Managing business risk

How will changing employment laws affect your small business?

The end of this year will see the Government’s next wave of workforce reforms – which will impact all business owners, regardless of the size or type of your business.

It is critically important you understand how the changes will affect your business and start getting your business in order to minimise risk.

And you need to do that now to make sure you are prepared.

The changes, a summary:

	Reduced safety net for businesses employing less than 100 employees.
	If you don’t have in-house expertise to manage compliance with employment law – speak to your Count Adviser about a solution to ensure you better manage your risk.
	Be aware! The fines or litigation will be equal to that experienced by big business – no business will be exempt which is why business owners need to act now.

How will you manage your risk?

Start by asking yourself these critically important questions:

1.	Do you have legally compliant written employment contracts?
2.	Do you update your contracts when you make changes to employment terms and conditions e.g. when promoting?
3.	Do you have workplace rules and policies describing the behaviour that is expected of your employees?
4.	Do you have simple yet effective workplace processes for hiring and exiting?
5.	Do you have a disciplinary procedure which has been clearly communicated to all your employees?
6.	Do you keep appropriate, up-to-date employee records?

Getting organised.
It is sound business practice to manage people fairly by having well documented processes and procedures in place that deal with such critical issues.

In any dispute or disagreement the first place you’ll turn to is the ‘paperwork’ – so you need to get your paperwork in order now!

The importance of committing such matters to writing cannot be over–estimated. So, pay particular attention to:

1.	Employment agreements
2.	Terms of employment
3.	Code of Conduct
4.	Workplace Policies
5.	Probation periods
6.	Performance reviews, and
7.	Warnings

Want to know more?

Speak to your Count Adviser about our partnership with Workforce Guardian – a new service available to help you stay on top of your workplace compliance.

Workforce Guardian is Australia’s most comprehensive inexpensive online employment relations service that helps employers navigate confusing employment law in order to properly hire, manage and exit employees.

With a partnership with Count, Workforce Guardian also offers business owners:

	Fully compliant Employment Contracts and Independent Contractor Agreements – easy and quick to create using an interview style format,
	Step-by-step employment processes and legally compliant document templates such as employee evaluation forms and employee termination forms,
	Central and secure round the clock storage of sensitive employee information,
	Expert employment relations advice when needed,
	Verified by Clayton Utz and available via the web 24/7.

 

As at 29 August, 2008