employee discussions and feedback to pick up any signs of negativity. This information will help you learn to identify the symptoms of negativity before its consequences damage your work environment. It will also help you prevent future negativity and cure any current workplace negativity.

Negativity is a growing problem in the workplace, it is often the result of a loss of confidence, control, or community. Understanding what people are negative about is the first step in solving the problem.

Communicating with employees will help you define the exact problems and the extent to which these problems are influencing your workplace. One of the easiest ways to do this is to identify the particular employee groups who are experiencing the negativity and the source of the issues that triggered their unhappiness.

Perhaps the organisation has made a decision which has negatively affected staff or staff are feeling threatened or neglected by management.

Whatever the reason for the workplace negativity, these issues must be addressed.
Here are a few tips for keeping your workplace a negative free zone:

• Give staff opportunities to voice their opinions about workplace policies and procedures. Acknowledge the impact of changes in work hours, pay, benefits, overtime etc. on your employees.
• Treat employees like adults with fairness and consistency. Do not create rules for all your employees to target the few people who are doing the wrong thing. Keep the number of rules directing the behaviour of adults at work to a minimum.
• Keep your staff in the loop with what’s going on within the organisation. Provide the context for decisions and communicate regularly and effectively.
• Give employees opportunities to grow and develop. Training and opportunities for promotion are visible signs of an organisations commitment to staff.
• Make sure you give your employees appropriate reward or praise and recognition for a job well done.  Reward and recognition are some of the most powerful tools an organisation can use to boost staff morale.
• Listen, often people just need a sounding board. Be present and available to staff. 

Re-shaping Performance Management


Performance management has been a popular topic of discussion within organisations recently, with 96% of surveyed organisations having recently changed or planning to change their system within the next 12 – 18 months. As companies struggle with leadership, engagement, and capability challenges, they are realizing that the performance management process affects all of these challenges.

Many employees and managers are feeling dissatisfied and frustrated with the current performance management systems. However instead of completely over hauling current systems, the way to change will most likely require organisations to evolve the practices they already have in place.

New performance management models are now becoming imperative as businesses update and improve their talent solutions. Companies leading this transformation are redefining the way they set goals and evaluate performance, focusing heavily on coaching and feedback and looking for new technologies to make performance management easier.

Some essential changes are needed but some of the original elements should remain the same.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when changing your performance management strategies:

• Performance management is changing, not disappearing with the focus shifting from annual assessments to more continuous dialogue. The performance information gathered will be more constant and more relatable to what employees are doing at that moment instead of reviewing what they did six months to a year ago.
• Corporate culture and values are to become more closely aligned, with employers encouraged to enabling employees to do their best instead of “fixing” their performance.
• Different techniques for different areas of the workforce. Different jobs require different performance management criteria and systems.
• Disposing of the performance rating. Rating your employees is not helpful or productive. If ratings are not eliminated completely, they should at least be simplified into broader categories.
• Separate performance from rewards. Fixed approached based on performance ratings are dubious, especially when objectives are conditional or achieved through team collaboration.  Assessing someone’s skills produces inconsistent data. 
• Continuous feedback - the regularity, emphasis and quality of communication will change to enable more real time conversations about how the employee is going.
• Mobile technology should enable more immediate and personalised feedback.
• Managers need training to become leaders. Manages who have received development to become better mentors and coaches will focus conversations on capabilities and performance than faults or issues.
• Simplicity is the key. Much of the current performance management processes involve filling out paperwork, evaluating job rankings and developing unrealistic goals. The information that was gathered had little practical application for managers or team leaders. 

How to Reduce "Emotional Labour"

The term “emotional labour “is used to describe the things that workers do in the service industry that goes beyond physical or mental duties. Workers in the service industry are often required to show genuine concern for customer’s needs, smiling and making a connection with customers. When these kinds of activities are essential to a workers performance it is known as “emotional labour”.

When you have to deal with aggravated or unpleasant people, emotional labour can become very challenging. A large part of the difficulty stems from needing to conceal your real emotions and continue to be pleasant when receiving negative or critical comments.

Staff in jobs that contain high levels of emotional labour tend to have higher levels of absenteeism, staff turnover and less engagement.

When an employee engages in emotional labour, they are essentially controlling their feelings to satisfy the goals and expectations of their organisation. This means these workers are:

• Only expressing positive feelings
• Hiding or managing their negative feelings
• Creating an appropriate emotion for the situation

There are two emotional labour techniques –

• Surface acting – Pretending to have an emotion by using unnatural and artificial body language and verbal communication. Smiling and using soft tones of voice can help you to display emotion that you don’t really feel or hide emotions that you do feel.
• Deep Acting –This is done by controlling your internal emotions and making yourself believe that you are actually happy and enjoying your interaction with the other person. Rather than pretending you convince yourself that you’re not having a negative reaction.

