Employment Law Fundamentals
17 April 2008

This program will provide you with current information on employment contracts, legislation, awards and agreements as well as other employee entitlements.  It will also help you identify the current legal obligations of employers towards employees and will provide you with practical strategies for ensuring your company adheres to these legal requirements in the development, execution and termination of employment contracts.

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Effective Recruitment and Selection
29 April 2008

People are the greatest asset to any business, but finding the right person for the job is not always easy. In today’s business environment, ensuring your recruitment procedures comply with legal requirements and basic HR principles is just as important as finding the right person.  This program will improve your knowledge and understanding of recommended methods for recruitment and selection.

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Making the transition to manager or supervisor means dealing with new responsibilities and relationships. Additional training and support during this transition can help reduce stress, increase confidence and facilitate better performance.

Outcomes

This program provides an excellent overview and introduction to the basic management skills required of new managers and supervisors. You will also develop a practical action plan to suit your individual and organisational needs.

Content

• role of the new manager or supervisor
• managing collaboratively
• communicating effectively
• recruiting staff and introducing them to your organisation
• how to manage difficult people
• implementing basic health and safety guidelines
• understanding HR principles
• feeling good about delegating tasks
• productivity improvement and managing change
• developing an action plan

Who should attend?

Newly appointed managers or supervisors - particularly those without prior formal training.

Duration: Two days

Dates: 29-30 April 2008

Course times: 8.30am - 4.30pm (8.15am registration)

Program fee: $677 members; $827 non-members (Prices include GST on lunch component only)

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This course will assist you in determining the practical impact of your awards and agreements and to understand their interaction with other legislation.

Outcomes

Through the use of practical exercises and real life examples, this program will help you understand the application of your specific award or registered agreement and its interaction with legislation, including the impact of amendments to the Federal Workplace Relations system. It will show you how to interpret essential award principles and how to identify and avoid common problems associated with the interpretation of awards and agreements.

Content

• contracts of employment
• industrial awards/ notional agreements preserving state awards
• respondency
• area
• scope
• agreements
• hours and overtime
• minimum employee entitlements 
• leave entitlements 
• contract of service, termination and redundancy

Who should attend?

Managers, Supervisors, Payroll Administrators and Human Resource Professionals

Note: It is important that attendees to this course bring a copy of their applicable award or agreement.

Duration: One day

Date: 2 May 2008

Course times: 8.30am - 4.30pm (8.15am registration)

Program fee: $363 members; $495 non-members (Prices include GST on lunch component only)

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Measuring consistent performance to required standards is a key requirement in quality assured workplaces. This course is designed to provide you with the skills and knowledge to plan, organise and gather quality evidence to accurately assess on–the-job skills performance.

The course aims to up-skill people who have responsibility for the delivery of structured training, recognising current competencies, assessing on-the-job skills competence, reporting outcomes and providing effective feedback. If you are currently performing these roles, this course will help you to further expand your knowledge and skills to evaluate and monitor improved demonstration of work skills to agreed benchmarks.

Content

• develop and implement actions to ensure the safety of learners
• determine focus of assessment tools
• prepare the assessment plan
• identify OSH responsibilities / identify hazards and risks
• contextualise and review the assessment plan
• design; develop review and trial assessment tools
• organise assessment requirements
• establish and maintain the assessment environment
• gather quality of evidence
• support the candidate
• make the decision
• communicate the decision
• record and review the assessment process
• participate in assessment validation

Employability Skills

• communicate ideas and information
• work with others and in teams
• solve problems and demonstrate innovative solutions
• use technology effectively
• collect, analyse and organise information
• plan and organise assessment activities
• apply initiative and enterprise
• manage self
• learn new or improve skills - observation, questioning, recording performance

Duration: Three days

Dates: 7-9 May 2008

Course times: 8.30am – 4.30pm (8.15am registration)

Program fee: $880 members; $1088 non-members (Prices include GST on lunch component only)

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Learn more about the purpose and application of common trade terms and become more successful in conducting international transactions involving the sale and purchase of goods.

Outcomes

This program will help you understand why trade terms are used to specify the terms and conditions of international trade contracts. It will also introduce you to the most commonly used trade terms (e.g. FOB, CIF) and to understand the universally accepted definitions of those terms – Incoterms.

Participants will learn how to apply Incoterms to international trade transactions.

