By their very nature, hiring decisions are imperfect.

CVs can embellish what someone’s actually achieved. Candidates can come across much better – or much worse – in an interview than they’re likely to perform in reality. And the judgement of hiring managers isn’t always as objective or reliable as we might  like to believe.

This creates an unavoidable problem. How do you decide whether to hire someone before you have access to the clearest evidence of all – actually seeing them do the job?

Psychometric testing aims to reduce that uncertainty by providing insight into how someone is likely to think, communicate and behave at work before they begin.

Depending on the assessment, it can reveal information about a potential employee’s cognitive abilities, personality, workplace preferences and emotional intelligence that may not emerge from a CV or conventional interview.

But psychometric testing isn’t a crystal ball. Its usefulness depends on what’s being assessed, how relevant that is to the role and how the results are interpreted.

So, do psychometric tests actually work? And if so, when should you use them? We explore what employers need to know.

 

Why employers use psychometric testing

Anyone who’s an experienced interviewer will tell you that when you interview several candidates for the same role, you’re rarely comparing like with like.

One candidate could be highly polished, convincing and personable, but scratch the surface and they might turn out to be an unreliable employee. Another could have excellent skills and judgement but struggle to demonstrate them in an unfamiliar or high pressure setting.

And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. An even bigger issue can sometimes be the conversation itself. What gets discussed can change between interviews – and potentially explore completely different territory – depending on the answers given, the  questions asked and the rapport between candidate and interviewer.

Psychometric testing aims to remove some of these variables and let you compare potential employees based on the underlying qualities that actually matter in the role. It can also uncover potential strengths or weaknesses that haven’t emerged elsewhere in  the interview process, challenge impressions you’ve already formed and highlight issues worth probing further in a second interview or reference check.

 

What are the different types of psychometric tests?

Virtually everyone has done a form of psychometric testing at some stage in their careers, and one reason for that is that it’s a very broad term.

“Psychometric testing” doesn’t refer to one particular assessment or even one type of information. Instead, in recruitment, tests generally fall into several categories.

Cognitive ability and aptitude tests

These assess how someone processes information, learns, reasons and solves problems. Depending on the role, this might include numerical, verbal, abstract, spatial or mechanical reasoning.

Cognitive ability and aptitude tests aren’t usually designed to measure what someone already knows but to assess their capacity to understand information and apply it.

Personality assessments

These tend to look at relatively stable traits and behavioural tendencies. They may explore qualities such as conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness, adaptability or extraversion.

Unlike aptitude tests, there’s usually no “correct” personality profile. The relevant question is whether particular traits are likely to help – or hinder – someone in the role they’re applying for.

Workplace behaviour assessments

These focus more specifically on how someone is likely to operate at work. For instance, they may provide insight into how a candidate communicates, collaborates, makes decisions, responds to pressure or approaches risk and detail.

Emotional intelligence assessments

These examine how well someone recognises, understands and manages emotions – both their own and other people’s. This can be especially relevant when you’re recruiting for leadership, management, sales or other roles involving complex interpersonal situations.

Some recruitment processes also use situational judgement tests, job-knowledge assessments and work samples. While these aren’t always described as psychometric tests, they can apply similar principles to assess how candidates respond to realistic  problems or perform tasks they would encounter in the role.

The Australian Psychological Society says employment-related testing commonly covers reasoning ability, personality and vocational preferences, but may also examine areas including integrity, leadership and emotional intelligence.

Do psychometric tests actually work?

The short answer is yes. But not simply because someone has put the word “psychometric” on the box.

For any assessment to be useful, it needs to clear two separate hurdles.

First, it must be reliable, meaning it measures the relevant characteristic consistently. Second, it must be valid for the purpose for which you’re using it. In recruitment, that means there should be credible evidence connecting what the test measures with  performance in the particular type of role.

The truth is that some assessments clear that bar more convincingly than others.

A major reanalysis of decades of research into employee-selection methods found that structured interviews had an average correlation of 0.42 with subsequent job performance. Job-knowledge tests recorded 0.40, work-sample tests 0.33 and cognitive-ability tests 0.31. In this context, the higher the correlation, the stronger the relationship between the assessment result and later performance.

The same research found that personality assessments became more predictive when questions were placed specifically in a work context. In other words, asking someone how they tend to behave at work can be more useful than asking broad questions about  what they’re like generally.

This is really at the heart of whether psychometric testing works. If it’s not being used to measure a quality that’s genuinely required in the role, it’s also not likely to be useful.

For instance, a numerical-reasoning test may tell you something important about a financial analyst but very little about whether someone will be an effective people leader. Likewise, a candidate’s degree of extraversion may matter in some roles but be almost irrelevant in others.

What the critics of psychometric testing say

Psychometric testing has no shortage of critics, and some of their criticisms may be well founded.

One obvious shortcoming is that candidates know they’re being assessed. In a personality questionnaire, they might choose the answer they think the employer wants rather than the one that most accurately reflects how they behave.

In fact, one meta-analysis comparing how the same people completed personality assessments in real job applications and lower-stakes settings found that applicants tended to give more socially desirable answers when employment was on the line. Their  answers also became less varied, making it harder to distinguish meaningfully between candidates.

Another problem is that not every test commonly used in workplaces was designed to predict job performance.

Four-quadrant personality assessments – which divide people into colours, letters, animals or other broad “types” – can be engaging and useful for prompting conversations about communication, teamwork and self-awareness.

But that doesn’t necessarily make them suitable for deciding who gets a job.

As the Harvard Business Review has observed, these assessments can be relatively easy to manipulate, meaning they can measure preferences or temporary “states” that change with context, rather than stable traits. Many also lack the reliability, comparison  data and demonstrated connection with job performance required for high-stakes hiring  decisions.

Testing conditions can also create problems. A candidate’s result can be affected by time pressure, anxiety, language, cultural background, disability or simply unfamiliarity with the testing format.

So, unless those factors are genuinely relevant to the job, the assessment might end up measuring how well someone takes the test rather than how well they could perform the  role.

 

How to effectively introduce psychometric testing into your organisation’s recruitment process

If you’re going to introduce psychometric testing, it needs to be designed into your recruitment process rather than simply bolted onto it. Here’s how to do it effectively.

  1. Start with the requirements of the role

Identify the abilities, behaviours and personal qualities that genuinely influence success in the position. The Australian Human Rights Commission says psychological and aptitude testing should only be used when it’s reasonably required to determine whether someone can perform the specific requirements of a job.

  1. Choose a test that actually measures those qualities

Don’t choose an assessment simply because it’s popular, inexpensive or produces an impressive-looking report. Ask the provider what the test measures, how reliable it is and what evidence connects its results with performance in comparable roles.

  1. Decide where testing belongs in the recruitment process

Testing every single applicant is likely to waste time and discourage good candidates. It’s often more useful to introduce psychometric testing after an initial shortlist, when you can use the results to inform subsequent interviews and reference checks.

That’s broadly how we hire at Catalina Consultants: a brief initial conversation and two interview rounds before psychometric testing.

  1. Determine how much weight the results will carry

Decide this before you see anyone’s score. Otherwise, there’s a risk you’ll embrace a result that supports your preferred candidate while dismissing one that challenges your existing view.

  1. Explain the process to candidates

Tell candidates why they’re being tested, what the assessment involves, how the results will be used and who will have access to them. You should also give them an opportunity to raise anything that may affect their ability to complete the assessment and provide reasonable adjustments where appropriate.

  1. Make sure the results are interpreted properly

A percentile, colour or personality label rarely tells the whole story. Make sure someone with the right training interprets what the results mean (and equally importantly, what they don’t mean) in the context of the role.

  1. Use the results to ask better questions

Treat the assessment as a source of questions rather than a final answer. If the results suggest a potential strength, risk or inconsistency, explore it with the candidate and, where appropriate, their referees. Look for evidence rather than assuming the test must be right.