When you constantly need to display only the emotions that are fitting for the job, regardless of how you really feel, this can often lead to an emotional struggle between your real emotions and the ones you show to others. Some researchers believe that this leads to emotional exhaustion and a burnout for workers.

There are some strategies that organisations use to help their staff deal with the demands of emotional labour-

• Buffering – Some companies assign front end workers to manage the emotional demands of customers. This way by the time the customers reach back end workers they can focus on business.
• Teach ‘display’ rules. Staff are taught how to behave, and are sometimes even given scripts to use when dealing directly with clients. Therapists are taught to act neutrally, retail workers positively and bill collectors aggressively.
• Staff assistance programs – investing in facilities that provide access to stress management and emotional health services.
• Teaching problem solving techniques – Some companies help their staff to solve problems more effectively. This boosts workers confidence and reduces their negative reactions to angry or unpredictable situations.
• Improving emotional intelligence – The ability to recognise other people’s emotions is an effective way to reduce the burden of emotional labour.

Changes to the High income Threshold and Unfair Dismissal

Effective of 1 July 2015, the high income threshold for unfair dismissal claims has increased from $133,000 to $136,700, stopping employees who earn more than this amount from being able to access the unfair dismissal jurisdiction.

This increase also meant the compensation cap for unfair dismissals has increased to $68,350. 

Although employees who earn over the threshold can be excluded from modern award coverage, the National Employment Standards still apply to them.

It is especially important for employers who are currently managing the performance of a high earning employee and thinking of dismissing them, as any employee who earns above $133,000 and under $136,700 will now be covered by unfair dismissal laws.

The high income threshold for unfair dismissals refers to the highest possible income an employee could have, unless they are covered by an award or enterprise agreement, before they are excluded from making an unfair dismissal claim against their employer.

This threshold applies under the Fair Work Act 2009 and changes every year on July 1st. The following indicates how much the threshold has increased every year:

• 2009 - $108,300
• 2010 - $113,800
• 2011 - $118,100
• 2012 - $123,300
• 2013 - $129,300
• 2014 - $133,000 
• 2015 - $136,700 (current)

If an employee claiming unfair dismissal is not covered by an award or enterprise agreement, and was earning greater than the high income threshold at the time of dismissal, then the employer may have a defence as to jurisdiction to the claim, although any defence still needs to be heard and contended in front of a representative of the Fair Work Commission.

The threshold relates to an employee’s annual earnings. It incorporates the employees’ wages, salary sacrifices, and non-monetary benefits like company cars and fringe benefits tax. It does not include allowances for living away. It is generally pretty straightforward working out an employee’s annual rate of earnings, however if an employee receives bonuses, overtime and salary sacrifices it can become more complicated.

In any unfair dismissal claim, it is important to figure out whether the employees claim is beyond the unfair dismissal jurisdiction and therefore disqualified.

The high income threshold level rises every year, enabling more and more employees to access the unfair dismissal provisions.

It is important for employers to be aware that employees that earn over the threshold may be unable to lodge an unfair dismissal claim may still have other ways to challenge their dismissal.

Before dismissing a high income employee it is always beneficial to seek professional  guidance to ensure you are safe guarded against any challenge.

How to Deal With Difficult Co-Workers

Ideally everyone would have great co-workers, people who helped you to succeed professionally and made you feel appreciated and respected. Unfortunately this is not always what happens and you may be forced to deal with someone that makes your job harder.

Whether your colleague has anger control issues or is just not very competent at their job, at the end of the day you still have to get your work done.

Here are a few tips to help you deal with a difficult co-worker.

• Don’t let it negatively affect your work. Even if it’s tempting to take longer lunches to get away from a difficult co-worker, in the end you will suffer from it the most as you will need to make up the time in order to finish all your work. It may feel good to make your colleague look stupid at a meeting or to send them a passive-aggressive email but it won't do any good for your relationship and it won't make you feel any better in the long run. It will make your relationship with your co-worker even worse and make it harder to get your work done and nothing is more counterproductive than that.
• Write everything down. Document interactions with your colleague, whether its requests or criticisms. This way you have something to refer back to if your co-worker is being irrational or contradicting themselves. Having a record of everything they say to you can be helpful if your relationship gets so bad that you want to discuss the situation with a supervisor, you'll have written proof of what has been going on.
• Don’t react too hastily. Give yourself a little time to think before reacting when dealing with a conflict with your co-worker. . This will give you a chance to be level headed.  Even if your co-worker becomes emotional, you need to uphold your professional manner so that they have nothing to use against you. Your issues are more likely to be resolved if everyone is being calm while they are being discussed.
• Identify your co-workers triggers. Find the things that tend to lead to anger management issues and avoid them as much as you can.
• Don’t bring your work home with you. Try to get into the habit of leaving all the stresses of dealing with a difficult co-worker in the workplace and not taking them into your personal life – this will only add to your stress levels. This may mean having friends that don’t work with you to help you detach yourself from your work life.

