Adverse Action: The sleeping giant of the Fair Work Act is slowly waking up and will soon be terrorising SMEs everywhere!
Adverse action means that just when you think you’ve dealt with an employee and that a workplace problem has been finalised, it hasn’t.
Adverse action means that just when you think the termination for poor performance has been finalised, it hasn’t.
Adverse action means that just when you think you’ve selected your best candidate and that the recruitment process has now been finalised, it hasn’t.
Adverse action means that just when you think all your managers have been trained effectively in how to treat their staff, they haven’t.
In effect, adverse action can result from any situation where an employee has a workplace right and the exercise of that right is impacted in some way or other by decisions of the employer. More significantly, it can occur when decisions are made on behalf of the employer by staff who don’t fully understand the implications of their decision or have not adequately followed a process which led to the particular decision.
The Fair Work Act contains general protection provisions which state that an employer must not take any adverse action against an employee, or contractor or prospective employee or contractor, because that person has exercised or proposes to exercise a workplace right.
Workplace rights are very broad and include, for example, rights as a union member, the right to make complaints about their employment, the right to enquire about terms and conditions of employment, the right to request flexible work arrangements.
An action is adverse if it affects the employee adversely. Any reasonable or normal action taken by the employer in exercising their role, such as instituting performance management or disciplinary procedures, or implementing a work change, or refusing overtime or TOIL, could be adverse if the employee believes the action was taken because they were exercising a workplace right.
Some examples:
Recent cases heard by Fair Work Australia or dealt with in other jurisdictions have covered situations where managers failed to adequately train staff; where overtime was required without any additional payment; where termination resulted from union activities.
Adverse action claims can be lodged up to 6 years after the event! And the penalties are not limited to, for example, 6 month’s pay for an unfair dismissal. Each breach can result in fines of $33,000 for the organisation and $6,000 FOR INDIVIDUALS.
Oh, and an HR Manager who acts in a way that leads to the adverse action, can also be fined!
Protecting yourself from adverse action complaints requires a disciplined culture of HR and IR compliance: a culture that acknowledges and supports the role of the HR Manager in ensuring line managers adhere to policies and procedures; a culture that trains and supports managers in their decision making and which rewards them accordingly.
Policies and procedures need to be updated and enforced and record keeping needs to be maintained.
HR Managers will need to be especially diligent in ensuring the actions of managers do not lead to claims of adverse treatment: the penalties and consequences are too great.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Just a Million Strokes: Leadership vs Management
Written by Ron Jones for HRiQ
I had spent some time in recent weeks trying to really come to terms with the difference between leadership and management. I know that there are plenty of theoretical and research-based differences about roles, personality types and a range of other key components. What I was looking for was what we as HR practitioners could do to tangibly promote leadership.
And then I attended a presentation by Roz Savage.
For those of you who don’t know, Roz was the first woman to row solo across the Pacific Ocean, having already conquered the Atlantic. In the next few days after her talk, she would set out to conquer the Indian Ocean.
During her presentation, she commented that the first leg of the Pacific was ”just a million strokes." I don’t pretend to know anything about what it is like to embark on such a journey, but it gave me a jolt to think that most of us are overawed by such large numbers and the challenge that this presents.
There was also another realization that struck me: most of us are really good at giving up on something when we don’t like it and then moving onto something else.
But if you’re in the middle of the Pacific, and you’ve only done 350,000 strokes, you can’t give up! Where else would you go? Savage’s journey meant making a huge commitment—and having made the commitment, being prepared to see it through to the end.
Most of us in the workplace get stuck at some point. We give up on the task we are doing and move to something else; we go home and complain about the boss, the work, or something else— although we don’t often complain about ourselves!
A million is a huge number of strokes! Imagine the prospect of waking up each day and repeating the same action 10,000 times before you go to sleep again, only to wake up and do the same thing over, and over, and over.
Savage spoke about what inspired her to make the first solo journey. It was very much a personal exploration – something which took her completely out of the comfort zone of everything that she had done and what she was doing at the time.
It occurred to me that one difference between leadership and management is that management occurs within our comfort zone; true leadership takes us outside of that zone.
Think about the people who most inspire us as leaders. They inspire us because they take that extra step, do something which is counter-intuitive or really put their own interests on the line.
Most of us in HR roles like to play it safe. We rarely step outside of our own comfort zones, and many of us just strive to effectively maintain the status quo in our organizations. We are hardly ever presented with a mandate to take ourselves outside of our defined role, and yet this is precisely what we need to do. We need to challenge many of the assumptions within the organizations we work in. We should constantly be looking for the organizational challenges which not only build our own leadership capacity, but which also provide opportunities for others.
How many of us set out to do our ‘million stroke journey’: to challenge ourselves so completely that we forget what our comfort zone is?
I don’t know what my threshold is. I do know that every now and again, the challenges in the workplace can create ideal experiences to learn more about myself – and if I know that, then perhaps I can use Roz Savage’s example to be more effective as a leader to others.
I had spent some time in recent weeks trying to really come to terms with the difference between leadership and management. I know that there are plenty of theoretical and research-based differences about roles, personality types and a range of other key components. What I was looking for was what we as HR practitioners could do to tangibly promote leadership.
And then I attended a presentation by Roz Savage.
For those of you who don’t know, Roz was the first woman to row solo across the Pacific Ocean, having already conquered the Atlantic. In the next few days after her talk, she would set out to conquer the Indian Ocean.
During her presentation, she commented that the first leg of the Pacific was ”just a million strokes." I don’t pretend to know anything about what it is like to embark on such a journey, but it gave me a jolt to think that most of us are overawed by such large numbers and the challenge that this presents.
There was also another realization that struck me: most of us are really good at giving up on something when we don’t like it and then moving onto something else.
But if you’re in the middle of the Pacific, and you’ve only done 350,000 strokes, you can’t give up! Where else would you go? Savage’s journey meant making a huge commitment—and having made the commitment, being prepared to see it through to the end.
Most of us in the workplace get stuck at some point. We give up on the task we are doing and move to something else; we go home and complain about the boss, the work, or something else— although we don’t often complain about ourselves!
A million is a huge number of strokes! Imagine the prospect of waking up each day and repeating the same action 10,000 times before you go to sleep again, only to wake up and do the same thing over, and over, and over.
Savage spoke about what inspired her to make the first solo journey. It was very much a personal exploration – something which took her completely out of the comfort zone of everything that she had done and what she was doing at the time.
It occurred to me that one difference between leadership and management is that management occurs within our comfort zone; true leadership takes us outside of that zone.
Think about the people who most inspire us as leaders. They inspire us because they take that extra step, do something which is counter-intuitive or really put their own interests on the line.
Most of us in HR roles like to play it safe. We rarely step outside of our own comfort zones, and many of us just strive to effectively maintain the status quo in our organizations. We are hardly ever presented with a mandate to take ourselves outside of our defined role, and yet this is precisely what we need to do. We need to challenge many of the assumptions within the organizations we work in. We should constantly be looking for the organizational challenges which not only build our own leadership capacity, but which also provide opportunities for others.
How many of us set out to do our ‘million stroke journey’: to challenge ourselves so completely that we forget what our comfort zone is?
I don’t know what my threshold is. I do know that every now and again, the challenges in the workplace can create ideal experiences to learn more about myself – and if I know that, then perhaps I can use Roz Savage’s example to be more effective as a leader to others.
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