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Our workplace relations review is a lot more than just, I guess, award coverage

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and pay rates and, you know, contractors, employees, all these sorts of things.

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The other part of our essential part of our Workplace Relations

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review is to create or revise policies and procedures,

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documentation for clients.

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And often we’re told that they may already have a comprehensive manual in place.

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So in your view, why is it so important to review these

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or even to have these types of documents in place in the first place?

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Well, some people think that policies and procedures

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are set and forget or rainy day sort of procedures.

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What you want to do is have a good set of policies and procedures

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in the business that guide the employee on how to be a good employee.

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That is basically what it is.

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What are the good ways in which a employee

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would conciliate with the business to seek their entitlements?

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How do they apply for annual leave?

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What is good, performance what is poor performance,

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or what is misconduct in these policies?

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A business that carries

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too many policies or complex policies

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Policies that look like scientifically drafted documents

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could become too complex to operate with

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policies that become very rigid

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and say that you’ve got to go through multiple steps in order.

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Multiple forms of documents have got to be filled in.

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Could make it too strenuous for business to go through certain processes

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when a a policy that’s

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drafted to the needs of the business to sort of the environmental

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the climate that you work in could be a lot more easy to operate.

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Traditionally, people think that it’s three strikes,

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you’re out type of a disciplinary conduct sort of piece.

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So if your policy says that you have verbal warnings, first warning, second

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and third and final warnings and things like that, you could be potentially

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keeping your employee a lot longer than you necessarily have to.

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What we look at when we draft policies for

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the business is getting to know

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what is a business’s working style with how they relate to their employees.

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What are some common trends that have been in the business

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previously about how they conciliate on certain matters?

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And I sort of pick apart the the employer’s

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processes

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to help understand how should that policy be drafted?

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Do they need something that’s rigid?

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Do they need something

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that’s got flexibility in it?

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Do they need

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certain policies that other businesses wouldn’t carry

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because of the diversity of their employees?

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A couple of policies I’ve used recently are cultural

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leave for some of our clients

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with the original Australian

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workforce working for them.

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They’ve got a lot more types of leave

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that would be Sorry, Their family is not necessarily a direct family.

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They culture.

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The people in their community are their family.

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So taking bereavement leave for someone in their family who’s

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a respected elder, they would consider that bereavement leave,

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but we would consider that as annual leave the Fair Work Act.

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So it’s about ensuring that the policies are shaped to include the workforce,

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that they’re to be relevant

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to the times and can help a business

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manage through that process.

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We’ve checked off all the obligations under the Fair Work Act.

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or WHS Act whatever it may be.

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I think my summary

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of what I understand of what you’ve just covered is policies

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and procedures are in an enablement document

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to be able to enable the business to carry out their business

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in the way that they want.

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But one of the one of the things that we need to be conscious of is

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we don’t want the policies and procedures to be restrictive

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of the business, to carry out the business in the way that they want.

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And anything that’s additional that we’re providing

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to our employees

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that we’re not obligated to potentially can be included

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in the policies and procedures document,

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such as the bereavement leave that you mentioned.

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And one

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of the reasons why we aim to do this in a policies and procedures manual

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as opposed to an employment contract, is, again, a policies and procedures

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manual can be amended by the business without mutual agreement by the employee.

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So again, it’s about maintaining that flexibility to carry out

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the business operation in a way that is not restrictive.

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And creating those additional obligations

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such as the three strike policy that you mentioned,

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makes it very challenging when it comes to things like performance management.

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So it’s important to get these things right.

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And that’s why we’ve included as part of our workplace relations review.