Why Workforce Planning Is Important?

Strategic workforce planning is one of the most powerful tools for companies to reach and sustain performance against their strategic objectives in a highly competitive market.

Planning is the engine and the main link between talent management and workforce. A solid human capital management team is built around a comprehensive workforce plan.

Although many companies recognise the importance of better planning, most still lack the skills and tools to manage and execute strategic steps that will drive business results.

Let’s begin by explaining workforce planning and why it’s essential.

Workforce Planning

What’s workforce planning?

According to Human Resource Management Sydney, Workforce Planning refers to an organisation’s process of assessing its workforce and deciding the best steps that must be taken to meet future and current staffing requirements. It involves finding cost-effective and efficient ways to retain and recruit talent.

Why is workforce planning important?

Your future is built when you act with purpose. Agile workforce planning significantly impacts employee experience and allows companies to form cohesive teams for long-term, impactful results. Investor relations are improved, and talent management capabilities are enhanced.

Workforce planning assists companies to:

Attain financial goals

Business planning is made easier by the collaboration between finance and human resources. The productive union between these two groups enhances collaboration through connecting people, processes, and technology.

Finance and human resources depend on each other as a key source of revenue.

Finance should analyse people’s data to understand how they contribute to the organisation. With these insights, HR can strategise how to allocate resources, hire the right employees at the right time, create programs that nurture talent, and establish a workforce aligned with financial goals.

Enhance employee experience

Planning for a workforce is about people. A company that plans keeping its employees in mind, it prioritises and cares for their well-being, ultimately improving the employee experience.

Your organisation can increase business agility by utilising engaged employees and their talents. Flexible workforce plans tailored to employees’ experiences and needs will help you achieve this.

An analysis of your workforce can help you determine how to increase productivity and profitability. This will ensure that your hiring strategies align with business needs and your workforce plans align with your corporate plan.

Promote collaboration

Planning for the workforce is collaborative and encourages participation from all members. Collaboration is the only way to gain cross-functional insight and identify interdepartmental connections. Knowledge and teamwork can also broaden your horizons.

A focused approach is a key to getting the best out of your team. Where should you begin? There are four fundamental principles that can help you design your workforce planning model.

Expert Knowledge

4 fundamental principles of workforce planning

Right people

Many companies depend heavily on new employees to reach their goals. These companies may need to increase their workforce to handle their workloads.

The new world of remote business has made it possible to find top talent regardless of their location. Expand your talent acquisition strategy to find the best talent for your team.

Some things to consider:

• A global talent search
• Factors that impact staffing
• Productivity

Right skills

It is crucial to know what competencies your company needs from its employees in order to meet future challenges and fill skills gaps and this can be done through human resource consulting brisbane. Identifying the experience levels that support strategic competencies to translate hiring into strategy and turn business models into long-term success is crucial.

Some things to consider:

• Essential skills required throughout the organisation
• Impact of skills on strategy and business model

The right time and place

Continuing growth means putting the right people in the right positions at the right times and in the right places, and this requires that employees are evenly distributed across the company.

This means that companies must establish clear business goals to hire people who can help them achieve their company’s future objectives.

Some things to consider:

• Alignment between talent distribution and company requirements
• Adjustment to the hiring strategy to achieve business objectives

Right price

Consider the direct and indirect costs of hiring. This includes costs for job advertisements, interview time, new employee salaries, benefits, and insurance.

Knowing what these costs are will help you keep your budget within reach and make sure that you are optimising your costs by only hiring the right people when they’re needed.

Some things to consider:

• Aim to reduce costs for talent
• Planning for direct and indirect hiring expenses
• Budgeting only for the skills and talent your company requires

These principles should be the basis of your strategic workforce planning.

The 7-step process for strategic workforce planning

Once these are in place, you can use them as building blocks for a productive, engaged team.

Set goals

Strategic workforce planning is designed to help you achieve your business goals. The first stage of strategic workforce planning should assess your short- and long-term business goals.

