Engagement and Rostering for Efficiency

This transcript of Effective HR’s “Engagement and Rostering for Efficiency” webinar is auto-generated and may contain errors. It is provided for general information only, does not constitute legal or industrial advice, and should not be relied on for any specific decision. For the full context, please watch the webinar above or contact Effective HR.

Effective HR: We will be sharing the recording to all regist… registrations, after today's webinar, so If you're not able to stay for the full session, or if you'd like to share the webinar with anyone within your team, we will provide the link so you've got that access. We'll give it probably another minute, just to allow everyone the opportunity to get their coffee, get their tea and biscuits. Essentials for webinars. I've had mine this morning. Or your water bottle, if you've got a big water bottle, like I'm… Alright… We might have a couple more people come through in the next 30 seconds, but … we might… we've got lots of content to cover today, so we might get started. I'll hand it over to Jane just to kick things off with a bit of an introduction.

Jane Newton: Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Thanks for joining the webinar today. It's the last of our series around the shads.

Effective HR: My name's Joan Newton, and I'm part of the industry and workforce development team in Chequer.

Jane Newton: To start with, I'd like to acknowledge, the traditional owners of the traditional custodians of the land on which we work and live, and recognise their continuing connection to the land, water, and community. I'm joining today from Turrbal and Yagra country, and pay my respects to Elders past, present, and future. leaders. We also recognise that people are joining from a range of locations right across Australia, so if you would like to acknowledge the traditional lands that you are joining from, please add to the chat. A brief bit about Checkup. Checkup is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the health and well-being of communities who need it the most. We operate primarily in Queensland, and we do this through a range of initiatives across the health and community services sector. Two of those initiatives, which are most probably relevant to those of you on this session, are the Industry Workforce Advisors Program in the Iowa, which is funded through the Queensland Department of Training… of Trade, Employment and Training, and it supports businesses with their workforce planning. And the other one is the NDIS Business Connect, which is also funded through the Queensland Government Disability Peak Funding Program. And this is a capacity and capability building project for new and existing sole traders and small businesses, providing supports and services to people with disability in the community. Information about these and our other initiatives are available through our website, and this will be shared in the resources, with resources after the session. So, back to Corinne and Emma. Thank you, ladies.

Effective HR: Perfect. Thank you, thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar on managing engagement and rostering for workforce efficiency in collaboration with Checkup. We're absolutely delighted to have you with us as we unpack the critical workforce challenges that So many organizations in the sector are facing. Our focus today is on giving you clarity and confidence in managing employment types and rostering obligations. Getting this right is more than just about compliance, it's about building that sustainable workforce practices that balance operational needs, employee well-being, service quality. Please note, today's webinar is being recorded. We will share the recording with you after the session, so you can revisit it or share it with your team. At the end of the session, we will open the floor for a Q&A. So, please feel free to type your questions in the chat throughout the webinar, and we will address them during the end of our interactive discussion. Alternatively, if you do prefer to take your questions offline, and you can organize to have a one-on-one complimentary consultation with the HR consultant. Please scan the QR code, that's, throughout the session, and click the Contact Us button to fill your details. Now, Jane has just taken us through a fantastic acknowledgement of country. Thank you so much for that. I would like to do a bit of an introduction, for those who don't know, know us. My name is Emma, I'm a HR consultant at Effective HR. And I'm joined today by my colleague, Emma, our Senior HR Consultant. And together, we spent many years supporting businesses, across the NDIS and community services sector, the health sector, with a focus on HR, work health and safety, payroll compliance. And practical guidance around interpreting and applying some of our complex awards, like the SHADS Award and the Fair Work Act legislation. In today's session, we'll focus on the areas that have the greatest impact on how you engage and roster your workforce, including covering the fundamentals of the Fair Work Act. And national employment standards, our differing engagement types, employer obligations with casual conversion, where we've recently seen some legislative changes a couple of months ago, along with sham contracting risk and contractor engagement. Very fitting, today being the 26th of August, we're going to be covering Right to Disconnect, which has come now into effect For small businesses. And we'll have a look as well at the work health and safety regulations around psychosocial hazards in that space. We'll wrap off by covering off roster compliance and how we can optimize our rosters, and end with a Q&A, discussion to cover all the questions that will come through, throughout today's webinar. Now, I'll hand it over to my fantastic colleague, Emma, who will be taking us through a lot of today's content.