Content

• trade terms - why use them?
• incoterms - how to use them
• negotiating the export/import transaction
• choice of terms eg. EXW, FOB, FCA, CFR, CIF, CIP, DDP etc.
• buyer and seller obligations under each term

Duration: Half day

Date: 21 April 2008

Course times: 8.30am - 12.00pm (8.15am registration)

Program fee: $250 members; $300 non-members (Includes a comprehensive reference book)

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People are the greatest asset to any business, but finding the right person for the job is not always easy. In today’s business environment, ensuring your recruitment procedures comply with legal requirements and basic HR principles is just as important as finding the right person.

Outcomes

This program will improve your knowledge and understanding of recommended methods for recruitment and selection. If applied correctly these methods will help you avoid distressing and costly mistakes.

Content

• discrimination legislation 
• recruiting during the skills shortage
• strategic recruitment
• drafting performance standards and selection criteria
• preparing a good job advertisement 
• using appropriate selection tools
• conducting an effective interview
• preparing and commencing the contract
• the importance of a good induction

Who should attend?

Managers, Recruitment Consultants and Human Resources Officers and Managers

Duration: One day

Dates: 29 April 2008

Course times: 8.30am - 4.30pm (8.15am registration)

Program fee: $363 members; $495 non-members  (Prices include GST on lunch component only)

An appeal decision in June 2007, from the Full Bench of the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission, New South Wales Nurses’ Association (on behalf of Colin Prior) v South Eastern Sydney and Illawarra Area Health Service [2007] NSWIRComm 164 highlights the need for employers to be aware that if they are looking to terminate an employee, many factors such as; previous employment history, training provided to the employee, and potential provocation should be examined.

Colin Prior (the ‘employee’) a registered nurse at Garrawarra Centre (the ‘employer’), applied to the Full Bench for relief against his instant dismissal for serious misconduct. The employer had dismissed the employee due to alleged violence towards a resident.

The resident, to whom the alleged assault occurred, was prone to aggressive and violent behaviour and was seriously restricted by a security chair.

The assault involved an altercation in which the resident allegedly lashed out at the employee. The employee reacted by allegedly twisting the residents arm, making contact on the residents head with his hand, and punching the resident.

The employee appealed a previous decision and on review, the Full Bench considered the evidence of the employee and a number of witnesses, and also took into account the following factors:

• the employees six years unblemished employment record;
• the implications of the dismissal on the employees future employment;
• the fact that the aggressive behaviour of the resident provoked a response from the employee, and;
• the resident was not injured in any way (suggesting that the employee’s reaction and response was at an appropriate level).

The Full Bench, on the basis of all evidence considered, concluded that the dismissal of the employee was harsh, unjust and unreasonable in all circumstances. The Full Bench commented that even though the employer failed to provide the 16 hours of mandatory training in the management of difficult and aggressive behaviour (as required by the Department of Health), their view was that nursing staff, teachers, police and prison officers do not need a structured training course to educate them not to assault a person in their care or under their control. It was their belief that this should be self evident and not require formal training.

Although this behaviour is deemed to be self evident by the Full Court,  employers, particularly in the Health industry, should provide structured training to all employees on issues such as the management of difficult staff and aggressive behaviour. It may not be enough in other situations to rely on the common sense of an individual.

Occupational Health and Safety Legislation also requires employers to provide their employees with information, instruction and training necessary to ensure their health and safety requirements are met.

This decision serves as a reminder to all employers to consider all factors when terminating for serious misconduct.

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What makes a dismissal unfair? Recent management surveys reveal that receiving a claim for unfair dismissal is one of the greatest fears for most employers.  The complexity of employment law means that employers and managers require training to avoid costly mistakes.  

Outcomes

This program examines what constitutes a valid reason to end an employment contract and the basic pre-termination procedures necessary to avoid an unfair dismissal claim. In this course we also explore some of the trickier issues concerning termination of employment, including abandonment and termination due to illness and injury. The program bridges the gap between knowing the theory of procedural fairness when counselling and disciplining employees and actually applying it in the workplace.

Content

• valid and invalid reasons for termination
• basic procedural fairness for poor performance and misconduct
• when is a ’resignation’ really a ’dismissal’?
• correct notice and other requirements upon termination
• fair procedures in:
• planning and implementing redundancies
• managing excessive absenteeism and abandonment
• terminating employees on workers’ compensation
• good documentation
• the difference between counselling and discipline
• how to provide effective feedback
• how to run a counselling and discipline meeting

Who should attend?