Including the right people in this step is essential; it is not enough to have business partners or HR professionals only. Some of the best people to include in strategic workforce planning initiatives are line managers, business executives, financial service representatives, and HR technology experts.

Analyse the workforce

Analysing the current workforce is the second step of the planning process, and this step requires business leaders to assess the quality and quantity of their workforce.

Identify skills gaps

A skills gap analysis can provide valuable data for the future workforce. A skills gap analysis could indicate when an employee is planning to retire. The skills gap analysis would have given enough time to allow human resources to prepare rather than scrambling for the replacement.

Future issues are to be anticipated

Companies with adequate preparation for the future have a competitive edge in their industry.

Business leaders must create a workforce plan to anticipate future issues and provide steps to address them. Future workforce issues can include supply chain issues and labour market concerns.

Create an action plan

Next, you need to assess the objectives and analyse the workforce. These plans should include strategies to recruit & retain talent, restructure the company, and enhance technology.

Follow the action plan

Implementing the action plan involves ensuring that resources are available, roles are clearly defined, and that needs are met to achieve the business goals. This involves working with leaders and hiring managers to gauge the impact.

Monitor and test the plan

The workforce planning strategy must adapt to changing business needs. Regular Monitoring and testing of your plan allows you to monitor progress and identify areas for improvement.

Remote workforce planning

Companies can be prepared to adapt to the inevitable changes that are constant in the workplace through strategic workforce planning. It helps businesses to be agile in times of crisis, like the Covid-19 pandemic that has already changed how people live and work around the world.

In order to provide safety and well-being for employees in times of crisis, many organisations encourage remote work. However, remote work has become the norm.

Companies must adapt their business strategies for remote work to allow employees to be productive and reach their goals.

These are some strategies to plan a successful remote workforce.

• With clear guidelines and rules, establish remote work policies. These policies should outline job responsibilities, departmental and organisational goals & objectives, customer impacts, job performance, and job performance.
• Choose the right people to do the job. It is important to identify the best employees for your job.
• Prepare for potential problems and be prepared to address them. It is important to act to prevent or solve problems.
• Set clear objectives and expectations and monitor and evaluate the company’s actions.

Summary

In today’s changing marketplace, it is more important than ever to stand out from the crowd and be able to attract and retain talent.

Planning your workforce is key to maximising everyone’s talents for the benefit of your organisation.

HBA Consulting Solutions: A Fast Track to your Business Success

HBA Consulting has offices located in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. We specialise in the provision of practical human resource management and industrial relations advice and assistance to a wide range of private and public-sector organizations.

Since commencing operations in 1995, HBA Consulting has grown form a company with a primary focus on industrial relations, to one that can now provide a wide range of Human Resource Management and Human Resource Consulting and services.

We are increasingly asked to provide an ‘on demand’ service to our clients – many of whom don’t need ‘high end’ HR capability within their organisations on a daily basis but do need to know that if they need this type of help, its available, affordable and is exceptionally responsive – especially when a crisis arises without warning.

Under these types of ‘on demand’ arrangements, HBA Consulting can provide your organisation with assistance and advice relating to:

• HR advice and assistance, including policy and procedural matters, employment documentation and ad hoc HR queries and complaints.
• Industrial relations matters, including Award interpretation and application, review and resolution of queries and disputes relating to terms and conditions of employment, pay and Award related issues.

We also can help your organisation with workplace investigations and mediation services when you need them and have a part-time industrial lawyer available to assist with legal matters as well.

The Breadth and Depth of Our Capability

We do have a broad HR and IR capability within the company and would draw on this to assist HR clients where ever they might be, from a Human Resource Management team in Melbourne, to regional managers in Queensland or NSW.