  1. Carry the insights into onboarding

Once the successful candidate starts, relevant findings can help their manager understand how they prefer to communicate, receive feedback and approach their work. They may also identify useful development priorities or potential sources of friction  within the team.

But the assessment should remain a starting point for discussion, not a permanent label. Once you’ve seen how the employee actually performs, their real behaviour should always carry more weight than a prediction made before they began.

  1. Review whether the assessment is working

Compare test results with employees’ subsequent performance, retention and development over time. If the assessment isn’t helping you make better appointments (or if it consistently disadvantages particular groups) you need to reconsider the test or  how you’re using it.

 

Better information, not perfect prediction

Psychometric testing can’t eliminate the risk involved in hiring. No assessment can tell  you with certainty how someone will perform once they’re working inside your  organisation.

Used well, however, it can reveal information you might otherwise miss, challenge assumptions formed during interviews and help you make a more considered decision. The same insights can then support better conversations about communication,  management and development once the successful candidate begins.

The real value isn’t in the test itself, but in how intelligently you use the information it gives you.

 

Want more?

If you’re considering introducing psychometric testing or want to improve your recruitment and onboarding processes, Catalina Consultants can help. Contact us to find out more.

In 2026, it seems as though everyone is busy. Our calendars are full, our inboxes are  overflowing and we’re working across multiple projects, each carrying its own deadlines,  meetings and urgent requests. 

Yet despite all this activity, in many organisations a lot of important work keeps falling  behind. 

Leaders often interpret this as a capacity problem: there’s simply too much work and not  enough time to complete it. The only answers are to hire more people or ask the current  people to work even harder. 

Sometimes that diagnosis is correct, but sometimes it’s not – or at least not fully. 

That’s because the more common problem isn’t that an organisation has too much  work, it’s that it has too much work happening at once. And when this happens,  employees get overloaded, becoming less productive, less efficient and more likely to  make errors. 

If you want to know whether that’s happening in your organisation and what you can do  to fix it, read on. 

 

How overload creates even more overload 

Imagine a team responsible for six important projects and, rather than deciding which  projects should take priority, its leaders ask the team to progress all six at the same  time.

Employees then move constantly between them. They leave one task unfinished to  attend a meeting about another. Then a supposedly urgent request arrives, so they  abandon the work they’ve just resumed and move to another project still.  

This leads to a self-reinforcing and inefficient cycle, in which: 

MIT Sloan researchers Nelson Repenning and Donald Kieffer compare the effect to  traffic on a busy highway. Adding more cars initially allows more people to reach their  destinations. But once the road approaches capacity, each additional car makes every  journey slower. Eventually, the road becomes so congested that almost nobody moves. 

The same principle applies to knowledge work. Giving every employee a full workload  may appear efficient but, when the system becomes overloaded, starting more work can  reduce the amount that ultimately gets finished. 

In other words, just as a full road isn’t necessarily a productive road, a completely  occupied workforce isn’t necessarily a productive one either. 

 

The hidden cost of switching between tasks 

Part of the problem is that switching between tasks isn’t instantaneous or cost-free.  Every time we move from one project, client or application to another, we need to work  out where we were, recall the relevant information we might have forgotten and refocus  our attention on the new task. 

Individually, each transition may take only a few moments. But repeated hundreds of  times across a working week, those moments add up. 

A Harvard Business Review study tracked 137 employees across 20 teams at three  Fortune 500 companies for up to five weeks. It found that employees switched between  applications and websites around 1,200 times a day.

The researchers estimated that workers spent almost four hours each week simply  reorienting themselves after these switches: equivalent to around 9% of their total  working time. 

And switching between applications is only the most easily measured form of task  switching. Employees also move constantly between different projects, clients,  meetings, approvals and unexpected requests, often leaving one piece of work  unfinished to deal with another. 

The organisation pays a small productivity cost every time an employee changes  direction even though the cumulative cost can remain largely invisible. 

Instead, the consequences show up elsewhere: in longer completion times, missed  details, avoidable errors and employees who reach the end of a relentlessly busy day  wondering why they made so little meaningful progress. 

 

Why unfinished work follows us into the next task 

Even after we’ve moved to another task, part of our attention can remain fixed on the  work we left behind. 

Professor Sophie Leroy coined the term “attention residue” to describe this effect. Her  research discovered that people have difficulty fully shifting their attention away from an  unfinished task and, as a result, tend to perform less effectively on whatever they do  next.  

Consider an employee who stops writing an important report halfway through to attend  a meeting. During the meeting, they receive an urgent request from a client. They then  leave the meeting, respond to the client and return to the report, pausing along the way  to answer several emails and messages. 

Technically, that employee has worked on several things. But they may not have given  their complete attention to any of them. 

This is why carrying too many active projects creates more than an administrative  burden. Every unfinished task occupies some mental space. The more often people are  required to change direction, the more likely they are to carry thoughts, concerns and  unresolved decisions from one task into the next.

We may move from one piece of work to another without bringing all of our attention  with us. The result is slower thinking, reduced concentration and a greater likelihood of  overlooking important details. 

For some neurodivergent employees – particularly those who experience differences in  executive functioning, working memory or transitioning between tasks – the effects of an  overloaded and unpredictable workplace can often be compounded further. 

 

When everything becomes urgent 

As overloaded teams take longer to complete their work, more projects begin  approaching (or passing) their deadlines. Leaders respond by elevating whichever task  is under the greatest immediate pressure and pulling people away from their existing  work to deal with it. 

This may solve the immediate problem. But it also delays everything those employees  were doing before the latest request arrived. 

Soon, one of those abandoned tasks becomes urgent too. It is pushed to the front of the  queue, interrupting another piece of work and creating another future delay. Priorities  change repeatedly, employees receive competing instructions and the organisation spends increasing amounts of time deciding what should happen next rather than  completing it. 

This can create a workplace in which: 

Urgency can look like responsiveness. The employee who drops everything to rescue a  delayed project appears committed, while the manager who rapidly reallocates  resources appears decisive. 

But when urgent interventions become routine, it’s usually a sign that work is no longer  flowing properly. Each rescue pushes another task closer to crisis, ensuring that the  cycle continues.

When that happens, sustained overload can also become a workplace health and safety  issue. Safe Work Australia identifies high job demands (including having too much to do  in too little time) as a psychosocial hazard when they are severe, prolonged or frequent.  

To prevent this from happening, it recommends redesigning inefficient processes,  planning the workforce appropriately and allowing enough time for difficult tasks to be  completed safely. 

 

Hiring more people may not solve the problem 

When employees are overloaded and deadlines are slipping, hiring additional people  can seem like the obvious solution. And sometimes it is. If your organisation simply has  more work than your workforce can reasonably perform, increasing capacity may be  essential. 

But before you begin recruiting, make sure you identify what’s actually preventing work  from being completed. Broadly, the constraint will usually involve one or more of three  things: 

Recruitment can address the first two problems but it won’t usually fix the third. 

Adding employees to an overloaded system can create more handovers, meetings and  communication. New team members are likely to find themselves managing the same  competing priorities and interruptions as everyone else. Rather than increasing the  organisation’s output, the additional coordination can make an already congested  workflow more complicated. 

This doesn’t mean you should delay necessary recruitment or expect existing  employees to absorb unreasonable workloads. It means hiring decisions should form  part of a broader assessment of how work moves through the organisation. 

If work is stalled everywhere, priorities change constantly and employees are carrying  too many unfinished tasks, the underlying problem is likely to be systemic rather than  the result of any employee or team.

 

Stop starting and start finishing 

One of the most effective ways to relieve overload is to limit the amount of work being  progressed at any one time. 

This can feel counterintuitive. You might begin to worry that delaying the start of a  project means losing momentum or becoming less responsive. But MIT found that  employers who:  

reduced the time required to complete work by as much as 90%. 

Limiting work in progress also makes problems easier to see. When employees are  juggling dozens of active tasks, it can be difficult to distinguish genuine capacity  constraints from confusion and congestion.  