Annual Wage Increase

Every year, The Fair Work Commission (FWC) reviews the minimum wages outlined in the modern awards as well as the national minimum wage for employees who are not currently covered by an award or enterprise agreement.

The Fair Work Commission has announced a 2.5% increase to minimum wages. The increase will begin from the first full pay period starting on or after 1 July 2015.

The increase will only apply to employees that get their tax rates from the national minimum wage, a modern award or a registered agreement in some cases.

The new minimum wage will be $656.90 per week or $17.29 per hour. The national minimum wage is applied to employees who aren’t covered by an award or agreement. However, most employees are covered by an award. Award rates will be increased by 2.5%.

It is important for employers covered by an enterprise agreement to be conscious of their requirements relating to minimum pay rates because of the Annual Wage Review decision.
Section 206 of the Fair Work Act 2009 demands that the base rate of pay in an enterprise agreement must be at least equal to the appropriate modern award rate. If the enterprise agreement rates are less than those required under the relevant modern award, the agreement operates as if its base rates were equal to those under the modern award.

Employers could be at risk of underpayment claims if their enterprise agreement caters for annual wage increases that are less than the increases applied to the modern award rates in accordance with the annual wage review decision. This can particularly be an issue if the current pay rates under the enterprise agreement are equal to, or only marginally above, the applicable modern award base rates.
If employees are being paid a blended rate, comprehensive of some or all allowances, employers should ensure that the base rate is at least equal to or higher than the applicable modern award rate. This can cause problems in some cases where it is difficult to distinguish from the allowances included in the blended rate.

Employers who pay their employees an annual salary or wage must also be sure that their employees’ salaries are equal to, or higher than the payment that the employee would be entitled to for the hours they regularly work under an appropriate enterprise agreement or modern award.

Email Etiquette for Professionals

Most people spend a decent chunk of their working lives communicating via email and yet many professionals do not know how to use email appropriately.

Due to the fact that people send and receive so many emails on a daily basis, they often end up making mistakes that could reflect badly on them. It is easy to make a spelling mistake or appear too casual or unprofessional in tone.

Here are some tips to make sure you always come across professional in any email communications:

• Always include a clear subject line. Include a clear, direct subject line that sums up what the email is about. People will often decide on whether or not to open an email based solely on the subject line.
• Have a professional email address. If you work for a company you should use your company email. If you are self-employed you should be careful when choosing your email address to make sure that it sounds professional. It should include your name so the recipient knows exactly who is trying to contact them.
• Do not use colloquial greetings such as “Hey guys”. Always use professional salutations in your email communications. A courteous greeting and closing helps to make your e-mail not seem demanding or terse.
• Do not go over the top with your use of exclamation marks. Only use them when absolutely necessary. People can get carried away when using exclamation marks and the result is usually that they come off looking immature.
• Be wary when using humour. Humour can often get misconstrued without the right tones or facial expressions. In a professional sense, humour should be avoided unless you know the recipient very well.
• Proofread every message. Even if you miss a spelling or grammatical error, its more than likely that the recipient of your email will not and you may be judged for making them. Typing your emails in all small case gives the perception of lack of education or laziness. Do not rely solely on spell check – read your email a few times before you send it off.
• Add the email address last. This will prevent you from accidentally sending the email before you are finished writing and proofing it.
• Make sure that you have added the right recipient. It is very easy to select the wrong address from your contacts and this can be embarrassing for both you and the person who receives the email by mistake.

Minimising Contract Ambiguity

Focusing on some of the more ambiguous sections of employment contracts can help a company to limit their exposure to legal risks.

Many of the straight forward issues associated with employment contracts are related to whether they are in compliance with modern awards such as the Fair Work Act or National Employment Standards.

