Know what you need to know

As HR Consultants, Bare Bones Consulting works with employers across a wide variety of industries. We find SME owners typically to be experts in their own particular field but often, not in other specialised areas such as finance, legal, health and safety…or human resources.

Oftentimes, owners simply don’t know what they need to know in certain fields and, particularly in HR, that’s understandable…many elements of employment are complex, time consuming and frankly, batsh*t boring.

Given the complexity of employment legislation, it can be tempting to let HR slide or simply plan to address it “when things get a little quieter”. And while this might be understandable, the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) often takes a punitive stance to employers they feel are wilfully non-compliant.

Recently, FWO secured a $115,668 penalty against a Gold Coast security company owner for failing to comply with workplace rights.

There’s a myriad of employment compliance obligations that require an employer to ask some basic questions of their HR function. These include:

1. Am I aware of the modern awards (if any) which may cover and apply to my employees?
2. Am I aware of the National Employment Standards (NES) which apply from 1 January 2010?
3. Am I aware of my obligations with respect to:

• requests for flexible working arrangements?
• a casual employee requesting conversion to full time employment?
• notice of termination?
• redundancy pay?

If you’re not sure you know what you need to know around HR, Bare Bones Consulting makes things simple for you. We know what’s required for Fair Work Act compliance as well as how to manage your business risk around matters such as employee underperformance, records keeping and unfair dismissal. We’re happy to help out with a single matter or provide advice on structuring your entire HR function so it works perfectly for your business, people and operating environment.

Having an initial chat with Bare Bones Consulting costs you nothing. What you’ll take away is an understanding of what’s required for compliance and what’s possible for your business. Then you make the decision whether we’re the right Consultants to work with you. And that small investment of your time may pay back big time in the long run. Call us today or contact us here.