Emma Dawson: Hello, everyone. So, fortunate to be here today and get to chat about, these, you know, yeah, compliance, but also, you know, how to practically manage those, and some recommendations for what you can do as an outcome of this. As always, though, like to start with a… the general understanding, going back to those fundamentals, of the Fair Work Act and Australia's employment relations. System. You know, it's some… we sometimes will get caught up in employment contracts or awards, but always good to be thinking of, you know, the system's structured in a particular way, and this triangle represents that structure, with the base of that triangle being the Fair Work Act and regulations. So, it's designed for these to be those minimum entitlements. We'll talk a little bit about the national employment standards, which fall within the Fair Work Act. Those 11 entitlements that set that sort of base minimum across the country. And then the system developing in with the modern awards, enterprise agreements, and above. So, obviously, bringing in those awards where they're industry-specific, like our social and community award, where they're building in specific entitlements. So these… what you'll find is each of these levels go above, they provide more specificity and higher entitlements. But they'll never provide less than one of the lower entitlements. Similarly, when you're drafting your employment contracts, you can put additional obligations in there, you can put additional benefits for employees into those contracts. But what you wouldn't be able to do is you wouldn't be able to provide something that's lower than the Modern Award or the Fair Work Act. So that's why it's always really good to be going back to those and making sure you have that understanding, of the employee's base entitlements, and then, of course, you can build on from there. At the very tippy top there, you can see that we've got individual flexibility agreements as well, so that's something that's provided for within the awards, where you can amend the terms and conditions of the award. However, we're still applying a test there to make sure that the employee is what you'll often hear people say is better off overall, and that is compared to their modern awards. So again, it applies the same concept of being better than the, provisions at a lower level, and going above that. So that's the general structure. You know, if you haven't heard of any of those terms before. It's how we build it all up, in terms of making sure that, you know, how do you pay an employee? When can, you know, you terminate an employee, how do you do that, and all of their entitlements there. But we'll talk through a lot of that today, so you'll get a better understanding. Which is then going straight into the National Employment Standard. So these are those 11 minimum entitlements that I had mentioned, earlier that are within the Fair Work Act. So this is really your essentials, to your employees' obligations. So, it touches on things, the minimum weekly hours. sorry, maximum weekly hours. Requests for flexible work arrangements, so any legal entitlements there. Casual employment, which we will be talking about more today. Parental leave and the related entitlements, so obviously when employees are getting access to that, and a few provisions there around, I guess, employer obligations and ensuring, employees safe at work, or what they need to do if it's not. Parental leave, sorry, annual leave, personal carers leave, compassionate leave, family and domestic violence leave. These are all, I think, relatively well-understood concepts. One of the annual leave, I guess, catch-outs that can come up is additional annual leave, for employees who are deemed as shift workers under specific conditions. … Yeah, personal carers leave compassionate leave. Family and domestic violence leave, being, relatively newer in terms of the other provisions as well, so that's been in there for a couple of years now, and had a few changes over the time, too. So if it is something you haven't reviewed in a while, policies, et cetera, might be something to look into. Community service leave, so that's generally an unpaid entitlement, though some businesses will have policies that provide additional entitlements there. Long service leave, which is a really fun one because it's specific for every state. There's actually different entitlements per state there. So that one can get a bit challenging. I'd say maybe something to reach out for advice on if you've got employees with more than say, 5 years in New South Wales, 7 years anywhere else should be a pretty okay general rule. … Public holidays, so the, the National Employment Standards, NES does touch on, ability to require an employee to work public holiday, and an employee's ability to have that time off, and the payment for that. So, talking more permanent stuff for the payment. Super contributions, this is where your notice of termination and redundancy Pay comes sort of across the board. Again, your award could provide something additional there, in terms of the social and community sector. I'm fairly certain it's aligned to the, national employment standards. and the Fair Work Information Statement, so… being two… two things there, one we'll touch on later, being the Fair Work Information Statement and the Casual information statement. … … thinking about, I guess, these national employment standards, I also wanted to ask a question of everybody, and you can just pop into the chat if you think you know the answer. Bit of a knowledge check, is… Yes or no? Do casuals get access to the leave entitlements that are mentioned on these slides? So, can your casuals take annual leave, personal carers leave, compassionate leave? Interested to see what we all think on that one. ….

Effective HR: And we'll use the chat functionality. And if you're not sure, just have a go. You know, or, you know, write an answer, whatever, whatever you think that entitlement is. And it's really interesting in Australia when we look at our structure and our pyramid, because, as employers, we would know that our entitlements and protections are very much geared towards employees, and we see that through that structure. We've got the Fair Work Act. the national employment standards, we've got the modern awards, some businesses have enterprise agreements, and what are the… what are their purpose? It's very much to provide entitlements and protections to employees. So when we're looking at that top of that pyramid. What protects employers and businesses. It's your contracts, it's your policies. They are setting out the foundations for your business. They're there to provide commercial protection, to set expectations, and at the end of the day, if you have a challenging employment situation that arises, or a claim that goes to the Fair Work Commission, you tend to rely quite heavily on these types of documentation to support those processes.

Emma Dawson: Definitely, definitely true, Emma. You made me, recall, I think, a really common one that comes up that overlaps with, national employment standards, for contracts is your notice of termination. So, the, Fair Work Act Only providing the notice for an employer, the award providing notice that an employee needs to provide, but often businesses are looking for additional notice from their employees, so it's Quite common, for employers to put additional requirements to leave in their contract, and that be on a contractual basis. you know, you know, enforceability around that always becomes a hot topic, but it is something that I think, sets a good expectation for employees and isn't in… so not a concern in terms of respect.

Effective HR: Fantastic.

Emma Dawson: ….

Effective HR: Just to quickly jump in, apologies, the chat function was disabled, but it is now enabled, so you can pop your answers regarding that initial casual, casual question. Do casuals have the entitlement to leave entitlements? And we've already got your answers popping through.

