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The growing number and diversity of employment-related class actions suggest they won't drop off "any time soon", and positive duty non-compliance is a key risk area to watch, a lawyer warns.

The redeployment obligations confirmed by the High Court today might be "pretty straightforward" in obvious hypothetical scenarios, but they're likely to become "very tricky" for employers operating in the real world, a lawyer says.

When employees at risk of burnout start managing their energy, as opposed to their time, their performance can "skyrocket", an organisational psychologist says.

A "very poor" attendance rate combined with repeatedly failing to notify or explain absences meant there were valid reasons to sack an employee, the Fair Work Commission has ruled.

It wasn't discriminatory to seek confirmation that an employee was fit to perform his duties, after he made "alarming" comments during a performance review meeting, a tribunal has ruled.

"Reasonable schemes reasonably implemented can miscarry without rendering them unreasonable," a commissioner has stressed, in rejecting the psychological injury claim of an employee who had a "troubling propensity for embellishment".

Now in the second year of its four-day work experiment, Medibank continues to report significant and sustained improvements in engagement, job satisfaction and employees' health and wellbeing.

Despite signs of a "permissive attitude" towards name-calling at work, an employer was entitled to reprimand an employee for racial stereotyping a colleague, a commission has found.

To ensure employees retain the critical thinking skills organisations need, it will be crucial to clarify the line between using AI as an assistant, and depending on it entirely, an expert says.

The "optics" would be poor if an employer retained a senior employee who was convicted of domestic violence, a commission has found in rejecting his unfair dismissal appeal.