To help paint a picture for our clients of the breadth and nature of our service profile, we have developed the following table summarise to try to set out in a simple, easy to read form, the key capabilities and services of HBA Consulting:

Practice Area	Description	Key Elements
People Planning, Analysis and Reporting	The process of shaping the workforce to ensure that it is capable of delivering organisational objectives and business continuity now and in the future.	HR planning – direction setting and integrating HR practice areas Workforce forecasting Workforce and capability profiling Succession planning/development and mobility Workforce data and analysis
Industrial Relations	The framework and processes used to manage the employment relationship and to develop and maintain a streamlined entitlements and conditions system.	Employment framework, arrangements and contracts Communication and consultation framework Remuneration and conditions strategy Grievance and dispute resolution Review of administrative decisions.
Recruitment and Placement	The process of sourcing and selecting people efficiently and effectively to fill employment vacancies and capability gaps.	Recruitment policy and planning Recruitment and selection process design and review Development and management of contracts for recruitment service provision.
Workplace Health and Safety	The ongoing management of the health, safety and welfare of employees at work.	Workplace safety consultative and governance structures and operations Workers Compensation premium reduction strategies Personal injury case management advice
Workplace Diversity	The practices and approach of taking account of, and utilising, personal differences to improve organisational performance.	Workplace diversity awareness and education programs Workplace diversity planning and strategy development and implementation
Managing and Recognising Performance	The framework and mechanism that aligns individual objectives with business unit objectives, provides recognition for employees in terms of advancement and promotion and incentives for those who achieve business unit objectives. It also allows for the management of under performance.	Design, implement and evaluate performance management systems and policies Incentives and recognition programs Managing under performance
Learning and Development	The process of identifying development needs at all levels and providing programs to develop skills and knowledge to bridge gaps in skills or behavioural requirements.	Development, implementation and evaluation of Learning and Development programs Budgeting and cost benefit analysis of Learning & Development programs Linking Performance Management and Learning and Development processes

If you would like to find out more about any or all of our HR Services, please contact:
• Gary Champion, Principal, HBA Consulting on 02 62474490, 0419401250 or gary.champion@hbaconsulting.com.au

How can Organisations Provide Support to Employees During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

The current global coronavirus pandemic has forced millions of employees around the world to work from home. Though this careful step is indeed saving lives by preventing the transmission of COVID-19, it does pose some significant challenges to employees’ well-being.

More and more employees are dealing with stress, anxiety, isolation and in the weeks or months ahead, this may take a toll.

Many organisations have created guidelines on how to set daily routines and check-ins and trying to balance work and childcare – all while maintaining good overall health and exercise habits. Yet this support is not enough for all employees.

So, how can organisations support the mental health of their employees, many of whom have never before worked from home for a significant amount of time?

Here are some options that organisations should consider when promoting employees’ well-being and health during this crisis.

Offer More Flexibility

Working from home impacts every employee differently depending on their responsibilities and current living situations.  With schools and childcare across the country closed, employees with young children need to maintain the balance between keeping the kids occupied while keeping up with their workload.

And that’s why it’s crucial for an employer to offer flexibility to match specific employee needs.

Managers need to have open conversations with their employees about when and how the assigned work can be accomplished and offer different, flexible options.

Show Empathy and Leadership

Employees may be feeling a sense of uncertainty, anxiety and heightened stress about their health, job and financial security. Managers should touch base and check in with their team on a daily basis and talk about things other than just work.

Remind employees to take mental and physical breaks, and most importantly to participate in other non-work-related activities like exercise and meditation to reduce anxiety.

Online Collaboration

It is easy to assume that employees will be effective working from home as long as they have the right technology but studies have revealed that working remotely is not as simple as it seems and conflict can emerge from different ways people communicate and use technology.

Some employees prefer to communicate via email; others may react quickly to chat programs. For some, reaching another person through a phone call is easier than other methods.

With the range of different platforms available, it is important for teams to work out which is the most effective way for them to work online as a team.

During this time of uncertainty and stress, the need to focus on your employees’ well-being and health is stronger than ever, and organisations can help by creating a caring work culture and implementing best practices for employee safety and wellbeing.

HBA Consulting specialises in the professional advice and assistance on Human Resource Management, Organisational Design and Industrial Relations matters.  Contact us today if you need assistance with coaching or mentoring for managers with teams working remotely.