The scale of the problem is reflected in Atlassian’s 2024 State of Teams research.  

In a survey of 5,000 knowledge workers, 64% said their teams were constantly being  pulled in too many directions, while 70% believed they would make better progress with  fewer, more specific goals. 

To overcome this in your organisation, Repenning and Kieffer recommend: 

The difficult part is the need to make genuine choices about what the organisation will – and won’t – work on now.

 

Diagnose the problem before adding more work 

Modern work will always involve competing responsibilities, changing circumstances  and occasional interruptions that impact work/life balance. 

The goal isn’t to eliminate these things or ensure your employees only ever work on one  task at a time. It’s to prevent the amount of simultaneous work from exceeding the  team’s ability to keep it moving. 

So, when deadlines begin slipping and employees appear overwhelmed, resist the  temptation to respond by simply increasing pressure, changing priorities again or  immediately adding more work (and people) to the system. Instead, begin by asking: 

After all, recruitment can increase capacity, but it cannot by itself repair a system that  continually prevents people from completing their work.  

Instead, the answers to the questions above might point to a need for additional  capacity, new capabilities, a redesigned workflow or some combination of the three. 

 

Want more? 

Not sure whether your organisation needs more people, different capabilities or a better  way of managing work? 

Catalina Consultants can help you assess your workforce, priorities and processes,  then develop a practical HR strategy aligned with your organisation’s goals. 

Catalina Consultants can now provide clients with even more practical HR support, after becoming an Employment Hero Certified Partner. 

The partnership expands the practical support we can provide to any organisation looking to simplify their HR and payroll processes, improve workforce visibility and create a more consistent employee experience.

As a certified partner, we can help clients purchase, implement, configure and optimise Employment Hero. Just as importantly, we can provide the advice, training and ongoing support needed to make the system work in the real world.

So if your organisation is considering a new HR information system, or already uses Employment Hero and wants to get more from it, read on.

Why we have partnered with Employment Hero

As organisations grow, managing people usually becomes more complex. 

Employee records often sit across spreadsheets, shared drives and email inboxes. Onboarding involves more paperwork. Leave, timesheets and payroll information move between separate systems. 

These disconnected processes consume time and increase the risk of information being duplicated, missed or handled inconsistently. And managers struggle to find a complete and current view of their workforce.

Employment Hero brings HR, payroll, recruitment and employee management functions together in an integrated platform designed for Australian businesses. Depending on which product you choose, it lets you manage employee records, documents, onboarding, leave, timesheets, performance, learning, certifications, reporting and payroll processes – all in one place.

This can help your organisation establish more consistent HR processes and create a reliable source of data and information to support workforce planning.

Employment Hero also lets employees complete many routine actions themselves, such as updating personal details, accessing payslips and requesting leave. The result is that HR and line managers can reduce the need to handle minor administrative requests while giving employees easier access to the information and tools they need.

Technology is only one part of a successful HRIS implementation

But despite its capabilities, Employment Hero isn’t just “plug-and-play”. Whether or not it does all it is capable of within your organisation depends on how you use it. 

That means making sure your people processes are defined and operating properly. It also means capturing the right information, giving the right people access (and the right level of access) and planning how the new system will fit with payroll and other business processes.

After all, a platform can have every function in the world and still deliver disappointing results if it’s been configured around unclear processes, unreliable data or assumptions that don’t reflect how the organisation actually works.

Another factor you should think about if you’re implementing Employment Hero is change management. Managers and employees need to understand what’s changing, why it’s changing and what they’ll be expected to do differently. 

Meanwhile, administrators need enough confidence to operate the system once implementation support steps away.

And that’s exactly where Catalina Consultants can add value.

How Catalina Consultants can support your Employment Hero journey

Our team understands HR in practice. We can work with your organisation to examine your existing processes, analyse how Employment Hero can help you get more from them, and then configure Employment Hero around your workforce requirements and business goals. 

Because we already work closely with many of our clients, we also understand the broader context: your structure, people priorities, compliance obligations and plans for growth.

Here’s how we can support you at each stage of the process.

1. Discovery and planning

We analyse your workforce, existing systems, pain points and objectives to determine which Employment Hero solution is likely to work best, as well as which processes may need to be streamlined before you implement it. 

2. Implementation and configuration

We can assist with setting up the system, as well as the data migration. This helps align the platform with your organisation’s structure, policies and workflows.

3. Training and adoption

We can train administrators, managers and employees so they understand how to use the platform and the role they play in making sure it always has reliable information and consistent processes to work with.

What an integrated HR and payroll platform can help you improve

While every organisation has different needs, Employment Hero helps businesses improve several common areas of people management, such as:

While these are some of the potential benefits, the most valuable combination will depend on your workforce, priorities and the Employment Hero products you choose. 

Support that continues after implementation

While it’s one thing to plan the perfect system at launch, the reality is that organisations evolve. New employees join, roles change, reporting needs to evolve and HR or payroll processes are refined.

That’s why, after implementation, Catalina Consultants remain your point of contact, providing practical assistance, guidance and troubleshooting. 

For organisations already using Employment Hero, we can also help review how the platform is currently configured and identify opportunities to improve the system capability, adoption or make better use of available functions.

What the partnership with Employment Hero means for Catalina clients

For Catalina clients, our Employment Hero partnership creates a more direct path from identifying a people challenge to addressing it.

And, rather than dealing separately with a software provider, you work with your outsourced HR team that understands both the platform and your organisational context. 

Want more?

Want to see what Catalina Consultants and Employment Hero could do for your organisation? 

Contact Katie Whitehorn at katie@catalinaconsultants.com.au to arrange a demonstration or discuss your requirements.

Most of us like to think of ourselves as curious. We ask questions, explore new ideas and want to understand why things happen the way they do.

In fact, the latest State of Curiosity report from SurveyMonkey found that 95% of workers considered themselves at least somewhat curious, while 60% described themselves as very curious.

But there’s a problem: just 30% said their workplace strongly rewards curiosity and, for employers, that’s a serious issue.

When people stop being curious at work – when they no longer ask questions, challenge assumptions or explore different ways of doing things – organisations become less innovative and less efficient. They also make poorer decisions and spend more time correcting problems they could have easily avoided.

So why is curiosity vital in the workplace? What’s getting in the way of curiosity in many organisations? And, most importantly, what can you do as an employer to create a workplace where people feel able to be curious?

Why curiosity matters in the workplace

Curiosity can sometimes look inefficient. Rather than simply getting on with things, a curious employee will often ask why they’re doing things a certain way in the first place. They’ll challenge assumptions – sometimes foundational ones – that everyone else just accepts. And they’ll spend time exploring an idea that doesn’t seem to produce any measurable result.

But that apparent inefficiency can have real value. In an HBR piece written in 2018, behavioural scientist Francesca Gino argued that curiosity can help organisations respond more effectively to uncertainty, generate more creative solutions and encourage people to think more deeply about the decisions they make. In doing so, they can also help organisations prevent costly mistakes.

These findings were supported by SurveyMonkey’s more recent study. It found that half of the employees it surveyed had been forced to redo work because the right questions weren’t asked at the beginning. Meanwhile, 46% of surveyed employees had seen time or money wasted because assumptions went unchallenged.

In other words, curiosity can operate as a kind of workplace quality-control mechanism.

Questions such as “Why are we doing it this way?”, “What are we assuming?”, “What might we have missed?” or even “Is there a better way?” can uncover issues that otherwise wouldn’t be noticed.

What’s killing workplace curiosity in 2026?

If curiosity is so valuable, why do most employees say their workplaces don’t encourage it? 

SurveyMonkey’s research identified three key forces that can discourage people from asking questions or exploring ideas, even when they’re naturally curious.

1. The pressure to be efficient

As we noted at the beginning of this article, one of the biggest problems with curiosity is that it takes time.

If employees are under constant pressure to move quickly, meet deadlines and demonstrate productivity, asking extra questions can begin to feel like an expensive indulgence.