Emma Dawson: Yes! Yeah, so yeah, some good answers coming through there. And I'm like… I like that I'm seeing that, we… we've got, people addressing the different types of leave, right? Which I think is the key… which is a key element of casuals and their leave entitlements, is that, it's not, … each… each leave actually can be… can have different entitlements for the casuals, in terms of what they're… what they can get access to. But yes, I think most people are kind of pointing out that most of them being unpaid, for casual entitlements. I mean, parental leave already being, an unpaid entitlement in terms of the Fair Wack… Fair Work Act. access. Annual leave is, I'd say I would phrase it as not an entitlement to casuals, though obviously casuals have the right to pick when they work. There is some carers leave entitlements to casual, so that is also unpaid. Compassionate leave, … Also… unpaid for casuals off the top of my head. I've just had a bit of a mind blank. Now, that one. Family domestic violence leave is paid for casuals, so that is one that they have access to paid leave for. … Community service leave I mentioned earlier, is unpaid, and in the Fair Work Act. And long service leave, like, someone's addressed that one too. In Queensland, casuals get long service leave. Yes, that is true, and across most of the states, casuals can get access to long service leave. The question that always pops up there is that is whether they have, ongoing service, so they're continuous service element, and that's where we'll often have to break up things down for casuals to see if they'll get it or not. So, yeah, which is different per state as well, so that's a fun one. Cool! Awesome. Well, thanks for everyone for having a shot in the questions as well. It's good to see. As Emma mentioned earlier as well, if you're having any questions pop up through the session, feel free to dump them in the chat, because we can come back to those towards the end if I don't get time during. Cool! … Alright, so… Following on with some more parts of the Fair Work Act. So, when I think about the, some of the bigger risks to managing employees under the Fair Work Act, those are the three that are… well, two that have been… three that are being shown on the screen. Discrimination also comes in through state-based legislation as well. … Unfair dismissal is the big one. I think most people are probably going to have heard of unfair dismissal. So this sets out, I guess, when a… Employee has the right to seek Access to, penalties and that sort of thing, or even reinstatement, if they are terminated, If… on a basis of it being what's harsh, unjust, or unreasonable. So there's a couple of things that we have to look at there. So access to that, is generally my first question, which is dependent on the size of your business. So, small business being 14 or less employees, large being 15 or more, so for those small businesses. There isn't actually access to unfair dismissal until 12 months of employment, whereas for the larger businesses, it's… I know it feels funny to say large, right, but bigger, let's say, businesses, that's from that 6 months onwards. So, there is… there are requirements that it outlines the, employee… or ex-employee will need to lodge the application within 21 days. It needs to… they need to have… prove that they have been terminated. And on the grounds of something that's unfair, harsh, unjust, or unreasonable. For small businesses, they also do need to show that it's not. the dismissal hasn't complied with this small business fair dismissal code. So that's a really helpful tool for any small businesses. And of course, there's a caveat that it's not because of a genuine redundancy. So there's a few things that we look at for that. For general protections, that is applicable from day dot. So general protections is our… the sort of general part of the legislation, which is the protecting employees from any negative actions coming about because of, like, protected attributes. So this can be because of discrimination, this can be because they've accessed a workplace right, like sick leave, for example, or it could be because they, Part of a union, or all those types of things. So, this one applies from day dot, so it's something that we have to be considerate of from the very beginning. I think those absence issues tends to be one of the biggest ones that comes up for me, when I'm speaking to, employers. You know, new employees starting to take a lot of leave. So, it's balancing that conversations, keeping in mind that general protections, whilst also, you know, even if there is no unfair dismissal risk, before taking any action against that employee. The general protections provisions as well cover, some elements of prior to employment as well, so prospective employees. It covers employers as well, though we don't see as much, I guess, case… cases come in relation to that. And it also overlaps with independent contractors too, so there are some provisions in terms of those protections for contractors. … Yeah, so a couple of more examples of general protections. It gives an employee the right to make a complaint, so we couldn't take negative action because they've made a complaint. The right to have, their pay, their leave, and those sorts of entitlements, anything in the acts or the awards. The right to take time off. If they're sick or if they're injured, the right not to be discriminated against, and the right to have all of the benefits of any industrial award, enterprise agreement, and health and safety laws as well. So, someone's asked if this does apply to casuals, so general protections, yes, unfair dismissal, yes, if they, have found to be regular and systematic for the period of their employment. Oh, and look at that, Emma's already on it.

Effective HR: Finally, very timely. And a really interesting, I think, point around unfair dismissal, is understanding the difference between unfair dismissal eligibility and access versus probation periods. Sometimes we see, probation periods that could be very long. You know, you might have in your contract of employment a 6-month probation period, and that's generally okay. However, if you are a business with 15 or more employees, and That period lapses even just one day past that 6-month mark, and maybe it's, you know, that employee's not a good fit for your organization, and you're looking to terminate for an unsuccessful probation, you would have that still risk of a… of an unfair dismissal claim if you haven't followed a procedurally fair process in the lead-up to that termination. So your probation period should always be below that access to an unfair dismissal claim, and always on the other side of the spectrum, to keep in mind that even if your employee successfully completes their probation period, they've hit that 6 months, they're ticking all the boxes, and then you see that performance drop dive, and you're a small business with 14 or less employees. You still do have flexibility to terminate under a short service dismissal, because they're not yet at that point of having eligibility for an unfair dismissal claim. It's really important, just to put a caveat there, to always seek Advice, because we also need to take into consideration other red flags, like the potential risk of a general protections claim.

