Fair Work Australia's "landmark" equal remuneration ruling will pave the way for gender-based arguments to increase minimum pay in some modern awards, according to Lander & Rogers lawyers Daniel Proietto and Patrizia Mercuri.
Small and non-profit employers are often unable to offer staff the same pay and training opportunities as the corporate sector, but there are other ways to reward and engage staff, says award-winning manager Julie McKay.
Spreading compensation evenly lets managers avoid difficult conversations with average and low performers, but can cause top contributors to lose motivation and leave, say remuneration experts at Taleo Research.
A senior employee whose performance was never assessed to determine whether she was eligible for a bonus has been awarded $74,000 in damages after a court confirmed her employment agreement was breached.
No matter how much employees are told not to talk about their pay, they will, so unfair remuneration systems are bound to generate resentment and compromise engagement, according to the authors of a new book.
Good communication to employees about pay and rewards can provide the same - and more - benefits to employers as actually increasing pay levels, new research shows.
Encouraging employees to work together, yet basing rewards on individual performance, can compromise their ability to work as a team, according to research conducted by Melbourne Business School professor Karen Jehn.
When employees' pay is reviewed, line managers tend to take credit for favourable decisions but "blame HR" for the not-so-good ones, says Hewitt Associates senior remuneration consultant Jean Hanna.
Organisations in the process of updating employment contracts need to be aware of six potential traps that could land them in legal trouble, say Kemp Strang employment lawyers.