Here are a few preventative steps you can take to reduce legal risks in these areas:

• Have express notice provisions in place. These provisions provide a responsibility for employees to give their employer notice of their resignation. It also applies to the employer. In a recent case , Brennan v Kangaroo Island Council , the local government succeeded in defending its decision to use the relevant industry award to calculate the notice period for its former deputy CEO whose employment contract did not have a specific notice period outlined.
• Incorporate garden leave provisions. Garden/Gardening leave provisions are similar to restraint clauses but are easier to administer. If, for example, you have a three month notice period and have developed a garden leave provision, it is possible for an employee to not attend work during the garden leave period but still cooperate with the employer to attend meetings or give information and assist with the handover. The employee is unable to work with another employer during that time .The employee must be paid during their garden leave.
• Refine discretionary bonuses. If bonuses are referenced in employment contracts, it should be made clear that they will only be awarded at the employer’s discretion. The more detailed you can be about the conditions of the bonus, the more protection you have regarding when the bonus will or will not be paid.
• Make reference to policies without incorporating them. It can be precarious to incorporate workplace policies in employment contracts but it can be useful to reference them. If you do reference workplace policies in your employment contracts make sure to add disclaimers that they are not contractual.
• Continually update terms and conditions. Employee contracts should be updated following promotions or any changes to their roles. If contracts are not updated when an employee’s role has been changed it can be arguable that their contract no longer applies or is no longer relevant. This can create problems when a business is relying on the contract for protection. Specify how long the contract is valid. If you want the contract to be in force for a set period of time, specify the dates. Otherwise, the contract will continue for the life of the employment.

Managing Out of Hours Risks by Adjusting Existing Policies

Adding some basic clauses to already existing workplace contracts and policies can be more effective and less time consuming than drafting dedicated documents to help manage risks presented by workers out of hours conduct.

As far as employment contracts go, some broad clauses about workers duties and obligations may be all that is needed to sufficiently cover out of hours conduct.

Some clauses that might be useful to add include:

• Any behaviour that may negatively affect the company's reputation, business, employer's interests
• Breaching of the laws or policies using company property
• Taking on secondary employment without the consent of the company.

When it comes to work place policies it does not make sense to write a policy that is only related to out of hours conduct as it would have to be too generalised and would be hard to define exactly what employees are not supposed to do. The best approach is to examine your existing policies and determine how they might apply to out of hours conduct. Where it is appropriate you can add any relevant stipulations into those policies that make it clear what is suitable to extend to out of hours conduct.

Depending on what industry you are employed in there is a variety of policies that may be relevant to out of hours conduct.

Some amendments that could be made to existing policies to cover out of hours conduct include those relating to drug and alcohol use and private use of company property for example, vehicles and IT communications.

A lot of policies regarding company vehicles do not actually go into how people should be driving the vehicle, complying with the law and generally using them in their personal time.

Regarding computer use, policies should be simply updated to say that they apply to both work and private use.

Some other policy areas that may need to be considered include behaviour at work functions, travelling for work related business, social media and wearing work uniforms off duty.

Employees wearing their uniforms when they are not at work can pose a problem because they are easily identifiable as working within your business. There behaviour can easily fall back on you.

Discrimination and harassment policies should be updated to make it clear that they can apply to any out of hour’s interactions between employees.

These simple clauses can be extremely effective and they can also come in useful if you have to enforce policies for out of hours conduct breaches.

Age Discrimination in the Workplace

Age discrimination is when a person is treated less positively than another person in a comparable situation, because of their age.

It could be ‘direct age discrimination’ if an older applicant is not considered for a job because it is assumed that they are not as up to date with technology as a younger person.

It is also considered age discrimination when there is a policy that is the same for everyone but has an unfair effect on people of a particular age. This is called ‘indirect discrimination’.

It may be considered direct age discrimination if an employer obliges an older person to meet a physical fitness test –which younger people are more likely to succeed in – if the fitness standard is not an essential necessity of the job.

The Age Discrimination Act covers situations where you feel that, because of your age, you may have been:

• denied a promotion, transfer or other employment-related benefits
• given less favourable terms or conditions of employment
• refused employment
• harassed
• dismissed
• denied equal access to training opportunities
• selected for redundancy

The law includes all types of employers, including the Commonwealth and state governments and the private sector.

The recent Age Discrimination Survey conducted by the Australian Human Rights Commission has found that over one quarter of Australians aged over 50 years have experienced some form of age discrimination within the last 2 years.

This report should serve to encourage employers to begin taking the issue of age discrimination more seriously.

Most people understand that it is more difficult to get a job if you are older but this report highlights the fact that this is a form of discrimination and should be treated as such.

The publicity that has accompanied the results of this survey may give older workers the confidence to take action if they believe they have been discriminated against due to their age.

One of the major findings of this report was that you are most likely to be discriminated against because of your age when you are looking for paid employment.

The telephone survey of 2109 people aged over 50 years found that almost three in five or 58% of people looking for paid employment were discriminated against because of their age.

Of those who were not employed in the last two years but would have liked to have been, one in five (18%) stated that it was because their skills were not current.

Developing a Workplace Policy

A workplace policy helps you to define how you will run your organisations day to day operations and the behaviour that is acceptable for employees and management. It also states what will happen if a worker does not adhere to the policies.

Policies help to guide businesses and assure that they are complying with legislation, regulation and codes of practice. When developing a policy it is important that it is easy to comprehend - written in plain English with reasonable expectations and that everyone understands the consequences of not complying.

