As the economy appears to be moving in a positive direction after 18 months of huge uncertainty, employers will soon need to look at the way in which they go about putting on new staff.
A recent article in the AFR pointed out that there is a move towards recruiting new people based on personal referrrals.This seems to be true and there is no doubt that this can assist employers in getting a better idea of the overall makeup of the potential recruit.

That said, it presents some pitfalls that employers(and their staff) need to be aware of-being the dangers of the personal reference.

There has been an increased amount of legal authority over thye past decade that shows that people that provide a reference(either oral or in writing) may be found to be liable where that reference is false, and employers of those providing references may be found liable as well.

As many staff have been laid off in the past 18 months there will be many new people starting jobs in new companys as the economy recovers.It is important that where a presonal reference or recommendation is being provided that it( of course) be accurate, but also that it is clear and unequivocal.In fact, best practice would call for personal references regarding subjuctive commentary best be left alone for fear that the comments made are misunderstood.

Many employers will simply provide a statement of record of employment, and no more, and that would certainly be the preferred approach from liabilty standpoint.

You CAN protect for confidential information....

Employers can feel more confident about being able to protect its confidential information after a recent decision in the Federal Court.

A magazine published was sucessful in restraining an employee from contacting several of its clients on it's database and thereby gaining a competitive advantage in being able to easily contact those on the database.It was interesting that the strength of the employer's case was increased by the fact the the database was do detailed.The employee had sought to argue that the same information could be gleaned from public sources such as yellow pages.However the employer was able to show that the data base contained information(such as contacts and specific details) that could not be easily obtained elsewhere.

What does this mean for employers?

If you make sure that your employment contract and policies contain strong confidentiality clauses, you will be protected from employees that seek to obtain a competitive advantage when they leave.If there is no such clause however, the chances of sucess will be severely limited.

collective agreements-the window

There is a slow , but increasing awareness, of the implications of the modern awards that are due to be introduced at the beginning of next year.

Employers are beginning to realize that the modern awards, as presently drafted, will have an effect of increasing wage costs for some businesses, particularly those that employ casuals or provide permanant staff with penalty rates.In some cases the wage increase may be as much as 66%!

What can be done?What I am seeing is many employers coming to us and saying, "what are our options?".Well, the solution in many cases may be;a collective agreement.

Either by way of a non union or union collective agreement, by getting one in place before 1 January next year, employers can effectively contract out of the remuneration aspects of the modern award.

Ofcourse, this does not mean that employees can receive below minimum wage pay, however the collective agreement can be an effective way of of providing flexibility in wages, which is critical for business of all sizes during these trying economic times.

The catch?It needs to be registered by 31 December so the window is closing...

wage freeze is AFPC's last act

Well they certainly went out the way the came in-in a wave of controversy.

In their last act before coming extinct, the AFPC announced today that there would be no increase to the minimum wage.This decision is not subject to appeal and cannot be reviewed.The minumum wage will next be reviewed in 6 months time by Fair Work Australia.

You can expect employer groups to come out in applause and employees reps to be highly critical.Ofcourse there arguments on both sides for why the decision was fair or not.The employers will no doubt say that it will lead to more jobs being saved and the unions will say that it respresents a net loss of income for employees once inflation is taken into account.
You can see the arguments on both sides however it easy to imagine that those who drafted the Workchoices legislation perhaps did not envisiage the quandry that members of the AFPC were to be in, so shortly after its formation(where it was possible that wages would be frozen).

What does it all mean for employers?If you pay employees the minimum wage you will not need to increase wages for at least another six months.This also goes for those employers that may have paid slightly above the minimum wage who usually would increase wages by a similar amount to continue to keep above the minimum wage.

the time has come...to say fair's fair

With a nod to the famous line from the Midnight Oil song about another hot topic, today is the today that new newest wave of Industrial legislation hits Australian Business.

From July 1, all Australian companies will be liable for unfair dismissal once again.This blog and our main website have covered in detail the issues that will face Business and it in cludes a "return" to good faith bargaining in the workplace.

The question is.Are you ready?

confidential information

There was an interesting article in the Financial review yesterday , the title of which was "Client lists a hot issue when staff jump ship"

The article suggested that than was an increase in companies taking action against employees who leave and go to a competitor and take confidential information such as client lists with them.This certainly accords with my experience overs the past 18 months.

There are some lessons to be learned however, if employers want to go down this road.The first and foremost is that they need to have proper protection of their confidential information and the starting point is their employment contract.If a company does not have a well drafted clause concerning confidentail information in its employment contract it may as well kiss that information goodbye when an employee leaves with it.No court is going to support a company's claim for protection if the confidential information clause in the contract is non existant or poorly drafted.

The clause must be specific in terms of including the information that is to be protected but also wide enough to capture all of that information.
A policy which informs employees of their obligations regarding transferring information to memory sticks of Home computers is also advisable.

There are also other ways to protect this information such as having the employees go on gardening leave when they resign and these should be referenced in the contract..Properly drafted restraint clauses will assist-in this regard there has been an increased incidence of employers being able to uphold such restraints provided they are reasonable and well crafted.

Confidential information such as trade secrets and client lists are often vital in an employer maintaining its competitive edge.Don't lose that edge by not attending to a basic business hygiene issue such as your employments contracts.

July 1-are you going to be ready?

July 1 is fast approaching and many businesses I speak to have not yet focused on what it will need to do to comply with the new unfair dismissal laws.

There is no one size fits all method which will govern business when dealing with performance management and terminating employees.People have talked about a return to the "three strikes and out" policy and that it probably a good guide to follow.The imporatnt part though is ensuring that when you have poor performance meetings and conversations that these are documented so that a paper trail is created that can be referred to and relied upon in the event of dispute.

So, if we are using the "three strikes" policy, what does that mean and how do we measure when warnings should be given?The basic rule of thumb is that the employer will need to give an employee a reasonable opportunity to fix up their performance.Next question:so what does THAT mean.

Each situation will be different but essentially in any discinplinary meeting where warnings are given the employer will need to make clear

• what part of the role is being done poorly
• how the employer expects the employee to perform that role/duties in the future giving specific goals to be achieved
• provide a reasonable timeframe for review allowing for a proper assessment of performance to be made
• note when the next meeting for review will be

The more specific the expectations about improved performance, the better.What is a reasonable time frame?This will also depend on what is being measured.In most circumstances a period of less than a month will be seen as not long enough a period to properly measure performance but this will not always be the case.For example, if an employee is failing to produce a weekely report which is part of their expected duties, it could be expected that a reasonable time frame for assessment of performance maybe the very next week that the report is due.A failure to provide that report may entitle the employer to provide a further warning.

There a lots of trips and traps in this process and I recommend a proper process be put in place which can be easily followed by those who manage staff.