When that happens, meetings tend to become focused on updates and decisions rather than on exploration and questioning. Employees feel as though they should execute rather than investigate. And managers can send the message (even if it’s unintentional) that the fastest answer is the best one.

SurveyMonkey found that only 38% of employees said most meetings involved genuine open discussion or exploring ideas. 

It concluded that a relentless focus on efficiency could ultimately create inefficiency. If people didn’t have time to question assumptions at the beginning, organisations tended to spend significantly more time fixing problems down the track.

2. Fear of appearing uninformed

By its very nature, curiosity requires a degree of vulnerability. To ask a question, you first have to admit that you don’t know the answer. 

That can be difficult in workplaces where employees feel they’re expected to already understand everything. That’s especially true for people new to a role or early in their careers.

SurveyMonkey found that 44% of workers worried that asking too many questions would make them look incompetent rather than curious.

This encouraged employees to stay silent and pretend they understood. It also meant they usually followed an existing process rather than risk exposing a gap in their knowledge.

Over time, that tended to weaken both organisational learning and decision-making.

3. AI can become the middleman

SurveyMonkey found that Generative AI introduced another potential barrier to workplace curiosity.

Instead of asking a colleague, employees in 2026 often asked ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot for an explanation of workplace issues and received an answer in seconds.

While this could be useful in helping expand understanding quickly, it also led to the risk that AI would become a substitute for the conversations through which junior team members learned how more experienced colleagues thought.

But perhaps even more alarming is that SurveyMonkey found that it was actually business leaders who were more likely to turn to the “AI middleman” for answers. And the more often someone leaned on AI, the more often something went wrong. 

In fact, it concluded that when AI replaced colleagues for understanding, problems became the rule and not the exception.

A key reason for this was that a third of workers who used AI accepted its output either as-is or after only a quick check. This often meant the first answer became the final answer, with AI’s pattern recognition accepted at face value rather than challenged and refined. 

Those employees who tended to use AI more effectively had already partially solved the problem, so they’d done some of the thinking, had an understanding of the issues and could review AI’s output more critically. 

What does losing curiosity cost your organisation?

The consequences of declining curiosity go beyond missed ideas.

When employees stop asking questions, assumptions become embedded – even when they’re not true. Problems remain hidden for longer because no one scratched the surface. Junior employees learn less from experienced colleagues. And teams become more likely to repeat processes simply because “that’s how we’ve always done it”, rather than looking for the best way.

That can have a direct commercial cost. 

As we’ve already noted, SurveyMonkey’s research showed that half of workers had been forced to redo work because the right questions weren’t asked at the outset, while 46% had seen time or money wasted because assumptions went unchallenged.

But there can also be a longer-term cost to organisational capability. Curiosity is one of the ways knowledge moves through a business. It’s how less experienced employees learn judgement, how teams uncover better ways of working and how organisations adapt when circumstances change.

If employees stop asking questions – or increasingly direct those questions only to AI – some of the informal learning that’s so important to both successful organisations and individual career development can simply disappear.

How to encourage more curiosity in your workplace

The good news is that most employees haven’t lost their curiosity. 

SurveyMonkey’s research suggests the bigger issue is that workplaces don’t always give them enough opportunity – or enough psychological safety – to express it.

When employees were asked what would help them be more curious at work, 77% nominated more opportunities for brainstorming, while 70% wanted greater psychological safety to ask questions. 

Employees also ranked stronger cross-team connections, reduced workloads and more unstructured time as solutions for helping foster more curiosity.

So what does this mean for your workplace?

Make it safe to say “I don’t know”

If employees believe asking questions will make them look incompetent, they’re much more likely to stay quiet.

That means leaders need to model curiosity themselves. Ask questions. Admit when you don’t know something. Invite people to challenge assumptions. And make it clear that thoughtful questioning is a strength rather than a weakness.

Psychological safety doesn’t mean every idea has to be accepted. But it does mean people should feel comfortable to raise a concern, ask for clarification when they don’t understand something or suggest a different approach when they think of one – all without worrying that doing so will count against them.

Create space for exploration

Curiosity needs room to breathe. If every meeting is focused purely on status updates, deadlines and decisions, there’s little opportunity for people to explore ideas or ask whether there might be a better way.

Of course, we’re not suggesting you make every catch-up an open-ended brainstorming session. But it could mean that you deliberately set time aside within most meetings for questions, discussion and reflection before moving straight to next steps. 

Encourage people to learn from each other

AI can provide fast answers, but it shouldn’t replace every conversation.

Encouraging employees to ask colleagues how they approached a problem, why they made a particular decision or what they’ve learned from experience can help preserve the informal transfer of knowledge that happens inside good teams.

This is particularly important for junior employees, who often learn judgement from watching and questioning more experienced colleagues.

Reward better questions, not just faster answers

Workplaces tend to reward visible output like decisions made, tasks completed and deadlines met. 

But if employers measure productivity only by speed, employees quickly learn that questioning and exploration are secondary to their job.

Managers can counter this by recognising those team members who uncover risks, challenge assumptions constructively or ask questions that lead to better outcomes.

After all, sometimes the most valuable contribution an employee can make isn’t having the answer but asking the question nobody else thought to ask.

Curiosity as a workplace capability 

Your organisation probably doesn’t have a shortage of curious people, but it may have employees who – consciously or unconsciously – have learned their curiosity isn’t always rewarded.

The challenge for employers, however, is that curiosity can look like the opposite of productivity. It involves stopping, questioning, exploring and occasionally going somewhere that leads nowhere. But that doesn’t make it wasted time.

In many cases, giving employees permission to slow down long enough to ask better questions may actually be what prevents wasted time in the first place, while also minimising poor decisions and unnecessary rework, and generating better business outcomes.

So, if you want a more curious workplace, the starting point should be to make sure your people know that getting things done matters.  

However, understanding why they’re doing them matters just as much.

Want more?

Need help building the practices and frameworks that help generate curiosity in your workplace? Get in touch.

A recruiter contacts a promising candidate about a role. The candidate researches the organisation, prepares for the interview and rearranges their working day to attend. The conversation goes well, and the recruiter promises to provide an update by the end of the week.

And then … silence. 

The promised update never arrives, follow-up emails go unanswered, and the candidate is left to work out what happened.

Alternatively, a candidate stops returning calls, fails to attend confirmed interviews or even accepts a job offer and then disappears before their first day of work.

This is ghosting, and it’s on the rise. We explore why, how it’s hurting businesses as well as candidates, and how you can break the cycle and restore some trust to your organisation’s recruitment process.

 

What is ghosting?

Not every unanswered application necessarily amounts to ghosting. Job ads often make it clear that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted, so failing to contact everyone of the many applicants for a position isn’t really ghosting. It’s just acting in the way you said you would. 

An automated rejection isn’t necessarily ghosting either. It may feel impersonal, especially when it arrives almost immediately, but it at least gives the candidate an answer.

Instead, ghosting occurs when one party suddenly stops communicating without explanation, despite creating a reasonable expectation that the conversation will continue.

In each of these cases, the problem isn’t so much the rejection or a change of mind – those are just natural and largely unavoidable parts of the recruitment process. Nor is the problem necessarily a delay: hiring decisions frequently take longer than expected and candidates’ circumstances can change quickly.

Ghosting happens when reasonable expectations meet unexplained silence: it’s when someone leaves another person to guess what’s gone on after giving them reason to expect an answer.

 

How common is ghosting in recruitment?

Research suggests ghosting is now common on both sides of the recruitment process.

A 2024 survey by hiring platform Greenhouse found that almost 45% of UK candidates had been ghosted by a recruiter after an initial conversation. And, significantly, respondents from historically underrepresented backgrounds were more likely to report being ghosted than white candidates. More recent Greenhouse data puts the figure even higher, with 61% of job seekers now reporting they’ve been ghosted after an interview.