A good workplace policy should provide a statement of purpose and guidelines on how to achieve this purpose. Research what a good policy looks like and how other businesses have done their workplace policies to see if you can use some of their information in your workplace policies.

Here are some questions to help you to be sure that you have not left anything out of you workplace policy:

1. What is the purpose of the policy?
2. What is the range of the policy? What activities are included in it and who does it apply to?
3. Are there any related policies or procedures that exist or are being developed? 
4. What is considered acceptable behaviour under the policy? Can you include any examples?
5. What behaviour is considered unacceptable under the policy?
6. Is any behaviour relating to the policy against the law? If it is make sure to reference any related legislation and make it known that legal action could be taken against any employee who participates in this kind of behaviour.
7. What disciplinary action or performance management procedures will be enforced if an employee breaches the policy? A Disciplinary Policy is very important as it outlines what processes an employer will take in issuing a formal warning to staff members, or in terminating employment. For example, if you have a policy relating to punctuality, you may need to include a procedure outlining what to do if the employee is going to be late.
8. Who should be contacted by employees with enquiries or complaints regarding the policy?
9. Who has authorised the development of the policy?
10. Are there any circumstances in which it will not be possible to follow the policy – if so, how will you respond? 

It is essential to have the co-operation of your committee, managers and executives when making any workplace policy. If corrective action must be taken, everyone should agree on what will happen next.

Who is considered the Primary Carer for the Purpose of Parental Leave?

The primary carer of an adoptive or newborn child under 18 is eligible for 18 weeks of paid leave under the Paid Parental Leave scheme. Partners or secondary carers are eligible for a shorter amount of leave, 2 weeks for working dads and partners under the Paid Parental Leave scheme.

Defining who the primary carer is not necessarily clear-cut. The Fair Work Commission have recently made it clearer to define when an employee will be considered the primary carer.

According to the Fair Work Commission, a newborn baby’s mother must be deemed incapable of providing primary care after the child’s birth for the partner to be eligible to claim primary carer status. Looking after the mother after birth does not make a partner a primary carer.

In a recent case, two male employees claimed they took on the primary carer role after their partners delivered their baby’s via caesarean. Due to the fact that the mothers could not bend to lift the baby up or drive a car, they claimed that they were entitled to Paid Parental Leave as they were the primary carers.

DP Asbury reviewed the employees' statutory declaration (a requirement of the enterprise agreement) and medical certificates and concluded the fathers were not acting as primary carers for their babies but were acting as carers for their partners. Therefore they were not entitled to Paid Parental Leave as primary carers and the employees’ personal leave was the correct leave to use in this occurrence.

However the Fair Work Commission could not necessarily rule out certain medical procedures from being accepted as adequate proof of incapacity. DP Asbury found that the medical condition of the mother “must be such that she is unable to provide primary care for the child” for her partner to be able to make a claim for primary carer status.

A partner is able to claim primary carer status under exceptional circumstances. If the birth mother or the initial primary carer of an adopted child is unable to care for the child, a partner or another person may claim Parental Leave Pay.

The person claiming under exceptional circumstances would need to meet the eligibility criteria and presume to be caring for the child for at least a period of 26 weeks. The change of care must take place within 52 weeks of the child’s birth or adoption.

A mother returning to work full time or being incapable of caring for the baby due to a serious medical condition would allow for a partner to claim paid parental leave as they would be considered primary carer.

In this particular case, a caesarean was not considered a sufficient medical condition.

Is Unpaid Work Lawful?

Some unpaid work arrangements are considered lawful while others are not. It depends on the nature of the agreement whether an employee should be entitled to the minimum pay rate for the work they are doing as well as other minimum employment entitlements.

For an unpaid work arrangement to be lawful under the Fair Work Act 2009 it depends on if an employment relationship exists or the arrangement involves vocational placement.

If an unpaid work arrangement is not a vocational placement, the arrangement will only be legal if there is no employment relationship in place... If there is an existing employment relationship, the person is in fact actually an employee and entitled to a minimum wage, National Employment Standards and the terms of any applicable award or enterprise agreement.

When determining if a person is an employee each case must be judged on its own facts. There is no set definition of employment under the Fair Work Act. It is just a matter of figuring out if the arrangement to work involves an employment contract. This does not need to be a written contract, it may be a verbal agreement.

For an employment contract to exist it must be well defined that:

• Both parties intend to create a legally binding contract
• There is a commitment to perform work for the benefit of the business or organisation.
• The person performing work will gain something in return - this may just be experience or training.
• The person is not performing the work as a part of their own business.

When determining if an employment relationship does indeed exist it can be useful to consider the nature of the arrangement and not how the parties have chosen to describe it. These factors should be taken into consideration.

