Pub­li­ca­tions

Mar 12, 2014

Can a Change in Required Skills and Com­pe­ten­cies Make an Exis­tent Role Redundant?

IN BRIEF The Full Bench of the Fair Work Com­mis­sion has recent­ly con­clud­ed that where an employ­er wants to increase the skill lev­el of a par­tic­u­lar role for oper­a­tional based rea­sons, it may do so by mak­ing the exist­ing posi­tion redun­dant and replac­ing it with a new posi­tion that meets the busi­ness­es oper­a­tional…

Feb 13, 2014

Con­tro­ver­sial com­care case draws a line for work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion claims

In Brief In a deci­sion which has divid­ed legal opin­ion, the High Court has made a rul­ing as to what is meant by the expres­sion ​“in the course of employ­ment”. The High Court con­sid­ered this expres­sion in the case of Com­care v PVYW [2013] HCA 41 in the con­text of a work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion claim brought by…

Aug 14, 2013

The Vir­gin Look Book: Can you con­trol the appear­ance of your employees?

In Brief One issue com­mon­ly faced by employ­ers is get­ting employ­ees to com­ply with dress and groom­ing stan­dards, and when an employ­ee choos­es not to or can­not com­ply, deter­min­ing what their options are. This was the sce­nario faced by Vir­gin Air­lines with one of its cab­in staff, a Mr David Tales­ki, whose employ­ment…

Aug 14, 2013

A Prac­ti­cal Guide to Warn­ings in the Workplace

What is a work­place warning? A warn­ing is a com­mu­ni­ca­tion be it ver­bal (more infor­mal) or writ­ten (more for­mal) to an employ­ee about their per­for­mance or con­duct at work. They are a mech­a­nism for com­mu­ni­cat­ing an iden­ti­fied area where an employ­ee needs improve­ment, or where con­duct does not meet the req­ui­site stan­dard. The aim is…

Jul 17, 2013

The dos and don’ts when ter­mi­nat­ing employees

In Brief How you ter­mi­nate an employ­ee can be a mine­field, with many employ­ers find­ing them­selves before the Fair Work Com­mis­sion because they got it wrong. A claim for unfair dis­missal is an acces­si­ble and cheap process for many employ­ees which can end up cost­ing employ­ers a lot of time and mon­ey. This arti­cle…

May 8, 2013

Swear­ing at work — can it cost you your job?

In Brief What is appro­pri­ate and inap­pro­pri­ate con­duct in the work­place is con­stant­ly evolv­ing. Whether swear­ing is regard­ed as offen­sive is often informed by the con­text, the type of swear­ing and the audi­ence. The ques­tion of whether swear­ing at work can cost you your job is a high­ly rel­e­vant one. Sev­er­al cas­es…