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So when it comes to workplace

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compliance, if you fall short of your obligations,

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one of the things that we’re very cognizant of is

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it may not even impact you or your business in the short term.

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So often we’re told by clients that they really never had a problem

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with a disgruntled employee or any contact

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or audits from the Fair Work Ombudsman.

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So when considering a workplace relations review, I think it’s really easy to see

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why some businesses will take the attitude of if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

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So what would you say to a business who’s never had a call

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or an email from the ombudsman or a challenging employee

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dispute?

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Well, that’s where the term the rainy day

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policies sort of do come in play If a business hasn’t got

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policies and

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procedures in which it operates under,

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they could be setting unfair precedents from case A to case B

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they could manage with their first issue, just winging it through the process,

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maybe getting it right, maybe getting close to the point.

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But then they could get to the second process and do it completely different.

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That second case actually then has a contest for procedural

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fairness about, well, how come Person A was treated differently to person B?

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Did A business have policies in place and therefore did they follow them?

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Which is that common point of procedural fairness.

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A good handbook is to set the scene of what an employee should be

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and how they how that good employee should be operating

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and keeping it down to the basics of the pieces of the fair Work Act.

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If a business then wants to go into how to do manuals or operation manuals,

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how to do your job, or your position descriptions,

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then they should be kept different again from the policy manual

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in a separate operations manual, separate job descriptions, and again,

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all of these outside of the contract because business needs to change,

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business needs to evolve, and businesses should review their policies yearly

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especially in consultation with their employees.

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There was one case that I did go through with the client where

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they done everything by their policy.

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They implemented their policy.

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They told their employees when they first started,

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but three years later, they had a sexual harassment case.

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The business was found partly liable

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at the end because, yes, they had the policies in place, but

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they hadn’t refreshed their employees knowledge on the policy.

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It was implemented three years ago.

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A lot of the staff have been there a lot longer than that policy

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and there’s no sort of rework on modern

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reviews of that.

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So the business could have done more in its powers to prevent that from happening?

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If they did a couple of workshops with revisions throughout the year,

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at least once a year

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on their policies, procedures in toolbox talks and things like that.

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So having policies is that protection piece

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that a business can go through challenges when it hits them,

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as well as ensure consistency throughout their procedures.

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And again, ensuring they’re meeting their workplace

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obligations as best possible.

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Yeah.

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The other piece on a piece on that is

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when it comes to more of the compliance side

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so moving away from the policies & procedures when it comes to minimum rates

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when it comes to award coverage, etcetera, I think that

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even if you don’t do the work right now

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and you have not had a call from the Fair Work Ombudsman,

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when there is a call from the Fair Work Ombudsman and you’ve got it wrong,

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the issue or the amount that you maybe

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may potentially be liable for compounds,

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I think there’s a 6 year liability period.

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Is that right?

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Statute of limitations is for up to six years.

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Basically the powers in which

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the ombudsman can investigate an underpayment of claim

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for the underpayment, claim for the employee.

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And if

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you navigate that or manage that yourself, an employee could technically

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ask you to look at ten years if you would do that internally.

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But if it went through to the Ombudsman, that would be in the statute

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on the six years.

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So it’s really important that, okay, well you’ve got things in place

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and you may think things are sound for now, but

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have they been always been sound and are they always

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or are they going to remain sound with the changes?

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National minimum wage went up the highest it’s ever gone up in the last ten years.

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12 years, sorry, from the Fair Work Act.

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And we’re probably going to look at another big increase

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next year, not as big as the 5.2%

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for the lower sectors of the wages and 4.6% in the awards.

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But it still might be quite another big one.

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So if people are above reward or if they are wrong, classification

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or if they’re under the wrong award, the salaries

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that people are getting may come under fire

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and might be a lot closer to being on minimum wage than you think they are.

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And I think

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the point really to drive home here is not only that the six year

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statute of limitations that Jason just covered,

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but if you make a wrong assessment regarding a pay rate

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or award classification,

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not only can the ombudsman go back six years,

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but multiply that by five, ten, 15, 20 employees.

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However many employees are impacted by this assessments,

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it really drives home to me

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the importance of this workplace relations review.

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It’s better to do the hard work upfront rather than face the compounded

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or potential compounded ramifications at a later date.