The last several months have seen rapid changes in the employment and workplace health and safety space. With such dynamic movement, and then lots of commentary on each of these changes, it’s easy to view all these changes as one big jumble of puzzle pieces. And it can be hard to know what the whole
In our previous post celebrating the firm’s decade in Australia, our partners shared their insights into the most significant changes in employment and safety law that have affected leading employers. This post further explores our partners’ perspectives on the major changes and trends that they anticipate will have a major impact on Australian businesses in
Seyfarth just celebrated ten years of service to leading employers in Australia. To mark the occasion, we invited some of our partners to share insights on the evolution of employment, industrial relations and workplace safety in Australia over the past ten years.
What have been the biggest changes in employment law, industrial relations and workplace
If it’s not already happening, Board room agendas will be making room for yet another compliance program.
We’ve said it before and it’s worth repeating: the bolstering of anti-sexual harassment laws will see workplaces adopt approaches akin to eliminating or minimising, so far as reasonably practicable, workplace health and safety risk. The positive duty demands
We have psychosocial risks, of which sexual harassment is one of the most common hazards. We have a new positive duty to prevent sexual harassment at a federal level that we discussed in our previous blog. The duties are at least similar: “So far as is reasonably practicable’’ under health and safety law and
Psychosocial risk is number one on the agenda for many Australian workplace leaders. Right now, most safety briefings requested of us are on this very topic. And with good reason. The common refrain from employers is ‘what do we need to do?’
We wrote recently:
Gone are the days when workplace safety belongs only in
Employee burnout is high, with one recent survey reporting that one in three participants say they experienced this in the last 12 months. This can lead to disengagement, high staff turnover and claims connected with mental illness or injuries.
To mark the fact that today is World Day for Health and Safety at Work, we
All the modelling done and released by our governments to support the roadmaps out of lockdowns tell us the same thing: as our businesses and borders reopen, the COVID numbers will increase. We will need to learn to live with the virus. Given this, it is likely that a lot more workers will get COVID
During the Australian summer, media reports have documented a tragic spike in drownings at unpatrolled Australian beaches, as people search for remote swimming spots they might not normally use during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Millions of swimming lessons – a rite of passage to a core element of Australian life — have also been missed
Some time ago, we queried whether punitive enforcement action against duty holders was the best approach for improving health and safety outcomes for Australian workers.
Since then, Australian Parliaments have been busy creating yet more offences for the statute books, that carry even more serious penalties. Industrial manslaughter is just one example. Cynics might interpret