"Gardening leave" clauses in employment contracts can be an effective means to keep company secrets out of competitors' hands and prevent departing employees from disrupting the workplace, providing they are not enforced for an "unreasonable" length of time, according to a senior employment lawyer.
The proposed national IR laws broaden employers' exposure to discrimination claims and might lead to bigger payouts in some jurisdictions, a senior workplace lawyer says.
Concealing a company's shaky financial position from employees during the economic downturn could be grounds for an unfair dismissal case should redundancies ensue, according to a workplace lawyer.
Employees with children will for the first time have a legislated right to request flexibility in their work arrangements, while employers will have a countervailing right to refuse requests on "reasonable business grounds", if the federal government's new industrial relations bill becomes law.
With global economic turbulence set to continue and IR legislation changes taking effect within a year, employers must act now to ensure they will survive the emergence of an altered business landscape, according to a workplace lawyer.
The Federal Government's new unfair dismissal laws and bargaining framework - replacing elements of the Work Choices regime - will come into force from July 2009, Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard has announced.
Workplace bullying complaints continue to pose significant challenges for employers, including where the behaviour doesn't meet the legal definition of bullying or the threshold to make a claim. Watch this HR Daily Premium webcast to understand key lessons from cases where bullying complaints interact with other claims and issues.
What constitutes "best practice" when managing neurodiversity at work is evolving all the time. Watch this HR Daily Premium webcast to learn how to embed neuroinclusive practices into HR programs and every stage of the employment lifecycle.
