The Latest from Kristy-Lee

At the time of writing this particular article, the Fair Work Commission has handed down its decision following the Annual Minimum Wage Review process. The process involves the Commission reviewing submissions from various interested parties, including employer and employee representative groups, as well as analysing data relating to wages, such as changes to cost of living and alike.

Essentially, they are looking to ensure that the minimum wages set out in the Fair Work Act, including the National Minimum Wage, as well as al Award minimum rates of pay, is set at an appropriate level for our economic conditions.

What we typically see is that each year the National Minimum Wage, and all Award minimum rates of pay, will increase by a fixed percentage, and this increase has always taken place 1 July that year.

However, COVID-19 last year gave rise to ‘exceptional circumstances’ which allowed the Commission to make the determination, but alter how this was rolled out, especiall...

In a recent report our of Swinburne University, entitled “The Peak Human Workplace Report”, it was revealed that 3 in 4 Australian workers surveyed were wanting to learn new skills in the workplace in the next 12 months, yet currently more than half of those surveyed participate in less than an hour of learning at work on any given week.

Based on this, amongst other researching finding similar statistics, it seems clear that the majority of workplaces across a broad cross section of our economy, are failing to deliver the level of training, skills acquisition and learning that our workforce is craving.

So why this thirst for knowledge, and why now? And perhaps more front centred for many business owners, when did the responsibility for learning shift from being individual and employee driven, to be the responsibility of the employer? The Swinburne University report helps us understand this a little better, as they found that three in five workers are concerned that their curren...

No less than once a week I’ll get a call, or question online, that goes a little like “I have a problem with a staff member, they are getting their job done but they aren’t being a great team member, I can’t quite put my finger on it but every time I raise an issue with them they have an excuse, there is always some reason things haven’t gone to plan”. Does this sound familiar to you? Have you had someone like this on your team before?

Sure enough, after a few questions my typical conclusion is – you have someone who is below the line. What line? Great question!

I first became aware of this framework probably about 10-15 years ago, I’d heard about it conceptually but when I really noticed this as a powerful framework for teams when I worked with a business who really embraced the concept so much that their team used the language in their day to day operations – this is when I really started to pay attention to this concept.

Who conceptualised this idea seems uncertain, despite...

We all know the feeling, we’re losing sleep, we’re avoiding the person at work, we’re angry, frustrated and tearing our hair out. We have an employee who is not performing, or not showing up how we want them to at work.

We can’t always quite put our finger on the exact issue, it’s just not quite right, but it’s wrong enough to be consuming our time and attention. Or maybe it is more obvious, but we feel like we’re going over the top if we bring it up – we don’t want them to feel like we are micromanaging them or pulling them up for something that feels petty and insignificant (yet the fact that it’s consuming our time and attention does in fact mean that at some level it is significant to us).

So we tolerate it, whether it’s behaviour, attendance, performance or something else, we tolerate it. We think maybe it’s not that much of a big deal, or maybe it’ll be short term, or surely they will realise soon and fix it!

Here’s the thing – your employees won’t suddenly realise th...

Whether we love it or hate it, there is no doubt that for many of us the way our teams work has forever changed. For many of you it’s likely that your once 100% on site team is a mix of remote, on site and combination workers, and for others you have switched to a predominantly remote model.

In my opinion, what’s happened was always destined to happen, we have just fast tracked the process by 10 + years. Employees have been crying out for the opportunity to have more flexibility in where they work for too long. Work from home requests getting met with rejection after rejection, and the rules attached to them, were seeing increased frustration, and the companies who could embrace it were, in some industries, winning the talent war.

But the reality is most businesses weren’t offering it as an option, or even allowing it when there was seemingly no other alternative, so employees didn’t have the choice, they were stuck in roles, or not able to work to full capacity, or choosing ot...