Human Resources Professionals and Senior Managers

Duration:	Two days
Dates:	12-13 May 2008
Course times:	8.30am - 4.30pm (8.15am registration)
Program fee:	$677 members; $799 non-members  (Prices include GST on lunch component only)

The Australian Government has announced that the Productivity Commission will undertake an inquiry into paid maternity, paternity and parental leave.

The Government’s stated intention is to “explore ways to make it as easy as possible for working mums to balance their employment with the important job of raising a new generation of Australians”.

In undertaking the inquiry the Commission is to:

1. identify the economic, productivity and social costs and benefits of providing paid maternity, paternity and parental leave;
2. explore the extent of current employer provision of paid maternity, paternity and parental leave in Australia;
3. identify paid maternity, paternity and parental leave models that could be used in the Australian context;
4. assess those models for their potential impact on:
• the financial and regulatory cost and benefits on small and medium sized business
• the employment of women, women's workforce participation and earnings and the workforce participation of both parents more generally
• work/family preferences of both parents in the first two years after the child's birth
• the post-birth health of the mother
• the development of young children, including the particular development needs of newborns in their first two years
• relieving the financial pressures on families
5. assess the cost effectiveness of these models;
6. assess the interaction of these models with the Social Security and Family Assistance Systems;
7. assess the impacts and applicability of these models across the full range of employment forms (e.g. including for the self-employed, farmers, shift workers), and;
8. assess the efficiency and effectiveness of government policies that would facilitate the provision and take-up of these models.

The Commission is to report by February 2009.  It has called for submissions by 2 June 2008 and will hold a public hearing in Perth on 29 May 2008.

CCI is preparing a submission in response to the Inquiry and will appear at the public hearing.  Members wishing to discuss the Inquiry or make comment about paid parental leave provisions operating in their workplace should contact Marcia Kuhne on 9365 7699 or email marcia.kuhne@cciwa.com or Jessica Price on 9365 7630 or email jessica.price@cciwa.com.

Western Australia has bucked the trend in April as job advertisements rose in the state by 2.7 per cent, compared to a national drop of 1.7 per cent, a survey says.

The latest SEEK Employment Index, which measures the ratio of new jobs to job applications, fell by 3.3 per cent nationally, seasonally adjusted, in April.

South Australia had the biggest drop of the index, 7 per cent, while New South Wales had a fall of 6.7 per cent.

SEEK sales director Joe Powell said the policies from next week's federal budget would be keenly observed for their effect on the job market and the economy.

"It could be that some employers are waiting to see how they will affected by the Rudd government's first budget before investing in recruiting new staff," Mr Powell said.

New jobs advertised for the month fell by 1.7 per cent in the month, but that was still 18.5 per cent higher than in April last year.

Western Australia continued to ride the mining boom where jobs ads rose by 2.7 per cent in April, and 36.8 per cent higher year on year.

However NSW and the ACT had the biggest falls in new jobs ads for April, 4.4 per cent and 3.5 per cent respectively.

Queensland, 0.8 per cent, and Victoria, 0.2 per cent, posted minimal increases in jobs ads for the month.

Total applications for jobs on SEEK increased in all states during April, up 1.7 per cent nationally.

South Australia rose the most, 7 per cent, with Western Australia up 3.9 per cent and NSW increasing 2.3 per cent.

Mr Powell said South Australia's "most extreme results" were likely to be driven by local factors, including the closure of the Mitsubishi plant in Adelaide.

"The subsequent impact on their employees and suppliers, has resulted in a sudden leap in job applications there," he said.

Professor Peter Sheehan of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Melbourne said Australia was currently in unusual economic circumstances.

"Policy makers face a difficult challenge in dealing effectively with a slowing economy, a resources boom and high inflation," Professor Sheehan said.

"The good news for homeowners is that further increases in interest rates seem unlikely in the short term based on the current economic climate."

Jobs that were the hardest to fill in April were safety inspectors, primary industry services, senior associate solicitors, property valuers and building planners.

The most competitive jobs were packers and fillers, transport warehousing, kitchen hands, banking staff and telephone sales operators.