Recruiters and employers are experiencing similar behaviour. In fact, Forbes Magazine reported that Gen Z candidates ghost employers or recruiters about 54% of the time – after already accepting a formal job offer.

The studies involve different groups and measure different behaviour, but together they reveal how easily the behaviour can become self-reinforcing. Candidates who’ve repeatedly been left without an answer conclude that recruiters don’t value their time. Meanwhile, recruiters who’ve been repeatedly ignored or stood up decide there’s little point investing in candidates until they have demonstrated a serious commitment.

Both responses may be understandable, but they lead to a low-trust system in which each party tries to minimise its investment and keep its alternatives open… until ghosting stops looking like a breach of professional courtesy and starts becoming accepted as simply how recruitment works.

 

Why has ghosting become so common?

There’s no single explanation for the rise of ghosting. But changes in how organisations recruit (and how candidates apply) have made the process increasingly impersonal.

Technology allows job seekers to find and apply for more positions, while generative AI can help them produce tailored applications in a fraction of the time. 

This means employers must then process a greater volume of CVs and cover letters. And that, in turn, encourages heavier reliance on applicant tracking systems, automated screening questions and AI-assisted assessments. 

But what happens inside these isn’t always transparent. Candidates often don’t know whether a recruiter considered their application, whether a knockout question excluded them or whether an automated tool ranked their experience poorly. A capable candidate may have relevant or transferable skills but describe them differently from the language the system has been configured to identify.

Over time, this opacity can change how people behave. Candidates who suspect nobody is meaningfully reading their applications become less inclined to invest in each one. This perpetuates their inclination to apply for several positions, use AI to reproduce the language in job advertisements and keep several options open simultaneously.

Employers then receive more formulaic applications from candidates who may have only limited interest in the position. That creates still more pressure to automate screening and reserve personal communication for a small number of applicants.

But technology isn’t the only cause. Hiring priorities change, positions are placed on hold, and recruiters can be left waiting for decisions from hiring managers. Sometimes responsibility for updating candidates is unclear. At other times, people simply avoid the discomfort of delivering a rejection or admitting that a decision has been delayed.

Candidates can be equally reluctant to have an awkward conversation. They might receive a better offer, lose interest in the position or become concerned about something they encountered during the recruitment process. Saying nothing can feel easier than formally withdrawing.

The result is a self-reinforcing cycle: the less human recruitment feels, the less personally responsible people feel for bringing a conversation to a proper end.

 

The damage ghosting does

Ghosting may avoid one uncomfortable conversation, but it usually creates larger problems for everyone involved.

When candidates disappear, recruiters may need to revive an old shortlist or restart the search entirely. Interviews have to be rescheduled, hiring decisions are delayed, and important positions remain vacant for longer. If someone disappears after accepting an offer, it can get worse still – especially if the employer or recruiter has already informed other candidates they were unsuccessful. 

Candidates may find that ghosting cuts out their options for future roles. A recruiter or hiring manager who has been ignored, stood up or left without an employee on the agreed starting date is unlikely to consider that candidate favourably when another opportunity arises.

Finally, for employers, the damage extends beyond the immediate vacancy. Recruitment is often a candidate’s first direct experience of how an organisation operates. Repeated delays, broken promises and unexplained silence can suggest that the organisation is disorganised, indecisive or indifferent to people’s time.

That impression doesn’t necessarily disappear easily: an unsuccessful candidate might later apply for another position, refer someone else, become a customer or influence how others view the organisation. 

Viewed this way, candidate experience isn’t separate from employer brand – it’s part of a wider pattern of recruitment friction that can repel top talent.

 

Who should break the cycle?

Recruiters, employers and job seekers all share responsibility for communicating professionally, but they don’t have equal control over the recruitment process. 

Employers decide how positions are advertised, which technology screens applications, how many interviews candidates must complete and how long decisions take. And that also gives them the greatest ability, and therefore the greatest responsibility, to set a better standard.

Not that this absolves job seekers of their own responsibility to withdraw honestly rather than disappear. But because employers and recruiters hold the most control over the process, breaking the cycle has to start with them.

 

How you can help break the ghosting cycle in your business

People will always change their minds, accept other opportunities and occasionally behave badly. But a well-designed recruitment process can make disappearing less likely and make professional communication easier for everyone.

1. Set expectations from the beginning

Candidates should know what the recruitment process involves, how long it’s likely to take and who will keep them informed.

Recruiters should also ask how candidates prefer to be contacted and encourage them to disclose if they are considering other opportunities or working to another deadline. Candidates, in turn, should be clear about their level of interest and availability.

Neither party should have to guess what happens next.

2. Give people an actual update date

“We’ll be in touch” creates no meaningful expectation. “We will update you by Friday” does.

Sometimes Friday will arrive before the employer has made a decision. That shouldn’t prevent the recruiter from contacting the candidate with a short message explaining that the process has been delayed.

3. Match the communication to the investment

Not every candidate requires the same level of personal attention.

An automated acknowledgement or rejection might be appropriate for someone who has only submitted an initial application. But once a recruiter has spoken to a candidate, communication should become more personal.

Anyone who takes the time to prepare for and attend an interview deserves a clear outcome. Someone who completes several interviews, assessments or reference checks – the kind of multi-stage process a thorough hiring approach involves – deserves a direct conversation and, where possible, useful feedback.

The greater the investment you ask of the candidate, the greater your obligation to bring the process to a proper conclusion.

4. Automate administration, not relationships

Technology can improve the candidate experience when it’s used to acknowledge applications, arrange interviews, issue reminders and prevent people from being forgotten.

Problems arise when automation replaces communication or makes important decisions unnecessarily opaque.

Make sure you understand how your screening systems work and regularly check what kinds of candidates they exclude. A rigid system can overlook valuable transferable experience simply because it is described differently from the language used in the advertisement.

Once a meaningful human exchange has begun, technology should support the relationship rather than providing an excuse to withdraw from it.

5. Make honest withdrawal easy

Candidates sometimes disappear because formally declining an opportunity feels awkward. You can reduce this by providing a simple and stigma-free way to withdraw.

A short email, text message or link in your recruitment platform may be enough. Recruiters should also make clear that circumstances change and that an honest withdrawal will be treated more favourably than silence.

6. Make communication part of the process

Communication shouldn’t depend entirely on individual memory or goodwill.

You can assign responsibility for updates at every stage, establish expected response times and track candidates who’ve not received an outcome – see our guide to streamlining your hiring process in 8 weeks for a practical framework. 

Also, if you find a pattern of ghosting occurring at the same point of your recruitment process, that may be a sign of excessive delays, unclear information, unnecessary assessments or a gap between the advertised position and the role candidates encounter.

Instead of treating every disappearance as evidence that candidates are unreliable, employers should ask whether the recruitment process is contributing to the behaviour.

 

Restoring the lost art of replying

Recruitment will always involve rejection, changed circumstances and difficult conversations. Ghosting avoids none of these things. It simply transfers the uncertainty and discomfort to someone else.

Recruiters and job seekers won’t always have the answer the other person wants but, in most cases, any honest answer is better than silence.

In short, by treating communication as part of the process rather than an afterthought, employers can begin rebuilding trust and hold candidates to the same standard.

The lost art of replying isn’t especially complicated: it begins with recognising that there is still a person waiting at the other end.

 

Want more?

If your organisation needs help creating a more effective recruitment process or finding the right people, contact Catalina Consultants.

AI is already changing the shape of entry-level professional work. Many of the tasks traditionally given to recent graduates and junior employees – including research, routine analysis, due diligence and drafting basic client communications – can now be completed faster (and often better) with generative AI.

But while AI has the potential to increase productivity and efficiency while reducing costs, it may also have removed a lot of tasks essential to building the knowledge and judgement needed to take on more complex work.

That leaves employers with a dilemma: if AI does the work traditionally assigned to junior professionals, how do they acquire the experience required to become senior employees?

If that’s where your organisation is at right now, read on.