Emma Dawson: Yeah. Great advice, Emma. Which also links in just to our discrimination, just to cover off the last point. So there's federal, state, and territory laws around anti-discrimination, so we often have to factor that in as well, in terms of particular, you know, definitely any terminations and any reasoning for that. But it also can, I guess, overlap a lot with, policies and procedures and how they're drafted to make sure that those policies and procedures are, I guess, fair, don't raise any indirect discrimination risks, and of course, making sure that people, during management, performance management, disciplinaries, those sorts of things within the workplace are being treated equally. And that, you know, that approach of having, you know, similar outcomes for similar actions is a really good guide there. Hi, … Just touching on, then, some of the consequences of non-compliance. So what could happen, if we don't align, and we don't… and we fail to meet any of those provisions for the Fair Work Act, or the National Employment Stand? National employment standards, bit tongue twisted today. So employers, can face financial penalties for breaches, being required to pay back wages, particularly if we're missing penalties or anything like that from the awards, which we'll touch on a bit more. be subject to, compensation claims from the infected employees as well. So, having to pay compensation for, different things. There's, of course, more than just the financial risks, though. There are the reputational damage, which can come into play, which could affect then, you know, ability to attract and retain talent. You know, a lot of employees do, look at job boards and, what I guess, ratings employers have received in the past, and ex-employees, obviously, posting negative things on that can definitely impact that reputation. And maybe… Slare away someone who you would ideally like to join the business. It can also have increased scrutiny from the Fair Work Ombudsman, social audits, enforcement actions, and those sorts of things. So it is really important to prioritize compliance as part of the business. You know, avoid these risks, maintain fair and productive workplaces. It also helps maintain those working relationships at work. When you've got things running well, when you've got covered everything You have that trust in that relationship with your employees as well. And the big one, of course, not to scan over at the top, is newer laws around criminal prosecution for deliberate underpayments of entitlements, so definitely making sure you're keeping on top of those payouts. Yeah. Hey! So, … ways that you can avoid any of these issues, is HRIR compliance audits, so checking in how are you paying, how are you doing things, contracts and policy reviews, making sure that they're kept up to date. Unfortunately, it's an always-changing area, employment relations, so making sure that you're keeping on top of those. You know, keeping on top of your leave management as well, and, payroll audits, so checking in, you know, have you… have you paid correctly? Are you… You know, is your system accurately processing entitlements, penalties, and all of these types of things? We can talk about that a little bit as we go into the story as well, too. So… Okay, so now we're going to start talking, a bit more specifically into the Social and Community Award, in terms of how… the different types of, ways for engaging employees. So in this award, you can have full-time employees, so that's employees working an average of 38 hours… 38 ordinary hours per week. You could have part-time employees. So that will be your employees that are working less than 38 hours per week, however, still have a regular pattern to their work, generally guaranteed hours, generally specific start, finish times, that sort of thing. … The… then casual… sorry, we've got a review after 12 months may request a change to increase their guaranteed hours as well. So, potentially, you know, if you're sort of guaranteeing them a low amount and it works out that they're actually quite regularly working above that, having a look at that, they can, request a review of that. the ability to potentially have those contract provisions updated. If you did get one of those, review requests. Then you would have 21 days to respond, you know, and making sure that if you were to decline that request, you had really clear business reasoning for that. That's definitely something that, you know, if you're not sure on, can be a bit tricky, so it's always good to have that wording checked by somebody, with that sort of legal understanding. Casual employment, so they're paid an hourly rate, which is 1 38th of the weekly rate, plus the 25% casual loading. So that casual loading is designed to replace permanent entitlements, like those, like annual leave, like paid personal carers leave, and those sorts of things. With your casual employees, it is important to make sure that that is the correct type of employment to engage them on, but we're going to talk about that in a minute. And they do also have rights to seek casual conversion, so that is changing from casual to permanent employment. Which, again, we're going to go through in a little bit. Another flag for, the Social and Community Award is the minimum payment for part-time and casual employees. So those who fall under the SACS stream, so social and community services, unless they are undertaking disability work, have 3 hours per shift is the minimum that you can engage them on. For everybody else, so that's including the disability employees under SACS, it is 2 hours per shift. So. I tend to see it come up more frequently when we're talking about casual employment. However, it's also important to note that that also does apply to your part-time employees. Yeah. … I think that's the main points there. So, onto a pretty hot topic, which is changes to casual employment laws. So, if you're thinking. Do casual laws just keep changing? You would be correct. We've had a lot of changes to casual employment over the last few years. One of the big ones has been the definition of casual employment. So that's now in the Fair Work Act, nice and clear, well, somewhat clear, let's say, as to what that means. So, casual employees are those without a firm advanced commitment to ongoing work. So when you start a casual employee, it is important to understand, are… do we have a firm commitment to work, to ongoing work. If you do, I'd suggest seeking some advice, because it might not be the right type of employment to engage them on. If not, if those ad hoc workers, you know, casuals are a genuine need for many industries, and particularly, in the shads industry. So, yes, if they are a casual employee, then they will get that casual loading. When you're looking at whether you think someone should or should not be casual, some of the guiding things you can look at, is if you have the ability to offer them work, and they have the ability to accept or reject That work, whether there's a likelihood that that work is going to continue ongoing, and whether you have other roles in the business that, you have engaged as full-time or part-time. And differentiating why this one, then, is casual. And definitely the regularity of the work and the pattern to that. You know, I do see sometimes casuals, engaged as part-time casuals or full-time casuals, which always raises a bit of a red flag. Casuals should be distinct and engaged, you know, in a casual pool, or as an on-needs basis, as an ideal situation. So, obviously, it can be difficult, particularly for smaller businesses, with maybe less, Clients that they're supporting, to be able to manage that. The big, recent change, though, around, the casual employment is that it's assessed as the totality of the relationship, and not just what's written in the contract. So it's still important to have the right contract provisions in place. But it's also important to reflect how that person will actually be working in your business to make sure that they're not engaged incorrectly. We also have had the new pathway to permanent employment, come into effect. So, that's actually another one for our small businesses that kicks off today, for the 26th of August. For everyone else, it was the 26th of February. The pathway is now that the employee can request the transition after 6 months for larger businesses, or 12 months for small businesses. If that happens, there is a bit of a process to follow. Again, an employer will then have 21 days to respond to that. They will, need to make sure as well that they are considering the reasonable business grounds for that, if they're going to be, denying that request for that conversion. … And often, what will be involved in this as well is. I guess some consultation with the employee. This is where, you know, it can get important in terms of our working relationships with our employees, to be going about this the right way, and making sure that we're having the right conversations to help the person understand, the, you know, why they're not being converted to permanent, if that's the path you're going down. To keep them engaged and with the business, as opposed to it becoming a, you know, negative situation, and maybe them becoming, disengaged and then leaving the business. So, how you manage that can be really important as well. Yeah. I think we covered most of that. So what do we want to take out of here? … We don't have an obligation to offer regular and systematic casuals the opportunity to convert. So larger businesses had an obligation to actually, make the offer, so that's actually come out, so that makes things a little bit easier in that aspect. However, it's now applied to all businesses that a casual employee will have that right to request that change. You should all… always still assess the totality of the relationship to ensure compliance and avoid, a misclassification as well. If a business was to knowingly, input a casual contract without, you know, knowing that it's not really a genuine casual relationship, there's risks attached to that as well. The same space we'll talk about with the sham contracting to independent contractors. So, important to, if you don't believe that they're casual, to either change the way that you're going to be engaging those people to avoid that risk, or engage them in a different type of employment that's going to be, Better for the business, and… compliant. So what can you do as a business? Yes, assess your casuals on engagement, so regularly review work patterns, employment relationships, how you anticipate something to be engaged. If you're not sure whether they're being engaged on a regular and systematic basis, or what that looks like, or if you've got concerns there. It's definitely something, you know, you can reach out to us on, have that chat with Emma, have that consult, and she can assist you, with some… any next steps there. Obviously, make sure that your contracts do reflect a genuine, casual employment. They're not the only part to it, but having good contracts in place always sets that expectation for both parties on what the relationship should look like. And the casual information statement. So, casual employees should be getting a casual information statement, which I think I must put some notes in the chat for as well. So this is required, to be issued on a regular basis now, so unemployment, and then, 6 months, and 12 months. 