Unable to Put your Viewpoint in an Organisational Meeting? Here’s How to Get your Points Across

Maybe it’s the oversized tables and the closed doors. Maybe, it’s a colleague who shuns everyone’s opinion. Or maybe it’s just your fear that your ideas won’t be valued.

Whatever the reasons are, there are times when you just can’t find yourself the right words at the right time – or maybe you find the wrong words at the wrong time?  This is a very common situation that can happen to anyone while attending a meeting. But sitting quiet without any participation to avoid putting yourself in this type of situation can also send the wrong impression. Overcoming these blockers is likely to add to your own self confidence and contribute to better outcomes at work.

Besides, you aren’t the only one who finds it difficult to speak your thoughts out; there are many people who feel the same. And often some really good ideas aren’t shared due to concerns about ‘not getting it right’ in front of others

Make Notes

No matter how prepared you are before entered into a meeting, once the meeting begins and other employees start talking and presenting and sharing their thoughts to the people around, you might at times draw a blank or get confused about the things you want to say – because of the anxiety levels that rise at times like this. Either way, the result is that you fail to put your thoughts and ideas forward.

To help avoid facing such a situation, it might be a good idea to try to sort out your thoughts before the meeting and make a prepared list of points that you want to say. This way, you’ll be ready when it’s your turn to speak.

Have Confidence in your Own Idea

While putting across your points to a group of people in a meeting, you need to be confident that the idea will not only add positivity and be helpful in the whole decision process but also drive it to conclusion.

Often, when you are putting forward ideas there are likely to be others that have a similar idea. And in any case, putting forward a well reasoned idea – even if it isn’t always accepted and acted upon – doesn’t mean that your idea wasn’t a good one. Sometimes good ideas are simply put forward at the wrong time. The discussion about why it wont work is often useful broader context for future ideas and discussions.

Be Calm and then Express your Views

Always remember, voicing your opinion at the time when you are anxious or angry can be detrimental to the goal of the meeting. So, instead of aggressively putting your idea, think and act – don’t react. Listening calmly to others helps you in delivering your thoughts properly.

Relate to the Opinion of Others

Stephen Covey in his book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ identified how important it was to ‘seek to understand and then be understood’. Often, people can switch off part way through something was saying, because they assume that they know where it is leading, and they are preparing their reply on that basis. Sometimes this means that they miss a key element and their reply doesn’t properly take that into account. So, it’s advised to listen (not just hear) before you speak.

Avoid Getting into an Argument

While putting your points in a meeting be ready to face difference of opinions amongst employees present in a meeting room. But don’t take it personally, as a difference of opinion is a common yet important thing in any workplace.

After all, that’s how new ideas are created.

Final Words

When putting across your thoughts about ideas to address workplace issues, it’s better to ‘think and act – not react’. With the tips mentioned in this blog, you’ll able to think about how to contribute positively in meetings. And feel better and more confident about your ability to add value.

If your organisation is looking for professional advice and assistance in relation to how to encourage continuous improvement, enable good ideas to be expressed and considered, engaging with a human resource consulting company like HBA Consulting can help. Our expert team will offer practical and professional advice and assistance in relation to how to structure its human resource strategy to effectively build a culture that encourages innovation, creativity and a safe environment where people can contribute their ideas.

Why Do You Need to Revive your Company’s Policies and Procedures?

If asked when did your company last conduct an internal audit of your policies and procedures to evaluate effectiveness, what would be your answer?

Well, if you are like most organisations, your answers are likely to be ‘not sure’, ‘we’ve done some I think’ or ‘never’. If these are the types of answers that spring to mind, like many other companies, you are putting your business and employees at risk. Moreover, if the need to alter organisational policies is left ignored, issues cropping up from old, ineffective or undocumented policies and procedures can make your organisation vulnerable to a range of legislative, employment and reputational risks.

Are you serious about equality in the Workplace? Here’s some guidelines to help you create an inclusive and diverse workforce.

In the era of #MeToo and countless reports on the gender pay gap, many organisations are focusing purely on gender equality initiatives in the workplace.  While this is a positive and much needed move, diversity and inclusion has a much greater span than gender inequality.

