Encouraging employees to take a break before September is vital to maintaining employee performance through the remainder of 2020 and reducing the PTSD-like impact of the pandemic, an advisor says.
The Fair Work Commission has found two employees were unfairly dismissed for making s-xual comments about a female colleague over a workplace chat system, ruling only one message breached its policies.
Some workplace cultures enable sexual harassment more than others, and employers shouldn't wait for complaints before addressing risks, an expert says.
The Fair Work Ombudsman will now approach compliance and enforcement with greater flexibility as a result of "dramatically changed economic conditions" caused by the coronavirus.
Urgency drives how work is done and it can help to get more done faster, but often causes inefficient use of time and resources, says a productivity expert.
An employer "overplayed its hand" when issuing a JobKeeper-enabling direction that reduced an employee's hours by 40%, the Fair Work Commission has ruled.
In this redundancy update, an employer has to pay redundancy entitlements after reduced an employee's hours; an employee is denied relief after he "effectively sat on his hands" during the redeployment process; and two employers lose their applications to reduce redundancy payouts.
The week's biggest HR stories cover: personal leave entitlements; managing sick leave in a COVID world; communicating organisational performance; and more.
All employers should consider putting in place a workplace s-xual harassment prevention plan, even though such plans are only expressly prescribed in one jurisdiction, according to a risk management expert.
Recent events have shone a spotlight on whistleblowing, placing employers firmly on notice that their response to a protected disclosure could be subject to intense scrutiny. Watch this webcast to understand the role HR plays in this challenging space.