6 months for, yeah, for large businesses, and then 12 monthly, and then 12 months for, just each 12 months for small business, so a bit of an extra entitlement for… Bunch of businesses there. And that also, obviously, got me through that then. to request. Shouldn't Boom. So the other, I guess, big one, in terms of that assessment to the workers is the employee versus contractor. So this is, again, another, you know, ever-changing area. I'm hoping that we've now settled on what we're doing here. You know, prior to 2022, there actually wasn't, you know, specifics of the definition within the Fair Work Act. And it came down to the court's interpretation, and we called this a multi-factor test. So we had a bit of a change in 2022 with a few rulings where we took it away from the totality of the relationship and looking more at the contractual basis. we're back to the beginning, and we're applying the multi-factor test to the totality of the relationship. I guess the important thing here is just to make sure that if you're engaging independent contractors, which lots of businesses have to do, it's not just about them being a PTYLTD, it's actually about the nature Of that relationship. And making sure that they don't look like an employee. There's a bit of an old saying that if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. That's where your risk comes in. If it looks like they're an employee, then I definitely think you should be looking into that more. Some of the things you can consider is who controls, how the work is done. Who has the financial responsibility? Who supplies tools and equipment, who can delegate work or subcontract work, and who sets the working hours and the expectations at work. So all of these things are factored up together, to, determine whether somebody is or is not. There are sham contracting provisions which do have some pretty steep penalties if you were to, misrepresent an employment relationship. So, and actually that pops into, the next part a little bit, which is, yeah, the risk attached to that. So, you know. that a contractor is obviously engaged differently to an employee and doesn't get the same benefits of an employee, so the act's intention is that if they should be an employee, they should go under those provisions. Otherwise, yeah, if you knowingly do that to Let's say, undercut those provisions, then that's when you can attract those high penalties. … I think what's important here is to make sure that you've got a good contractor agreement in place. Again, like the casuals, it isn't… it is about the totality of the relationship, but making sure your contract outlines the right details to clarify for both parties what that working relationship should look like, and making sure that that is that one of a genuine contract. contractor nature. … There's also some new opt-out provisions, as I'll quickly mention. That's new in the Act, to say that if somebody's owning over the high income threshold, which is about $183,000, just over that, then you can invite a contractor to opt out of the contract, of the… Independent contracting, workers' rights. Because there's also introduced unfair contract terms, so there's now some provisions within the Act to allow contractors to seek, the input from the Commission to have unfair terms set aside, so if they're earning under that one. Send it. So things about if a term's harsh, unjust, or unreasonable, if the remuneration is seen as not meeting minimum standards. The Commission does have the ability to introduce orders in relation to this. There haven't been any orders released yet, given its newer provisions, but I guess that can be a bit of a watch, this space. So our hot topic for today, right to disconnect, because it's the 26th of August, and small businesses, the right to disconnect has come in today. So the right to disconnect is about, a employee's right to refuse contact outside of work, place. This causes a lot of confusion, because it's not so much about saying you can't contact employees. for years. as it is… actually, the way it's introduced in the Act is that it's preventing an employer from taking negative action, so that adverse action against an employee for the refusal to accept that contact. So, you know, if you're trying to reach out to casuals, that kind of thing, that's actually, okay. You can reach out to people. If they don't respond to that attempted contact, however, the protection is then for the employee that if that… unless that contact was considered reasonable, which we'll talk about in a second, then you wouldn't be able to take any negative action against them. There's also some built, some additional wording around this in the Social Community Award as well. So, what is reasonable? When is it reasonable? When is it not reasonable? This is always definitely a challenging one, because it's not a black and white rule, it's about the situation, it's about your business's circumstances and the employee's circumstances, and how they overlap. You can see here a few things you would take into consideration when determining that. So why are you trying to contact? How has contact been made? You know, what is the level of disruption? What is the, compensation, for them if they are contacted? Particularly if it's, like, on-call work or something like that. The person's role and responsibilities, is there an expectation there that they would be contactable outside of work, and generally with that comes additional remuneration. And of course, the employee's personal circumstances. So the big, thing you can do to assist your business here is build this into policy. Position descriptions, those sorts of things, because when it comes to what's reasonable, it often comes down to the specifics of how your business operates. So. Reflecting on that and building that into policy in advance sets those expectations with you and the employee as to when they would likely receive contact, and when your expectation would be that they respond to that contact, versus when they can pick up that contact at another time. The other part to this, which isn't, included in the Fair Work Act, is the health and safety obligations. So this is where our health and safety laws then come into place. So psychosocial hazards, there's… have introduced a code of practice. This is a growing area of the work health and safety legislation. Our duty of care remains the same. We have the duty of care to make sure that employees who work with us, or anyone at our sites, if we're physical locations, are safe. It's being more, it's becoming more and more important that it's not just the physical risks of the workplace, or the big psychological risks, it's the psychosocial risks as well, which is, I think, particularly important to the nature of that social and community, work does. They're often working with, well, they're working with people, they're working with clients generally. They can be working… interacting with many members of the public. So it's important to be thinking about these things, and building this into your work health and safety audits. Check-ins with staff, and having appropriate policies in place for this. Another absolutely great tool, is some sort of EAP in place. Looking into options, they don't always have to be super high-cost EAPs, having something to provide to employees, for them to get the assistance that they need. Yeah. Now, this obviously overlapping with our right to disconnect, because some of the risks that can be involved, if it's high-pressure work, if there's lots of contact… contact that are happening outside of the workplace, if there's role overload, unachievable deadlines. These are things that contribute to those psychosocial hazards. Roster and compliance, so, couple of things just highlighting from the SHADS Awards, so we've got 3 hours per shift as that minimum engagement we touched on. 8 hours maximum per day, so you're looking at overtime outside of that, but it can go up to 10 by agreement. Break entitlements, so meal… making sure you've got meal breaks, tea breaks. A really big one that I see is the breaks between shifts. So there's actually a requirement to have a 10-hour break between one shift ending and a new starting. It can be taken down to 8 hours, if that's in connection with a sleepover. That is a really tricky rostering challenge. But making sure that the people who are developing the roster or the systems that you have support that. And then client cancellations as well, that's always a big one. So, if a shift is canceled. And that occurs within 7 days. They're a full-time, part-time employee. Then there's provisions to allow that employee to do make-up hours, you can direct them to do other work, or you can direct them to do make-up hours for that. Making sure that they've got 12 hours notice, making sure that that's. Ross said at least 7 days notice, unless they agree to something else. And that that's completed within 6 weeks. So that's an important one if you do get clients who canceled because, you know, you want to be able to move those hours, rather than having to pay for time that's not worked. So pitfalls that we see happen when it comes to, compliance and rostering, is inaccurate record keeping, so there's quite a lot that's required to be kept for employees under the regulations. Failure to include break periods, so making sure you've got those meal breaks or rest pauses. Not applying broken shifts correctly, so they can get quite complicated. You can have two periods of work with one unpaid break, or you can have three periods of work with two unpaid break. They need… it can't go over a span of more than 12 hours. Otherwise, again, you can trigger, overtime. Incorrectly identifying something as overtime versus penalty rates. Penalty rates is when they can be working as a shift worker, and during nights or mornings, or that kind of thing, versus overtime when they're working outside of their ordinary hours. And another one being, travel, not paying travel time, and kilometre reimbursement credit. If they're using their vehicle. So there's a lot I've just said, so how can you manage all of those? Well, you can look at, you know, making sure you've got a good balance of the right permanent staff in the right areas, and then the casual, staff with that. … Audit your rostering regularly to make sure that you've got the right things in place, so you're not, accidentally accruing some overtime or penalties that you don't need to. Publish rosters early, because that means that it's easier for you to resolve any availability issues if they do pop up. You know. having a platform for employees to be able to bid on any shifts outstanding, that means that people who want the work and are seeking the work can put their hands up and say, yeah, I want to take it. And, you know, having a rostering a policy in place could be very helpful as well, so when can they expect to see their roster? Do they have to raise issues? You can do this, ideally, through optimizing your rosters with software solutions. So, let's face it, the Social Community and Home Care and Disability Services Award is complex. It's one of the most complex awards that, you know, we have to work with in our HR careers. So looking at getting the right systems in place, there's a lot of systems on the market, they're quite competitive, they're often introducing new features. If you do need some assistance with that, then, you know, you can, reach out to Effective HR, We've got some members in our team who are so smart and know so much about the different systems out there and can help you compare and make sure that you're getting what you want. That's enough talking from me, thank you so much. I'm gonna now hand over to Emma, who's gonna give you a bit of a recap.