Organisations that are serious about equality, gender parity and inclusion of all people in the workforce have been broadening and strengthening their diversity and inclusion policies.  When implemented correctly, these policies can create healthy work environments, promote respect toward fellow employees and assists with breeding an open and friendly culture.

Employees need to be aware of acceptable behaviour, which is critical when you consider the varying difference in lifestyles, attitudes and values.  Employees need to feel secure and that they are being treated equally and fairly.  Organisations that have robust diversity and inclusion policies as well as continued education for their employees in this space, ensures that individuals and their rights are protected. Importantly, if there is any type of discrimination, employees need to know how to identify, report and hopefully resolve issues.

What can you do to promote diversity and inclusion in your workplace?

There are many ways that organisations can invest in diversity and inclusion, the below are just a few recommendations that will have a positive impact in your workplace:

• Ensure your job descriptions are gender-neutral and state your commitment to building a diverse and inclusive culture on your careers page
• Review your HR policies to ensure all employees feel that they are included in the workplace, including –
  • Diversity Strategy – outlining the organisations commitment to promoting a diverse and inclusive workplace where all staff, regardless of their background, can achieve their full potential. The strategy should tie together a range of initiatives to support gender, disability, Indigenous affairs, sexual orientation, age and diversity of culture, as well as the broader equality, diversity and inclusion agenda.
  • Flexible working policy – focussing on flexibility being the norm and available to all employees, not just for mothers returning to the workplace,
  • Strong code of conduct guidelines that clearly define the standards of acceptable workplace behaviour
• Provide unconscious bias training for all employees involved in the recruitment
• Implement a Diversity network – these networks are normally responsible for organising events to raise diversity awareness and provide advice to the organisation on diversity initiatives.

 

The responsibility of compiling and maintaining HR policies and procedures should only be given to experienced HR practitioners who are well-versed with the current employment legislation and directions.

Whether you are located in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or Canberra (or a regional area) HBA Consulting can provide you with a robust human resource strategy which will assist you with evaluating your organisations current policies and procedures as well as job documentation and website content through

We can also assist with workplace investigations if the matter arises, and we have an excellent workplace mediation service, to assist with working through matters and helping employees find a way to work together again.

So, Your HR Strategy Failed Again? Here’s What Might Have Gone Wrong

The importance of HR plans in an organisation cannot be stressed enough. Most organisations today understand the value of and need for a strategic HR plan. But just recognising the value of something and wanting it isn’t enough.

Building a human resource plan requires proper planning, diligence and foresight. Even with a competent HR team in place, an organisation is bound to face challenges when developing an HR strategy.

Here are some reasons why most HR strategies fail. Avoid these situations to ensure successful implementation of your Human Resource strategy and business growth.

Not having the “WHY” figured out

It might be hard to believe but many organisations develop an HR plan simply because all successful organisations have one. That’s it. There are no clear linkages to the corporate objectives of the organisation, how the defined objectives and goals in the HR strategy link to these and why the company is developing specific HR initiatives to drive some or all objectives and how are they going to benefit the employees and organisation itself.

To make sure the purpose of HR plan you develop doesn’t get lost in the process, it needs to clearly draw together these key linkages and demonstrate how it can really make a difference and benefit both the company and its employees.

At the end of the day, its not ‘HR’s’ plan its the businesses plan for creating and sustaining its people to do what it needs them to in order to deliver on its mission and corporate objectives.

There’s no plan behind the initiative

Another often overlooked aspect of an HR plan is the “how” of it. Having an HR strategy that lacks a robust plan explaining how you are going to do things is as likely to fail as an HR strategy without proper linkages to the business strategy and objectives or a meaningful role in the employment framework of a business.

There are companies that come up with HR plans full of standard principles and ideas like “we want to deliver the highest level of customer satisfaction” or “we want to be the best in the region”. These plans are just about high-level goals and aren’t helpful in terms of implementation at the tactical and operational levels of the business.

The key is to know both the “why” and the “how” of the plan.