• Was the purpose of the arrangement to provide a learning experience or was it to get the person to assist with the everyday operation of the business? If the arrangement involves productive work instead of just training and skill development, it is more than likely an employment relationship exists.
• How long is the arrangement for? The longer the period of arrangement, the higher the chances of there being an employment relationship present. However short engagements can also be considered as having an employment relationship existing.
• How important is the arrangement to the business? The more essential the work is to the running of the business, the more likely it is that it’s an existing employment relationship.
• Who is benefitting from the relationship? The person who benefits the most in a genuine unpaid work arrangement should be the person undertaking the role.

A vocational placement is a formal work experience arrangement that is part of an education or training course. Vocational placement that meet the definition under the Fair Work Act are lawfully unpaid.

Tips for Hiring

Choosing the right people for your organisation is vital to building and developing a successful business. People provide the framework for any thriving company.

Here are some tips for hiring the best candidates for your business and keeping the employees you already have.

• Be present and engaged in the hiring process, be there during candidate interviews and communicate with HR. 
• Build a culture within your organisation. Have a clear vision of what you want the culture of your organisation to be like and this will help you to build a team to fit it. Once you have decided on your company’s values and culture make it known to all potential applicants. Include these values on your website.
• Utilise social media. Recruiting via social media is more popular than ever. Include links on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to your career page on your website.
• Recruit Continuously. Always be on the lookout for potential employees, even when there are no openings. You can never tell when an employee might leave.
• Know what you’re looking for in an employee. Have an understanding of the skills and traits that will make an applicant successful in the role and write a job description accordingly.
• Interview a broad range of candidates. You may not know the right person for the job until they are sitting in front of you.
• Develop your staff to their full potential. Provide training and opportunities for advancement. Train all new employees in job requirements on hiring instead of a few months down the track to prevent them from forming bad habits.
• Conduct exit interviews. A good way to ensure that you keep your current talent is to find out the reasons why another employee is leaving. An employee who is leaving is often more forthcoming than one who is currently still employed with you.
• Ask the right questions. The job interview is a major factor in hiring the right employee. The questions asked during the interview are critical in defining whether or not the candidate is right for the job.
• Don't Settle. It’s tempting to settle for the best of the bunch, but if the best pick of all your candidates still doesn’t feel right keep looking.
• Offer a three month trial period .It’s expensive hiring new staff but it’s even more so to replace them. Having someone work for you on a short contract is a good way to see if they are the right fit for your organisation.

Improving Morale

Having good employee morale in your business means that your staff are happy to come to work every day and can give you many benefits, including better production, reduced absenteeism and improved teamwork and engagement.

There are many different factors that can contribute to low staff morale within a workplace – job security, limited promotion opportunities, unfair compensation and high employee turnover.

An expensive sign that you have low morale in your work environment is high staff turnover and increased absenteeism – two things that can cost your business a lot of money.

If you are noticing this in your business, here are a few tips to increase morale:

• Good management. Managers can make or break a workplace environment. A good manager makes an effort to understand employee’s abilities and tries to provide challenges to utilise their full capacity. They give praise where praise is due and allow employees the opportunity to grow.
• Make your employees feel special. Celebrate birthdays, weddings, births etc. with a cake or card. Find a reason to celebrate the little things in your workplace. It helps to make staff feel at home and comfortable in their place of work and fosters a friendly team environment.
• Listen to the ideas of your employees. Keep your employees informed and up to date with what is happening with the company and listen to their input. This helps to make employees feel as though they are a part of something bigger.
• Reward good work. Be sure to acknowledge when a job has been done well. People want to feel valued.
• Make the workplace feel comfortable. Nobody wants to be in a completely cold, sterile and uncomfortable environment. Replace the harsh fluorescent lighting if need be and keep the office at a comfortable temperature.
• Encourage regular work breaks. Tell your staff to take a walk around the block or go get a coffee. People are much more productive if they take regular breaks to refresh their minds.
• Have some fun. Engage in some team building exercises. Encourage your staff to get to know one another.  Talk about hobbies or something other than work
• Let your employees vent. Get it out of their systems. Meet with your employees individually or in small groups and allow them to share some of their frustrations and challenges they’re facing on the job. The process can help improve morale almost instantly.
• Promote from within your company.
  When your employees see that there are opportunities to advance their careers within the company it makes them strive to do better. Keep on the lookout for employees with skills that could benefit your business and develop them .A small investment in training can go a long way.

Managing Workplace Stress

It is normal to experience some workplace stress, however if this stress becomes excessive it can interfere with your productivity and your health – emotional and physical. Your ability to cope with this stress can be the difference between success and failure in your career.

