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.