Lack of communication

The worst case of HR strategy failure can be when there’s clarity in planning, concept, purpose and execution but there’s also a major communication gap. There’s no point in developing a strategic human resource plan with defined objectives and initiatives to be taken to meet those objectives, if you don’t communicate it properly, consistently and regularly to the business.

For an HR plan to work out successfully, it is important to effectively communicate the key components of the plan and how they will support the organisation in varied operations and meeting business goals.

Lack of sustainability

Almost every plan starts off with a bang, but it is not uncommon for many big plans to fizzle out soon after their launch. This often happens because the HR professionals and employees eventually lose interest and enthusiasm due to changes in workload, responsibilities or other company circumstances. It also can happen because its not actively monitored, progress again plan analysed and the results (or lack of them) reported to the Executive team for consideration and action.

To avoid the situation, be sure to consider the long-term impacts of the plan and how its gong to be measured, monitored, analysed and managed.

Think about change management issues and project risk

No matter how efficient your planning, implementing an HR plan without thinking over the change management implications and risks can (will!) increase the chances of plan failure. If it’s the first HR strategy or a new version of it, the change implementation issues need to be identified, considered and addressed. While you can’t always foresee everything that could arise in the future, you can still forecast and take into account some things that might impact in the future and that need to be managed now.

The Art of Attracting and Retaining the Right Talent in a Highly Competitive Market

What’s one of the biggest challenges faced by the HR team of an organisation?

Well, if you guessed “helping the business areas to find and select the best possible candidates for an interview”, then you are partially correct. However, it’s not just about selecting the right candidate by running a professional, role focused recruitment process.  What’s often even harder is to retain the people that are selected.

This blog focuses on the need to ensure that business areas and Human Resource don’t drop the ball post the recruitment process. The hard work of retaining and developing the new people coming into your organisation is where the real return on investment is either realised or lost.

While there is no doubt that a strong remuneration and benefits package including components like performance bonuses, flexible work arrangements and assistance with health/fitness and child care services do play an important role in successful recruitment and retention, they are only part of the picture.

A recent study declares 91% of employees at small and medium size enterprises identified non-traditional benefits (like child care and gym memberships) as an important aspect of their job attraction and satisfaction

These non-traditional benefits can have positive impacts on employees’ well-being and likelihood to stay with an employer. A further breakdown pf this headline statistics shows that

• 85% of employees feel non-traditional benefits improve employee morale.
• 82% feel non-traditional benefits improve employee retention, and
• 73% feel non-traditional benefits boosts company culture.

Below-mentioned are a few tips that will help you to retain the right talent, help to keep them happy and more motivated to work with your organisation over time.

ENCOURAGE HEALTHY WORK/LIFE BALANCE: Good employees love to stay with employers where there is some ‘give and take’ in how and when work is done. Allow them to take an off to attend their children’s sports day, doctor’s appointment. Give them a birthday off or allow them to do work from home occasionally. Good employees will appreciate these types of offerings from there and in turn they can help to motivate that ‘extra effort’ when it’s needed.

PROVIDE AUTONOMY TO EMPLOYEES: Don’t try to be a ‘Sherlock Holmes’ constantly watching over your employees’ every move.  Show trust in your employees. The right employees want to take ownership of their own work and usually do tasks independently in order to come up with the required results. Conversely, don’t put off providing feedback to employees when they aren’t delivering – because good employees can get quickly demotivated when they work hard and others are carried at work.

RECOGNITION AND REWARD: The feeling of being genuinely appreciated motivates employees like nothing else. Meaningful recognition serves as a great motivation for employees to perform their best and grow themselves while continuing to work with the company. A simple ‘well done’ delivered as close as possible to the good work being done, and in a meaningful way and genuine way is worth a lot more to an employee than an award certificate or morning tea.

THE TAKEAWAY

The job with a new employee doesn’t stop when the recruitment process is finished, and the new starter arrives. All that investment can easily be wasted if they enter a work environment and culture that isn’t aligned with the employee expectations as set through the process. Aligning expectations with reality at work is a key obligation for all employers. Take time, invest time in new employees, be honest about the work and the organisation that they will be doing, recognise good work consistently and genuinely – are all critical to attracting and retaining good people.