Finding strategies to manage workplace stress is not necessarily about making huge changes but focusing on the thing that’s within your control – you.

There are many different ways you can reduce your stress levels in the workplace.

These start with:

• Making a commitment to improving your physical and emotional health.
• Staying away from people or habits, when possible, that leave you feeling negative or stressed.
• Learn communication skills to improve your relationship with colleagues and management.

When you feel overwhelmed at work you can easily become withdrawn, irritable and insecure. This decreases your productivity and makes you less effective at your job. It can also make you feel like your job is less rewarding. When stress begins to interfere with your ability to do your job, it’s time to do something to remedy it. Begin by making sure that you’re looking after yourself. When your own needs are taken care of you are more capable of dealing with stress.

Try organising and prioritising your work. This can help you to reduce your stress by helping you to feel as though you’re in control.

Here are a few simple tips for time management:

• Don’t spread yourself too thin. Avoid scheduling meetings back to back or trying to get everything done in one day. If you have too many things to be done, drop the tasks that aren’t a priority to the bottom of the list.
• Don’t rush. Leaving 10 minutes earlier can mean the difference between running around madly and being able to take your time. Being late or rushing to be on time will only add to your stress levels.
• Factor breaks into your schedule. Taking a few short break throughout the day will help you to relax and de-stress. Have your lunch outside or at least away from your desk.

You can also gain a large amount of self-control by understanding and practising emotional intelligence. This is the ability to manage your emotions and use them in positive and productive ways.

Emotional intelligence in the workplace is composed of four major elements:

• Self-management, controlling your emotions and behaviour to adapt to changing circumstances.
• Self-Awareness, recognising your emotions and their impact.
• Social Awareness, the ability to understand and react to others emotions.
• Relationship Management, the ability to connect to others and manage conflict.

How to be a Good Manager

There is no definitive technique for being a great manager, you have to walk a fine line between constructive criticism and praise. While there are no one size fits all approaches to management, there are a few strategies to help you get the best from your employees.

• Listen more. Try to avoid talking at your employees at review time. You can often gain all the information you need by saying something open ended and listening to what your employee has to say.
• Learn your team’s strengths and weaknesses and work with them. This way you are getting the best of your employees and not wasting time having one employee fulfil a task that would take a different person half the time.
• Try to manage your team as a whole and not just as separate individuals. As a manager you are responsible for the output of the entire team as a whole. Try to team staff members with complementary skills to provide learning opportunities.
• Be Inspiring. Try and distinguish your employee’s exceptional talents and develop them further. Find work opportunities that will challenge them. Make sure that your employees talents are recognised and celebrated. This reinforces performance and makes your employees strive to perform well in the future.
• Give regular feedback. Tell your staff how they are doing at the time and not just at their scheduled 6 monthly performance review. Help your staff to realise that their efforts help the overall success of the company. This will help them to feel connected to the organisation and encourage engagement. 
• Don’t let work friendships alter your managing abilities. As a manager you are assuming responsibility for a group of people and naturally you want them to like you. It is all well and good to be friendly with your team ,  just make sure that you are still able deliver criticism or discipline when it is needed
• Be present. Being in management can keep you very busy. You are often rushing from one place to another. Be wary to not let being busy take over from the day to day management of your staff. As a manager you need to make yourself available to your staff to offer them guidance and give them the opportunity to ask questions when they need to.
• Make an effort to know the basic roles and responsibilities of all your team members. It is very hard to provide guidance and leadership if you are not exactly sure of what your staff are meant to be doing in the first place. If you have to ask your team about their basic functions it is very like that they will second guess the decisions you make.

How our Emotional State Affects our Employees

Research is now discovering that emotions are capable of affecting memory, perception and cognition. All of these things can influence how an employee performs at work.

When people are influenced by the moods of others, especially those in managerial positions, it can impact their behaviour at work. This is called “emotional contagion”. How we feel can spill out and infect other people, essentially making us walking mood inductors.

We even have cells in our bodies called mirror neurons which allow us to be in touch with how other people are feeling by simply observing them. Neuroscientists have recently discovered that empathy is driven by these mirror neurons which are located in the frontal cortex of your brain. Mirror neurons fire in the same way whether you're watching someone do something or you are actually doing that same thing yourself.

At work, it is often the leader’s responsibility to set the mood for the rest of the team in the workplace. The emotions people bring to work are as important as their cognitive skills, and especially so for leaders. If you are a leader, consider that managing your moods is one of your chief responsibilities.

A good way to look at it is, your mood, positive or negative, will remain in a room long after you have left it and the mood you generate is directly related to how you make people feel.
There has been little research done on the ramifications of group emotions. If you consider the effects of emotional contagion, it is easy to assume that within the workplace groups are reflecting the influence of key emotional people within their team. Usually the leaders.

