Your HR Department On Call

www.HROnCall.com.au

Things Every Business Needs to Know About Human Resources

Presented by Melissa Behrend Founder HR On Call

www.HROnCall.com.au

Some things you don’t know about HR

• Elements to include in an employment contract• Tips for your dismissal meeting• Decrease in Australia productivity - $109million in

wages wasted• Recruiting challenges for business• Absenteeism in the workplace – cut the cost• Probationary periods

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Employment Contracts1. Employers Name 2. Job Title to be performed3. The start date of

employment 4. Specify employment type

– full time, part time, fixed-term or casual?

5. Employee remuneration and how this has been calculated (including super etc)

Employment contracts cont’d

6. Notice required by both parties to cease the employment relationship.

7. Are companies policies part of the contract if so include in the contract

8. A provision to enable over-award payments to go towards non-wage monetary entitlements, e.g. overtime or penalties.

9. Acknowledgement that the employee can legally work in Australia

10. If changes are made to the employees role duties, reporting lines does the contract still apply.

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Tips for dismissal meetings

• Organize an appropriate time and location.

• Never terminate an employee over the phone, by text message or via e-mail.

• Notice should be in writing and stipulate the final day of employment – no earlier than the notice period.

Tips for dismissal cont’d

• Have all relevant documents ready to go to the meeting for example personnel files, current contract, notification of dismissal and pay advice).

• Prepare notes detailing what you are going to cover in the meeting to prompt you – include the reason for the dismissal.

• Allow the employee the time to respond

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Decrease in productivity

• Ernst and Young Productivity Pulse report found that $109 billion in wages were lost

• Australian’s are not working any less – we are averaging 44 hours per week

• The number #1 reason was lack of people management

Decrease in Productivity Cont’d

• Employers are not focused on their employees like we used to

• This phenomenon has built up over the years – as there are to many agenda items for company’s to focus on and we are not focused on our people e.g the complex nature of the Industrial relations system

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Recruiting Challenges for business

• Getting the right staff• Ensuring that you recruit in

all the right places – not just seek, tailor the pool from other sources e.g. TAFE

• Use new techniques such as Linked In for recruiting more senior managers or those who have specialist technical skills

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Recruiting costs

• Cost of recruiting a new employee include:• Advertising costs; • Lost time spent on interviews, clerical and administrative tasks; • Costs associated with training the new employee; • Termination pay; • Loss of specialist knowledge; • Even loss of customers

• In Australia, the estimated cost of replacing an employee who salary is $48,000 is $12,000.

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Cost of recruiting• Ensure you know what you want

the role to do in your business before you start the process

• To replace a senior manager at Westpac – the cost was $60,000 and $40,000 for a regular employee.

• Generally, organizational turnover costs per person are between 90 and 2000 percent of a person’s annual salary

•  (Reported in Diversity No 6, 2002, "The Diversity Dividend")

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Absenteeism

• Cost to Australian business is billions of dollars every year

• Affects the success of your business

Absenteeism

• You can challenge an employee who has frequent sickies – act on information which is at hand, – investigate any sick leave before disciplining or terminating, and – differentiation between sickness and misconduct

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Probationary periods

• Most Modern Awards are now 6 months – not 3 months

• You do not have to have a valid reason for dismissing an employee within the probationary period

Probationary period Cont’

• To make an unfair dismissal claim employees have to be with a small business (less than 15 employees) for 12 months and large employees 6 months

• This is provided the dismissal is not on the basis of discrimination

HR Evaluation Report

• An onsite HR evaluation will look at each aspect of HR and identify any gaps or risks you may have

• It covers areas such as policies, employment contracts, employee records etc

• It takes about ½ day to complete• What you get out of it is a checklist which

highlights any areas which may need attention

HR On Call

• Employee relations – conflict resolution and mediation, managing difficulty employee situations

• HR Evaluations• Award interpretations and applications, Industrial

Relations• Performance management systems – including

performance discussions• Job descriptions and recruitment• Organizational restructures• Your onsite HR department when required

For a FREE in-house presentation on current HR issues effecting

small to medium business call us on

www.HROnCall.com.au

0400 565 360

Acknowledgement to photographers

Michael Marcol – Lady at deskAmbro – Men at TableJScreationszs – bar chartIdea Go – puzzle in the skyJscreationszs – choices dilemmaDigitalart – Diamond dollarMaster isolated images – arrowgraphTerrapun – thumbs up and thumbs down hand signs