Effective HR: Amazing. Thank you so much, Emma. That was such fantastic and valuable information. So we bring it back to that so what factor. Why does this all manage… why does this matter? Effective engagement and rostering practices, they ultimately do form the backbone of a sustainable workforce strategy, and they can directly impact your service delivery, your employees' well-being, financial performance, so many different areas of an organization. Some key questions to ask yourself as an employer or manager within your organization are things such as, do your employment contracts clearly reflect that type of engagement and the irrelevant award terms? Are you confident that you're meeting your obligations around casual conversion, and ultimately avoiding the risk of sham contracting? It's a constantly evolving space, and there are a lot of considerations that need to be taken into account when we make these types of assessments. You know, when we look at our rosters, are they designed with compliance front of mind, looking at all the different provisions of the award? And if you're covered under SHADS, you know that there are many, everything from minimum breaks, broken shifts, sleepovers. We've also just had a couple of weeks ago the major federal case that has the potential to have major changes when it comes to sleepovers, and how the shifts before and after those sleepover periods are paid. Still waiting to see if the Fair Work Ombudsman is going to appeal that case, but does have the potential for major changes. If we do see those changes, rosters and payroll systems will need to be updated accordingly. Other questions. When we look at our psychosocial hazards and right to disconnect. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of policies. Every single business is different, so you want to ensure that you're defining what is reasonable communication outside of an employee's ordinary working hours for your business. What will be reasonable for one business will be completely different to another business, so that's why it's so important to be specific. If you're defining it in writing through your policies, you're going to safeguard the business against any potential miscommunication, because you're being completely transparent around those expectations. When we look at our system setup, are they compliant, are they efficient? The goal of HR payroll systems and CRMs is hopefully to make your life easy, by having that clear integration and just streamlining your processes. And I guess, you know, looking at all of these questions, there's so many questions that we can ask, but if they do highlight any gaps, I would be more than happy to discuss any potential solutions and looking at the specific needs of your organization. Now, before we quickly jump into the Q&A, if you haven't heard of us before, we are a company, Effective HR, and if you do want to look at continuing to receive support beyond today's session. I'll just give a quick overview of, where we have our specialization. We're a HR and IR consulting. We support businesses across Australia, and we have expertise in HR, work health and safety, payroll compliance, and a very strong focus, and expertise in the SHAD sector. We work very closely with employers, to very much simplify compliance and just put in really practical, solutions and have that ongoing support. We do this through two different service models, HR on Demand, which very much gives you direct access to a dedicated consultant to ultimately avoid the frustration of speaking to multiple advisors and having conflicting advice, which, if you've ever been in that boat, can… Definitely not be a very fun process. And then the service is on a pay-per-hour basis, so very flexible, there's no lock-in contracts or long-term agreements, we just work on an hourly rate. We do have another option, which is HR Partner, and this is more of a structured year-round solution, and it includes essentially everything. Unlimited HR support, legal representation in front of the Fair Work Commission, contracts, policies, and importantly, the updating of those documents, because As we all know, the legislation is constantly changing and evolving, so that's our job, to give you that sleep at night factor and ensure that those documentation never becomes out of gate. Hr Partner is very much a proactive, consistent, support model to ensure that HR is never a burden, that you've got that sleep at night factor. Now, we've had so many questions already come through, so we'll answer some more questions now. Please pop them in the chat. If we don't get round to your questions, or you'd like to take them offline, the QR code on the screen will give you the opportunity to fill in your details in the Contact Us section, and Happy to organize a consultation to answer any of your specific HR or award questions. Alright, Emma, are you ready for some questions?