The key to stopping this emotional contagion is awareness, however often another person’s negative mood affects you unconsciously. If you realise that someone else’s bad mood is affecting you, you can control it. For this reason, making people, especially managers, aware of emotional contagion is vital. It is important to understand that when employees are exposed to the moods of leaders who are giving off feelings of anger or hostility, it can have toxic effects on their performance.

The same goes for feelings of confidence and enthusiasm. This is why it is so important for leaders to understand that they can utilise mood contagion to create a positive emotional climate for their employees.

When managers learn to control their own emotions and know the emotional triggers of their team, they can manipulate the atmosphere of their workplace.

Leadership Development

A great leader can motivate and inspire employees by making them feel as though they are working alongside management and not for them. Poor leadership can have as great an impact on the organization’s success or failure as a recession.

Ongoing development for leaders helps companies. Businesses that invest in leadership development enjoy distinct advantages. These advantages include:

• Improved bench strength
• Improved employee retention
• Improved bottom-line performance
• Improved ability to attract talent
• Solving problems earlier and at lower levels
• Increased organizational agility
• Improved business sustainability
• Greater market value over time
• Development of leader, team, and organization competencies
• Ability to outperform the competition with increased market share, revenue, profitability, and rising stock prices
• Sustained performance
• Distributed leadership at all levels

While it is common for companies to measure engagement levels within employees, top companies are now paying particular attention to engaging leaders and employees with strong leadership potential. They are starting to look at what actions and behaviours demonstrated by leaders create engagement within their workplace. The idea being to then replicate it and drive engagement in their company.

In top companies leaders are being tasked with fostering organisational talent within their company, this contradicts the attitude of many other organisations. Effective leadership development produces leaders who can coach, mentor, and develop other leaders in the organization, providing a steady stream of leaders at all levels.

Leadership development can no longer focus solely on the senior team. Leaders must be developed at all levels throughout the organization to ensure an organization’s
success.

Although it’s typical to evaluate leaders on their past performance, top companies are assessing leaders on their potential more frequently and thoroughly. These companies are using personality profiling to ensure a perfect fit for an organisation instead of simply assessing their skills.

One of the greatest benefits of training employees and leadership development is that it can discover diamonds in the rough among your workforce. Often some of the best leaders are in fact already working for you bur have not had the opportunity to develop or display their skills.


Regular leadership development can create a culture of lifelong learning among your employees. No matter what business you are in there is always something your employees can learn that will benefit your business.


When employees and management obtain significant and effective relevant training and work together with mutual respect, everybody benefits from it the end result is increased productivity.

By developing leaders in this way, the main measure of success is organisational performance as opposed to divisional performance.


New Year’s Resolutions to make your Workplace Happier

It is the beginning of a new year and generally the time you start making a list of resolutions.

Essentially most resolutions revolve around living a happier life and having more success in the workplace.

This year instead of making the same negative resolutions about taming bad habits, this year simply make your resolution to obtain workplace happiness by trying to focus on the positives.

1. Be mindful. There is significant evidence that a few minutes of mindfulness, or simple meditation, throughout the work day can give you substantial health and happiness benefits.
2. Use your strengths. It makes sense that your happiest when you align your work with your strengths and personality. 
3. Learn to be optimistic. Optimism is actually something that can be learned if you’re not a naturally optimistic person. Start by challenging your own negative thoughts. When a setback occurs try to look at it in perspective and see that it is not the end of the world. Essentially optimists see every setback as temporary.
4. Have a little fun. It is totally acceptable to have a bit of fun and a laugh at work. It will make your work life more enjoyable and even encourages team building and promotes healthy work relationships.
5. Get on the move. If you work behind a computer or in an office where you are mostly sitting down all day, take the time to have a walk around the office every few hours. Eat your lunch in the sunshine when possible. It will help you concentrate better and help you to feel refreshed.
6. Be your own cheerleader. If your boss doesn’t praise your work every day, don’t take it personally, it’s very likely they have other things on their mind. Try and take satisfaction from knowing that you have done a job well.
7. Be nice. Talk to the people you work with about things other than work.  It doesn’t cost you anything to be pleasant and you will find your work life more meaningful if you can build relationships with your colleagues.
8. Be resilient. Learn to bounce back from a setback. As with resolution number 3 , being able to see a setback as temporary will be an invaluable quality and you will be able to handle just about anything.
9. Be Grateful. People who show thankfulness and express gratitude to others often have a higher appreciation for the good things in life and experience higher levels of wellbeing than those who do not.
10. Avoid gossip. Avoid workplace gossip at all costs. If someone in your workplace try’s to engage in gossip with you, make an excuse and walk away. Gossip is negative and harmful and does not truly make anyone feel good about themselves.