AI isn’t making expertise less valuable

It is tempting to assume that increasingly capable AI will reduce the importance of human expertise. But emerging evidence suggests the opposite may be true.

A recent Harvard Business Review article reported on research involving 30 organisations across banking and finance, management consulting, technology, media and e-commerce. 

The researchers found that AI wasn’t simply changing how employees performed their work, but changing what employers expected from new hires. And on this front, it seems they now expect much more.

As AI takes away the routine tasks, employers increasingly want junior staff to redesign their workflows around the technology – drawing together knowledge from different sources and disciplines and critically assessing AI-generated material.

In other words, for junior staff, producing a competent first draft or basic analysis is becoming less valuable on its own. Employers want people who can determine what problem should be solved, decide whether the resulting answer makes sense and understand how it connects to the organisation’s broader objectives.

The difficulty is that these aren’t entry-level capabilities, but the domain of mid- and late-career professionals, not least because they depend heavily on context, pattern recognition and experience.

This means many employers are creating a contradiction: raising the bar for junior employees while automating many of the activities that traditionally helped them reach it.

Junior work was never just about producing the work

While the traditional model of professional development may not have been described as an apprenticeship, in practice, that’s often how it worked. 

Junior professionals began with relatively contained tasks: researching an issue, preparing a first draft, analysing information or assembling a presentation. A more experienced colleague reviewed the work, identified what they’d missed and explained how to make it better. As employees encountered more problems and received more feedback, they gradually learned to recognise patterns, anticipate risks and exercise better judgment themselves.

This model gave the organisation the work it needed – even if it could take some time – while also developing the employee.

After all, a junior lawyer researching a legal question wasn’t just doing entry-level grunt work, they were learning how legal principles operated outside a textbook (something they usually hadn’t done at university). 

Similarly, a graduate consultant building a presentation was learning to construct a client-focused argument. Meanwhile, a marketing assistant drafting campaign material was learning how audience, message and commercial objectives fitted together.

Mistakes were a painful but necessary part of that development. Struggling with an unfamiliar problem or choosing the wrong approach and having your work corrected helped employees understand not only what the right answer was, but why it was right too.

Generative AI can now perform much of this work faster and, in many cases, to a higher standard. But when it produces the research, structure and first draft, the employee usually doesn’t engage with the information in the same way.

When working faster means learning less

If someone isn’t engaging, they’re also generally not learning. Just because they can complete a polished report, presentation or analysis or with AI, that doesn’t mean they’ve mastered the concepts, as a recent Anthropic (i.e. Claude) study of 52 mostly junior software engineers sound.

THhe engineers were asked to complete a task using a Python library they hadn’t previously encountered. Half were given access to an AI assistant; the others completed the task without it.

The participants using AI finished slightly faster, (although the difference wasn’t statistically significant). But the more revealing result came afterwards. When their knowledge was tested on concepts they’d used only minutes earlier, the AI-assisted group scored an average of 50%, compared with 67% among those who’d completed the work manually.

The largest difference in the two groups involved debugging, or the ability to identify what had gone wrong in their code and explain why. And that’s precisely the capability developers need if they’re expected to supervise and correct AI-generated code.

But before we condemn AI and say there’s no point using it at all, it didn’t produce the same result for everyone. 

Because, while those who delegated their task to the model tended to learn the least, those who asked conceptual questions, requested explanations and tested their own understanding tended to perform much better. 

These employees retained most of what they’d learned. 

Using AI the right way in your workplace

The Anthropic study suggests the issue isn’t simply whether junior employees use AI, but how they use it.

Employees learn less when they treat AI as a contractor, handing over the task and accepting the finished product. They learn more when they treat it as a knowledgeable but fallible colleague: asking questions, challenging its reasoning and using it to deepen their own understanding.

That means approaching AI with curiosity and a degree of scepticism. Instead of asking it to “write the report”, an employee might first form their own view, then ask the model to:

They should also be encouraged to test important claims against reliable sources and to be able to explain the final answer in their own words.

This takes more effort than simply generating an output and may also sacrifice some of AI’s immediate efficiency. But it makes employees use their minds and that mental effort is where most learning occurs.

The objective should be to have your employees using AI as a thinking partner that helps them understand more deeply.

Build the right kind of AI use into your policy

One way to embed this in your organisation is to develop your own policy and training for proper AI use. 

This means moving beyond what most organisations do (i.e. approve certain AI assistants and otherwise treat AI as a confidentiality issue), to explain how you expect staff to use AI without bypassing the thinking that develops their professional capability.

For junior employees, that could mean making sure everyone has to form an initial view before consulting AI. It could also mean asking junior staff to explain concepts in their own language when you’re reviewing their work, rather than judging only the polished output.

You should also identify which junior tasks should be automated and which still play an important developmental role so that the learning it provides doesn’t disappear with it.

When used this way, AI can become part of the apprenticeship rather than its replacement, and it can help junior professionals become more capable as well as more productive.

Want more?

Want help implementing effective AI usage in your workplace? Get in touch.

When Catalina Consultants expanded into Melbourne last year, we knew we were entering a relationship-driven market where business was built on trust and reputation.

And, while that’s proven to be completely accurate, what we have come to understand is the nuances of the work we’ve been engaged to do.

“Whether it’s education, manufacturing, professional services, transport or hospitality, the main HR challenge we’re helping Melbourne businesses solve in 2026 is navigating the sheer number of issues they face at the same time,” says Rachel Bloom, Catalina Consultant’s Melbourne Principal.

Leaders want a partner, not more data

In 2026, Melbourne’s business and HR leaders have more access to policies, templates, guidance material and more information than ever before.

But all of this knowledge isn’t making their lives any easier. In fact, it often complicates things because it means they face competing priorities on a scale they’ve never had to deal with before.

In 2026, organisations are grappling with legislative change, psychosocial obligations, workforce shortages (at least in some sectors), rising costs, flexible work expectations, rapid technological change and, increasingly, questions about the role AI will play in the future of work. (And by the way, this is not unique to Melbourne!)

Rachel says that, individually, any one of these challenges would demand attention.  However, when taken together, they mean that leadership roles are becoming less about managing day-to-day operations and more about balancing competing priorities.

“Every decision creates consequences somewhere else,” she says.

“A flexible working policy may improve employee engagement but may also create challenges around collaboration and accountability. Cost pressures can cause a company to successfully rethink structure and workload, but damage culture and wellbeing.”

“And AI might present exciting opportunities for productivity and efficiency, but it also raises questions about capability, job design, risk and change management.”

“In other words, no HR or business challenge exists in isolation and the question has increasingly become how to fix one of these challenges without breaking another. That’s a very different problem to solve.”

The rise of the challenger

After speaking with many of Melbourne’s business and HR leaders over the past 12 months, Rachel says what they find more valuable than anything else is someone they can talk these challenges through with.

“They’re often looking for an experienced partner who can challenge assumptions, test ideas, ask difficult questions and help them understand the potential consequences of a decision before they make it,” she says.

“So clients aren’t necessarily buying HR advice, processes or direction. They’re buying an independent partner who can listen without judgement and offer pragmatic opinions when they’re making complex people decisions, or business decisions that will have a people impact.”

Rachel explains that this is one of the most dramatic changes she’s personally observed in recent years – the role of HR moving from responsibility for policies, compliance and processes to a more high-level strategic position. And it’s something Catalina has been providing now for 14 years.

“Often the challenge isn’t understanding the options available. It’s understanding which option is right for a particular organisation, at a particular point in time, with a particular group of people,” Rachel explains.

“That requires a level of judgement, context, experience and strategy that can only be delivered by a trusted thinking partner.”

Three lessons from 12 months in Melbourne

Rachel says that her first 12 months in Melbourne have reinforced three key lessons.

1. Trust still matters (maybe even more than before)

“When we first entered the Melbourne market after many years in business, we knew organisations would choose advisers they trusted rather than simply the provider with the most impressive credentials or largest profile,” Rachel says.