Having a holistic and robust human resource strategy in place will help you to attract, develop, reward and retain employees in the most effective manner.

Workplace Management: The Appropriate Way to Handle Work Related Issues/Concerns

Let’s admit it. All workers have faced internal concerns at our work at some point. Moreover, if there is anyone who says he/she hasn’t come across any issues throughout their entire work journey, chances are they might be bending the truth a bit or have a form of selective amnesia! Because work places you into regular contact with people and circumstances that might not always be comfortable at times or might place you into regular contact with people who you don’t have much in common with, it often normal to have issues with others at work from time to time. Working professionals spend almost more than 8 hours in the office dealing with people of differing mindsets and belief systems, values etc each day. So, it is natural for most employers to need to deal with incidents like disputes and conflicts between their employees at some point.

While its almost inevitable at some point, what’s important is to find the right way to address internal issues and make each employee feel equally valued and protected at work before an issue emerges. Here’s some ideas on how to get organised in advance.

PROVIDE UP-TO-DATE EMPLOYMENT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES

An up to date set of employment policies is essential for every organisation as it clearly states company’s expectations for employees on how to communicate or report their work-related concerns.

Providing employee with up-to-date information about the company’s policies and guidelines helps prevent misunderstandings amongst the employees about what’s ok and what’s not. This is especially important for all new starters, so that right from the beginning of employment, the expectations and arrangements for all employment issues, including workplace disputation, is clear.

DEVELOP EMPLOYEE FEEDBACK CHANNELS

There are times when employees want to raise a concern about issues at work but might not feel comfortable about letting the employer know for fear of repercussions. This causes situations to tend to fester and give mean an escalated response over time to a relatively minor issue because of the built-up tension. Alternatively, employees that feel like they are on the receiving end of a workplace dispute can take things into their own hands and leave to get away from the stress. This type of response where the employee is a good performer can impact negatively on morale, turnover and overall business productivity.

It is essential that the employer and its management team work to identify (though formal and informal feedback channels) how employees are feeling and aim to head off workplace disputes and complaints.

ENSURE AN ACCESSIBLE HR DEPARTMENT

The HR department of an organisation plays a strategic role in managing and advising on the most important asset of the business, its employees. Human resource professionals are the people that employees look to for guidance and support when they want to discuss their workplace concerns and issues. Unfortunately, sometimes employees report that their HR department is part of the problem, not the solution in circumstances such as workplace disputes.

Regardless of company size and nature, employees must have a clear communication channel through which they can confidently discuss their issues and have them addressed in a timely fashion. An approachable and functional HR department allows for proper communication and handling of employees’ concerns while creating a safe and productive workplace environment.

WRAPPING UP

Where there are diverse workplace environments, and the people that we work with might not always be easy to get along with for a variety of reasons, employers and employees need to be able to see a way through workplace disputes when they arise. The simple suggestions in this article will help to tackle employer and employee issues better. But its hard work.

If you would like to find out more about workplace dispute resolution advice and assistance, contact HBA Consulting on 02 62474490 or via our website at http://www.hbaconsulting.com.au

Key Considerations for Managing Workplace Redundancy

The realities of running any business or work team is, more likely than not, as service delivery systems and client needs change, there will be a need to create new roles and make others redundant. These structural changes impact not just the person whose role is changing or being abolished but also their colleagues, managers and other employees within the organisation.

Therefore, it’s vital that managers are properly supported by experienced HR advice and assistance as they plan and implement a workplace redundancy program – whether they are a large metropolitan company or organisation in a location like Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane, or a small regional business in a regional location like Albury, Wagga or Bendigo.

Check to ensure that you know what ‘redundancy’ actually means

The Fair Work Act provides that a person’s dismissal will be considered to be a ‘genuine’ redundancy if the employer has made a decision that it no longer requires the person’s job to be performed by anyone, due to changes in the operational requirements of the employer’s business.