Emma Dawson: Sorry!

Effective HR: Oh, gosh, where are we? … Just having a quick look, quick refresh of myself. Okay, so we've had a question around the Shads Award. for an administrative project coordinator role, working remotely 3 days a week from home. Not using… oh, great question, and this is, a, you know, really interesting one when we look at administration and clerical work, and, if you haven't joined us in our… we've done… this is our third webinar with Checkup. Our first webinar, we covered SHADS fundamentals, and our second webinar, we covered advanced Shads Insights, and we covered, a lot of the nuancy components of the Shards Award, including clerical and administration coverage. So, please reach out for a link to the recording if you haven't got access, because it's very, very valuable, to gain those insights into the award. In a nutshell, not, unfortunately, a simple answer when we look at coverage. We do have to take into a few considerations, including factors such as which stream do we fall under, are we under home care? Are we under social and community services? And understand a little bit more around the duties and responsibilities, and if there is that direct connection with that administration project coordinator with service delivery, or if it's more, you know, a role working from home that's maybe just doing payroll processing. So we have to look at, quite a few different factors, and we look at our classifications to determine if we have appropriate coverage under the SHADS Award, or potentially if we're looking at an occupational award like the Clerk's Private Sector. Fair Work have recently taken a quite popular article of their Fair Work library around coverage for Clerical employees. So once again, it's an evolving space, and definitely needs to be assessed on an individual basis, based on a few different factors that we would need to take into account. Sorry, Emma, I just went straight ahead and answered that question.