“That assessment proved correct, with many of the strongest opportunities coming through referrals, introductions and existing relationships rather than traditional business development activity.”

When leaders are navigating sensitive people issues, organisational change or difficult decisions, they want an adviser whose views they respect to sit beside them, challenge their thinking and provide practical guidance when things become complicated.

As Rachel puts it: “Technical capability is important and expected and absolutely critical, but trust is what differentiates.”

2. Authenticity beats polish

Rachel says that one thing that surprised her most was how strongly leaders responded to honest conversations about what was really happening inside their organisations.

“Many leaders are dealing with challenges that don’t have simple answers, so they’re cautious about anyone who’s selling easy fixes,” she explains. “They want someone who understands the complexity of the situation and can help them work through it.

Rachel says that, in a world increasingly filled with automated content, curated messaging and carefully managed communication (which often says everything while saying very little at all), genuine conversations have become even more valuable. Catalina has always understood this – in fact, it’s why we’ve always pitched ourselves as the human resources team that’s human!

3. Execution is often the real challenge

Rachel says her most important lesson of all has been that, while most organisations already have a reasonable understanding of what needs to happen, they often struggle to turn their intentions into reality.

“Leaders know they need to develop capability, strengthen culture, improve performance, navigate change and support their people,” she says.

“Where they need help is in working out where to start, what to prioritise and how to execute effectively without creating new problems elsewhere. And ideally someone with the capacity and know-how to carry it through”.

The future of HR is human

When Rachel joined Catalina’s Melbourne office a year ago, she says that her success would depend on establishing a presence, building relationships and proving the model. However, her – and Catalina Consultants’ – ambitions already look quite different.

“Our Founder, Merilyn Speiser never wanted growth for growth’s sake, but was interested most in the HR impact we could have on Melbourne-based businesses,” she says.

“Are we helping leaders make better decisions? Are we strengthening workplaces? Are we building capability that remains long after our engagement has finished?”

These questions aren’t random, but reflect a broader shift occurring across the profession. And HR professionals who understand this will be better placed to have influence and impact.

“For years, HR was often viewed through the lens of policy, compliance and process,” Rachel explains. “Those responsibilities remain important and always will, but increasingly, the greatest value lies in helping leaders and teams navigate complexity, ambiguity and human behaviour.”

“That’s something that still requires judgement, context and experience, and the best results come from having a trusted partner willing to ask the right questions rather than simply provide quick answers.”

Want more?

Looking for a partner to help your organisation make sense of today’s HR and business landscape? Get in touch.

Most employers see promotions as a reward for good work. 

An employee consistently exceeds expectations, delivers strong results and becomes one of the most valuable people in the business. So the obvious next step is up the internal ladder.

The problem is that this often doesn’t work. The qualities that make someone an exceptional individual contributor don’t necessarily translate into being a great leader. In fact, they can often be at odds. 

So promoting an outstanding performer into a role they’re not cut out for gives you the double whammy of an ineffective manager and a gaping hole where your best employee used to be.

So, if you want to avoid the trap of simply promoting your best employees and start recruiting the most effective managers, here’s how to do it.  

Why promotions feel like the logical next step (but sometimes aren’t)

The logic behind most promotions is easy to understand.

When an employee consistently delivers strong results, exceeds expectations and becomes one of the most valuable people in the business, rewarding them with greater responsibility feels like the natural thing to do.

There’s also the practical consideration of employee retention. If you don’t provide a pathway upwards, together with additional remuneration, won’t your best people leave to find opportunities elsewhere?

That’s why most organisations confuse performance with leadership potential. One widely cited study examined almost 40,000 sales employees across 131 firms and found businesses consistently promoted their highest-performing salespeople into management roles, even when other characteristics were better predictors of managerial success. 

The result was that many exceptional salespeople became relatively ineffective and frequently unhappy managers. After all, selling usually rewards personal output. Managing other salespeople depends on coaching, influencing, developing others and achieving results through a team. That’s a very different skill.

This phenomenon is often referred to as the “Peter Principle” or the tendency for organisations to promote employees based on success in their current role rather than their suitability for the next one.

And the Peter Principle is exactly why a separate Gallup study found that companies fail to choose the right talent an incredible 82% of the time.

What makes a great employee vs what makes a great manager

One of the biggest misconceptions about leadership is that being a manager is a more senior version of the job someone’s already doing. That might be true sometimes, but more often it’s a completely different role.

A great individual contributor is typically rewarded for their own output. They’re measured on the quality of their work, their technical expertise, their productivity and their ability to solve problems. Managers, by contrast, are judged on something entirely different: the performance of other people.

Instead of doing the work themselves, they need to help others complete it. Instead of being the expert with all the answers, they often need to coach, guide and develop people who have different strengths, personalities and working styles.

Research into frontline leadership consistently identifies capabilities such as coaching, communication, team development, influence and managing difficult conversations as some of the most important skills for new leaders.

The challenge is that many of these skills aren’t usually required of high-performing individual contributors, whose role is usually based more on technical skills.

Take delegation, for example. The employee who consistently produces the best work in the business is often someone who has very high standards and likes maintaining control over outcomes. In other words, the same qualities that make them an outstanding individual performer make it extremely difficult for them to hand responsibility to others – something good managers have to do all the time.

Managers also need to influence, motivate and align people around shared goals. They have to communicate expectations clearly, navigate conflict, deliver difficult feedback and build trust across a team.

When you think about it this way, it’s obvious that the skills that make an outstanding employee and those that make an outstanding manager overlap far less than many organisations assume.

The warning signs you’re promoting the wrong person

Of course, none of this means high performers should never be promoted. Many exceptional leaders begin their careers as exceptional individual contributors. The challenge, however, is identifying whether someone is ready for leadership or whether they’re just very good at their current job.

While every situation is different, there are a few warning signs that should give you pause before promoting a great performer. 

1. They struggle to let go of work

A foundational study tracking failed managers at Sears over 30 years found that one of the clearest indicators that someone will struggle in a management role is an inability to delegate. 

High performers are often used to being the person who gets things done. They’re reliable, capable and trusted to deliver quality outcomes. The problem is that management requires a different mindset.

Leaders who insist on personally checking, controlling or completing everything themselves often become bottlenecks. They can frustrate their teams, slow decision-making and prevent others from developing their own skills.

If someone finds it difficult to trust others with important work, they may not yet be ready to lead them.

2. They solve every problem themselves

Many organisations promote people because they’re excellent problem solvers. But managers aren’t paid to solve every problem; they’re paid to build teams that can solve problems.

Employees who instinctively jump in and fix every issue can unintentionally create dependency, leaving team members less confident and less capable over time.

Strong leaders know when to provide support and when to step back and allow others to work through challenges for themselves.

3. They avoid difficult conversations

Leadership inevitably involves uncomfortable conversations. This includes providing constructive feedback, addressing underperformance, managing conflict and setting clear expectations.

Many technically strong employees have never had to develop these skills because their success has largely depended on their own output rather than the performance of others.

4. They don’t enjoy developing other people

Not everyone wants to be a manager.

Some employees derive enormous satisfaction from technical expertise, project work or solving complex problems. Others genuinely enjoy coaching, mentoring and helping people grow.

Neither preference is better than the other, but management is ultimately a people-focused role.

If someone shows little interest in supporting colleagues, sharing knowledge or helping others succeed, it’s worth considering whether leadership is actually the right next step for them.

5. They see promotion as a reward rather than a responsibility

Perhaps the biggest warning sign of all is when a promotion is viewed primarily as recognition for past performance – because promotion should never be a prize.

It’s a new role with new expectations, new responsibilities and an entirely different definition of success.

The strongest leadership candidates understand this. They recognise that management is less about personal achievement and more about creating the conditions for others to succeed.

If promoting a star performer isn’t the answer, what is?

One of the biggest mistakes organisations make is assuming that promotion is the only meaningful way to recognise and retain talented employees.

