First published on Thursday, September 5, 2024
Last updated on Thursday, September 5, 2024
Have you heard the latest news?
Everything you need to know about the latest trends impacting employers all over Australia. Keep up to date with the HR Heartbeat.
Let’s get into the headlines.
Right to Disconnect
The Right to Disconnect has been in effect for over a week now. But many business owners are still coming to terms with what the new law means for them.
To make it clearer, the law does not prevent employers, managers, or clients from reaching out to employees with work-related communication outside of the employee’s regular working hours. But it gives employees the right to ignore that communication until it’s reasonable for them to respond.
Who decides if their refusal to respond is unreasonable? The Fair Work Commission. The Commission will also step in to settle disputes about an employee’s right to disconnect if the dispute can’t be resolved in the workplace.
The right to disconnect was introduced alongside a slew of changes in the Closing Loopholes legislation. It came into effect for businesses with 15 or more employees on 26 August 2024. The same law will apply to businesses with less than 15 employees on 26 August 2025.
Australia is the latest country to introduce the right to disconnect. It joins countries including France, Spain, Italy, Argentina, Chile, the Philippines, and more.
If you still have questions about how the new law affects you, don’t forget we have a free Right to Disconnect FAQ sheet to help answer them all.
Extreme weather rocks Australia
Severe weather warnings were put in place earlier this week across Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia.
With damaging high winds, flood warnings, bush and grass fires, and extreme fire danger recorded across the states mentioned—the wild weather runs the gamut.
Employers and business owners need to be on high alert to make sure your business and employees are safe and protected.
For some businesses this may mean halting work altogether until the weather improves, allowing employees to work from home when travel is dangerous, and moving outdoor work indoors where possible.
Whatever measures you’re forced to take, it’s important to do so decisively and swiftly to prevent any harm to your business and employees.
It may be helpful to have a policy in place like an emergency plan that your employees are already familiar with that you can refer to and circulate when extreme weather conditions impact your business. This way, your managers and employees know what to do to keep themselves and their colleagues safe.
If you’re in need of support to create compliant work health & safety policies and documents, BrightSafe comes complete with document templates including a library of over 380 risk assessments created by experienced advisers.
A reminder in honour of the Paralympics
The Paralympic Games are in full swing. Australian athletes are breaking records, winning medals, and currently sitting in the top 10 of the overall medal tally.
In the spirit of the Games, and the incredible athletes with disabilities, here’s a reminder to employers about the measures you need to take to ensure that your employees with disabilities have enough support to unlock their full potential at work.
Remember, physical and mental disabilities are a protected attribute under the Fair Work Act. This means that it’s unlawful for an employer to take adverse action against a potential or current employee because of their disability.
Adverse action can look like:
- Not hiring an applicant
- Offering an applicant or current employee different or unfair job terms and conditions compared to other employees
- Treating an employee differently
- Causing disadvantages to the employee including not providing them with their minimum entitlements
- Altering an employee’s job to their disadvantage
- Firing an employee
Resources like the Employment Assistance Fund (EAF) are also available to help businesses make the changes a person with a disability may require in order to perform their jobs. This includes buying equipment.
For more information on your legal obligations and the measures you need to put in place to promote a more accommodating workplace, you can reach a team of employment relations advisers on BrightAdvice.
Not a BrightAdvice customer? Book a free demo with our team to explore all the ways we can help your business grow.
One eye on the construction industry
In recent weeks, more building and construction companies have come under the Fair Work Ombudsman’s microscope.
Media releases from the Ombudsman reveal that a building and construction company in Darwin and another construction business in Sydney are both facing court, while a residential building and construction services business in south-west Sydney has been penalised.
Here’s why the FWO’s eyes were drawn to these businesses:
- All three businesses were investigated after the regulator received requests for assistance from former employees of the respective businesses.
- All three businesses also failed to comply with the Compliance Notices issued to them.
- Each of the businesses fell on the wrong side of the law by underpaying their workers' full entitlements.
Whether your business is in the building and construction industry or not, staying on top of your worker entitlements and maintaining a compliant payroll is crucial. Especially with intentional wage underpayments becoming a criminal offence starting 1 January 2025.
Your BrightHR toolkit can help you reach 24/7 employment relations advice, generate custom payroll reports, and accurately manage your employee time tracking. It’s everything you need to stay on the right side of the Ombudsman.
You can book a free demo of BrightHR software and services to learn more.
That wraps up this edition of HR Heartbeat. Stay tuned for more headlines and all the latest updates that will keep you in the know with all the major employment changes coming your way.
If you’ve got questions about the top HR headlines from this week, ask Bright BrAInbox:
How does the right to disconnect affect our current company policies, and do we need to update them?
It is a good idea to review your company policies and procedures about topics such as flexible working, remote working, working from home, social media use, assigning employees on-call or call-back duties, and leave policies.
You may wish to consult with your employees about your expectations around contacting your employees outside of their working hours and when you would consider their refusal to respond to your contact to be unreasonable.
You might consider discussing the times, methods, and purposes for contacting employees and whether they have particular preferences for being contacted. From these discussions, you might then formulate a right to disconnect policy that you add to your Employee Handbook or upload to the Documents tab in BrightHR.
If you need more help with this topic, it is best to seek advice.
What is 'inclement weather' under the Building and Construction General On-site Award?
Inclement weather means the existence of rain or abnormal climatic conditions (whether hail, extreme cold, high wind, severe dust storm, extreme high temperature or the like or any combination of these conditions) where it is not reasonable or it is unsafe for employees to continue working in those conditions.
Employees may be entitled to receive payment where work is stopped due to inclement weather.
In some Australian States, the deliberate underpayment of an employee’s wages and entitlements is a criminal offence. This may be included in the definition of stealing offences or be called ‘wage theft’.
The Federal Government will make wage theft a criminal offence nationwide on 1 January 2025.