Emma Dawson: Oh, it's so good!

Effective HR: You covered it. Okay, so… We've had another question, temporary fixed term versus permanent contract. Are there rules around how long an employee can be on a temporary contract? For example, multiple temporary fixed-term contracts over a number of years. Also, can a permanent employee be downgraded to a temporary contract? Oh, I love this question. Also, another area we've seen changes in with the legislation. Do you want to take this one, Emma?

Emma Dawson: Yeah, sure. Yeah, it was, not too long ago that these changes have come into effect to say that you can have, two years maximum for the fixed-term contract, or you can… and you can only have two successive fixed-term contracts, so whichever's the greatest of that. So if you did one for six months, and then one for a year, you could only have a year and a half. But if you did two… one years, that's your two contracts end your two years, or you could just have one contract for two years. There are a few exceptions, there are some, you know, where that wouldn't apply, but that's kind of the general rule in terms of the multiple contracts, so that is something that you probably want to look at avoiding, ideally, though there's a lot of funding in the social and community, industry, so I know that that can be complicated at times. … for permanent employees being downgraded to temporary contracts, I would gen… I would say that would likely not be, at the employer's discretion. However, if you were advertising at, say, a new role, and you hadn't a permanent employee who really wanted to go for that role, and they sought they wish to apply for that, then they could be changed. I'll avoid downgraded, but they could be changed to a temporary contract if that's the change that they're seeking, and that can genuinely come about at times. Their service would probably… would still be considered continuous, though obviously at the end of that contract, depending on what's happening, you'll need to be clear with that person as to whether they'll return to their substantive position. Their permanent position, or if there'll be no position available for them after that temporary contract.

Effective HR: Yeah, and just to add, you know, to that as well, another statement as well that goes out is the fixed-term information statement. So if you do have employees on a temporary, fixed-term, full-time, or part-time contract, really, really important to provide that fixed-term information statement. You know, your main risk is really going to be around the contract in itself will become invalid if it's not meeting the legal obligations defined under Fair Work, and we could also see potential risk of things like unfair dismissal claims or adverse action. If the employee's rights are being, breached. So, we have recently seen updates, to the Fair Work legislation quite recently this year around exemptions, so it is an evolving space as well, to definitely monitor, but very important to adhere to. Can we terminate staff who are on probation who take too many days off? I love this question, too. Tina, Emma, would you like to have the answer?

Emma Dawson: Yeah, sure. Oh, it's a tough one, Tina. I feel for every business owner for these situations, because it can be just very, very frustrating. Look, the quickest answer is no, but… You really do have to look at the circumstances, and again, this is where policies and procedures can come in really handy. I tend to find that employees who are in probation, taking a lot of time off, and it's not genuine, are also normally not following the correct policies and procedures. And in that aspect, you can focus in on that. If all the policies and procedures are being followed, it's a genuine reason for the absence, you know, like I'm talking, you know, an illness or something like that, then, that, you know, they would likely be protected, and you wouldn't be able to terminate. If it's a situation of them just applying for leave, then again, policy is going to come in there, you know, when can they take leave? Do you, as a business, approve unpaid leave? And the systems, too, to back that. You know, when did they apply? Who approved it? In terms of taking time off. Yeah, it's a tough one.

Effective HR: It is. It is a very tricky one, and one we come across, quite regularly, employees just taking too much leave, particularly personal carers leave, because as we all know, it can be very easy to get medical certificate these days. Sometimes they get handed out like lollies. But, you know, what it comes back down to is it is a statutory entitlement, personal carers leave, and we do take action directly as a result. It can be deemed adverse action and bring those general protections risks. However, the thing to keep in mind is that there's always different options and avenues when it comes to termination. There's never one avenue. Whether you want to look at fair work processes or commercial, we start with, well, what's your objective? What are our options that are going to be available? What are the pros, cons, and risks associated with it? And, you know, what the job of a HR advisor is to give you all of that information so that you're fully equipped to make a decision that works best for your organization. Leah's question around, worker time travel and reimbursement for kilometres, assuming we're looking at the SHADS Award here. This is a really great question, one as well we cover… oh, I believe it's in our… Oh, which webinar is it? Is it the first or the second? I'm going to say the first webinar we did on fundamentals. To summarize this in a nutshell, when we're traveling from home to the first client, the obligation of employer, you do not need to cover that travel time, kilometres. However. If we get to client A, and then we're going to client B, C, and D in a day, that time and that travel, is compensated for, so the employee is paid. There are some… factors that we need to take into consideration, like our, you know, how long is that time? Are broken shifts coming into play? So we do have to actually look at it in a little bit more detail to be able to give that specific advice, but on a very, very high level, basis, the time from home to client A is not. The time between clients is, and then the last client to home is not. Because at the end of the day, you know, we've seen cases whereby, you know, we don't know what that employee is doing on the road, you know, from that last client home, are they stopping off at, you know, to pick up some wine or going out for dinner? You know, we don't know what they're doing in that time, so it's generally not compensated for. Now, we might wrap up there, because we are a little bit over time today, but thank you so much, everyone, for joining us on our webinar this afternoon. As I mentioned at the start, the webinar is recorded, so we will be sharing this To… to every registration, today. Please feel free to share it with your team if it would be valuable to them, and if you do have any other questions. After today's session, please reach out. Thank you!