Therefore, it is the role that is redundant. So, an important starting point is understanding clearly that the decision to make a role redundant is based on business need, not individual performance or personal likes and dislikes of different employees.

It is when this fundamental understanding is not clear and understood, that employers often run into difficulties such as decisions to make a person ‘redundant’, when the real reason for the termination is poor performance or misconduct.

Whilst performance and employee behaviours may be considered in the selection of staff who will be terminated due to redundancy, it should never be the reason for a role to be abolished. The Fair Work Commission can allow an employee to make an unfair dismissal application if there is doubt about whether the redundancy was genuine or not. This is particularly relevant where the skills of the employee could have been readily redeployed within the organisation or where the role continues to exist in one way or another after the employee’s termination.

For the termination of an employee to meet the ‘genuine redundancy’ criteria, there are obligations on the employer to consider and identify potential redeployment options within the organisation for employees whose role is redundant. This redeployment obligation can become problematic when the employer hasn’t considered a redundancy program holistically, and options for redeployment that might be viable for a range of employees are not managed collectively wherever possible.

Redeployment options include any role the employee could perform or could perform after a reasonable period of retraining. Employers often confuse this process with a normal recruitment process where they are seeking the best person for the job. Redeployment considerations are limited to whether the affected employee could perform the job, they do not include whether there may be someone better to perform the job.

In addition to these considerations, the employer must comply with any applicable consultation obligations in a modern award or enterprise agreement and any contractual requirements contained in the employment contract. In our experience, this consultative obligation is also not well understood or executed during redundancy processes and has the potential to create a protracted and costly change process. Not to mention the impact this has on staff moral and trust.

Be clear on what your obligations are

Prior to commencing any business change process where redundancies might be involved, it’s very important that the employer understands all of their obligations and assess the risks.

Beginning with a clear picture of the employment terms and conditions (e.g. the relevant employment contract, Enterprise Agreement or Award and the National Employment Standards), clarify what is required to meet your obligations before beginning to implement any workplace change process. Often, issues arise, and disputes eventuate when the employer doesn’t follow the requirements set out in their own employment framework.

Critical Success Factors

The following are the key components that need to be planned for and managed efficiently and effectively to maximise the success of any redundancy process no matter how big or small:

1. Build a solid plan

Take the time to build a change plan that considers what the changes are, where they will impact, why, when and specifically which employees will be directly affected.

Think about timing of the announcement and who will make it.

Build a related project plan to help map out each action over time, including key communication points etc.

2. Communication

Clear, complete and well thought through communication is key. Build a communication plan prior to commencing – considering key stakeholders and the messages and timeframes that you need to convey to them. This should be linked into the overall change plan mentioned above.

3. Consultation

Understand your consultative obligations and engage with them. Of course, it is likely that some discussions will be difficult, but avoiding this obligation or not genuinely engaging in it is likely to create additional issues that will demand attention and resourcing in order to achieve the outcome being sought.

Consultation requirements in modern awards, for example, require the employer to notify affected employees when a decision has been made and to provide those employees with information about the changes, the expected impact, and discuss steps to avoid and minimise negative effects on the employee, including genuinely considering any response the employee may have to the information provided.

4. Training for line managers

If line managers are leading the ‘on the ground’ change processes, make sure that they have been provided with tailored training to enable them to confidently and consistently manage the interactions with their work teams as the process progresses. Clear, consistent and confident messaging is critical.

5. Support for employees declared redundant

Make sure that employees know where they can seek support from. Some employers engage with an Employee Assistance Program which provides counselling to employees at the employers cost. Other employers engage other professional counselling services or offer to fund a service selected by the employee.

Where an employer engaged service is utilised, make sure they are briefed before commencing the change process and ensure that managers and employees (both those directly affected and those working with them) are reminded of how to access these services.

It is important for the wellbeing of all staff that the exiting of employees from the workplace due to redundancy is facilitated respectfully and even though their services are no longer required, the employees valued contribution is recognised and appreciated.