In a previous blog, we summarised the recent case of Groff v. Dejoy, where the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously clarified the undue hardship standard under Title VII, a federal law in the United States that prohibits employment discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex, and national origin.

The decision is in line with

Already stretched HR, ER, WHS and Legal teams are about to confront a (seemingly) never-ending stream of law changes that will require cross-team collaboration to operationalise.

At a time when there are already broader economic and market challenges for businesses, leading employers will need to have sufficient resourcing and planning to confront the

Last week I declared that most cases of employee underpayments are inadvertent and that businesses, especially large employers, are working on compliance measures.

Subsequently, we have seen more reports of underpayments by large employers. These are businesses who are conducting audits, reviewing their processes, and rectifying inadvertent errors. This is not wage-theft. They

Almost daily, we read about employer failure to comply with award or enterprise agreement obligations. Opportunistically and in keeping with the sport of “business bashing”, the failure is termed “wage-theft”, as if to brand every failure deliberate and deserving of criminal sanction and as if to assume that compliance is easy.

I’m not here to

It’s no secret that Australians love their annual leave.

In recent years, many companies have chosen to go above and beyond minimum standards by offering extra leave – reflecting the view that rested employees are generally happier and more productive at work.

Some companies even let employees decide how much leave to take. For example

In the last five years, with the development of information technology and mobile devices, the distinction between being “at work” and “off work” has been profoundly altered. Working time is no longer confined to being in an office and working days are both more intense and infinitely extendable, making monitoring working times even more complex.Switching off

Coupled with a global economy, many employees feel that they are permanently connected to their work, irrespective of time zones and local laws.
Continue Reading Switching off: making sense of working time laws in Europe

Video killed the radio star…or did it?Radio star

In its most recent research paper analysing the effects and possible responses to digital disruption, the Productivity Commission observes that with each wave of change “speculation about the effects of technologies often suffers from extreme optimism or pessimism”.

While perhaps raising more questions than it answers, the Productivity Commission focuses on the potential of digital technologies to deliver economic benefits if regulated appropriately.
Continue Reading Back to the future: The digital disruption debate

Doctor

Employers who proactively deal with employee absenteeism, and focus on assisting employees to return to work, can reduce the impact of employee downtime and disruption to working arrangements.

We’ve previously discussed some key tips about handling non-work-related illness and injury.  This post focuses on the importance of taking a collaborative approach when managing frequent or prolonged absences.

Frequent or prolonged absences due to stress, illness, injury or other personal reasons can be a major cause of frustration for employers. However, there are significant risks associated with taking punitive measures against employees who may be genuinely unwell, illustrated in several recent decisions.
Continue Reading Managing absenteeism: a collaborative approach

Recently, Virgin Group announced through its CEO Richard Branson, that it would be removing its workplace policy that limits holidays for employees. The ‘no policy’ approach to annual leave is to be implemented as a flexible working policy measure that allows all salaried staff to take off as much time as they want, whenever they want with no managerial monitoring of time away from work. The announcement was made during school holidays in Australia.
Continue Reading Unlimited annual leave policy, you’re kidding right?