In reality, many high performers don’t necessarily want to manage people. They want to deepen their expertise, work on more complex projects, influence strategy or become recognised as leaders within their field.

The challenge is that many organisations still treat management as the default path to career progression. If someone wants more responsibility, more status or greater remuneration, they’re often expected to move into leadership whether they’re suited to it or not.

A better approach is to create multiple pathways for growth. That might include specialist or technical career streams, project leadership opportunities, mentoring responsibilities, stretch assignments or getting involved in strategic initiatives.

This has been the approach of companies including Walmart, Microsoft and IBM, all of which have a long history of offering dual-track career paths so technical experts can reach senior levels without moving into people management.  

More recently, Shopify has done the same – dividing its senior workforce into “crafts” and “managers”. The former’s job is to build the best products; the latter’s is to do what it takes to make that happen. 

By offering a similar split, you allow employees to continue developing their careers without necessarily taking on management responsibility. 

How to decide who to promote

Finally, for those who do show genuine leadership potential, promotion should rarely come as a surprise. Instead, you should be setting the groundwork from early on by testing and developing leadership well before a title change.

This might mean offering opportunities to lead projects, mentor junior staff, coordinate teams or act in higher duties roles. This allows both the employee and the organisation to assess whether leadership is the right fit before making a permanent decision.

Importantly, by providing this kind of pathway, you’ll be able to potentially identify any capability gaps that can be addressed through coaching, training and development, so that good performers can also become effective managers.

After all, the goal should never be to promote people as quickly as possible, but to place people in roles where they can be successful.

For the best organisations, sometimes that means promoting someone into leadership, sometimes it means helping them become a recognised expert and sometimes it means creating opportunities that don’t fit neatly within a traditional organisational chart.

Promotions matter, but so do people

Promotions shape careers, influence culture and ultimately go a long way to determining whether or not your organisation succeeds. 

That’s why they deserve more thought than simply asking who’s delivered the strongest results over the past 12 months.

So rather than treating promotions as a reward for work already completed, view them as an investment in future performance.

Because the goal isn’t to recognise your best employees. It’s to identify the people most likely to succeed in the role you’re asking them to perform next.

Want more?

Need help identifying future leaders, developing high-potential employees or building a succession planning strategy? 

Catalina Consultants helps organisations make better people decisions and build future leadership capability. 

Get in touch to learn more.

With 1 July just around the corner, now is a great time for employers to get across the key workplace changes coming into effect in the new financial year.

While some updates will require practical changes to your HR and payroll processes, others present an opportunity to review policies and internal procedures. There is also a significant proposed change to Victorian legislation that employers should be aware of, which may impact employees across the state regarding their ability to work from home.

 

Here’s a summary of the key changes coming into effect from 1 July 2026.

 

1. Minimum wage increases 4.75%

The 2026 Annual Wage Review resulted in increases in the National Minimum Wage and minimum wages in Modern Awards from 1 July 2026.

The National Minimum Wage will increase to $26.44 per hour (or $1,004.90 per week based on a 38 hour work week). Casual rates will attract a 25% loading to this rate.

Minimum wages under all Modern Awards will increase by 4.75%. This also brings increases to penalties and allowances.

 

What you need to do:

 

2. Payday Super

From 1 July 2026, employers are required to remit superannuation guarantee contributions on the same day that payroll is processed, so that super contributions reach an employee’s chosen superfund within 7 days.

There is a grace period for payment of a new employee’s first contribution, which allows for their payment to be made within 20 days of their first pay date.

Non-compliance with the new payment rules will result in penalties through an updated super guarantee charge, which will be payable from the next calendar day and attract interest on a daily basis.

 

What you need to do:

 

3. Superannuation contribution thresholds

As super contributions must now be paid at each pay period, the maximum contribution base for FY27 is an annual amount of $270,830 (previously it was a quarterly figure), which results in a maximum SG contribution of $32,499.60 in this financial year.

The maximum contribution base is the maximum base salary that an employee earns on which their employer is required to pay the SG contribution. The employer is not required to pay super on any earnings over this amount in the financial year.

The general superannuation concessional contribution cap for FY27 is $32,500. This is the maximum amount of super you can contribute (from employer contributions, salary sacrifice contributions and personal contributions for tax deductions) to your fund without incurring extra tax at the marginal rate.

 

What you need to do:

 

4. Expansion of parental leave obligations

The government-funded paid parental leave will increase to 26 weeks (130 days) for any babies born or adopted on or after 1 July 2026. This is final stage of the government’s reform to the paid parental leave scheme and provides an increase of 2 weeks on last year’s provision.

Of the 26 weeks, each parent has at least 4 weeks reserved for them, which will be forfeited if unused.

As part of the reform, the government will also directly pay a 12% super contribution on any government-funded parental leave payment to eligible parents.

 

What you need to do:

 

5. High income threshold to be updated

From 1 July 2026, the high income threshold is an annual base salary of $190,100.

The high income threshold indicates the maximum earnings that an individual can earn to be eligible for unfair dismissal protections from the FWC. Any employee earning at or above the threshold cannot file unfair dismissal claims, but can still apply for general protections claims (exceptions to the access to unfair dismissal claims may be applicable for some Award or enterprise agreement covered employees).

Maximum compensation for an unfair dismissal claim is 6 months’ salary – which, for someone earning the maximum amount before reaching the threshold, is $95,000.

 

What you need to do:

 

6. Redundancy tax-free threshold and ETP caps

The tax-free threshold for redundancy payments in FY27 is $13,598, plus $6,801 for every full year of service.

The cap for employment termination payments (ETP) taxed at the concessional rate is increasing to $270,000. Any amount in excess of this cap is taxed at the top marginal rate.

 

What you need to do:

 

7. Laws restricting NDAs in sexual harassment cases (VIC)

Effective 1 July 2026, the Victorian government has introduced a law that restricts the use of NDAs when dealing with workplace sexual harassment disputes to protect Victorian workers who have experienced workplace sexual harassment. This law prevents employers from covering up cases or silencing victims, and from influencing a worker to sign a NDA.

 

What you need to do:

 

8. The right to work from home (VIC)

On 16 June 2026, the Victorian government presented a new legislation to the Victorian Parliament that provides for the right to work from home under the state’s anti-discrimination laws, within the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (VIC).

If passed, the new law will provide eligible employees in Victoria with the right to work from home for up to 2 days per week, and be effective as of 1 September 2026 in all public and private businesses in Victoria. However, for small businesses (fewer than 15 employees), this law will come into effect on 1 July 2027 to allow time for any necessary adjustments in their business operations.

This legislation will be applicable for employees who can reasonably perform their roles remotely, including part-time and regular casual employees, but excludes roles that require a physical presence to fulfil their primary function.

This legislation is significant, as this is the first time that working from home would become a statutory right in any Australian state. Moreover, the fact that this law sits within state anti-discrimination legislation, and not under the Fair Work Act, positions the provision as an issue of equal opportunity, with more scrutiny likely to be applied to disputes and enforcement. Any disputes will handled by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (VEOHRC) and the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT).

Details are still yet to be finalised through Parliament and further updates will be released prior to commencement.

 

What you need to do:

 

Are you FY27 ready?

As FY27 begins, there are plenty of HR-related changes that businesses need to be on top of.

If you have any questions regarding the changes or are keen to find out how they could impact you or your business, speak with one of the Catalina Consultant team members today.

Many organisations say they’re struggling to find talent. Yet, a surprising number seem to apply a rigid formula for hiring and part of that includes, insisting that any person they employee is currently in a job. 

As a result, a surprising number of companies automatically overlook candidates returning from a gap in their employment history. But in doing so, they’re often overlooking the most capable and motivated talent they could have working for them. 

As Harvard Business Review has noted, many people take career breaks for reasons entirely unrelated to their work performance. Perhaps they took time away to raise children, maybe they cared for an ageing parent, maybe they were studying and learning new things or maybe they were just stepping away from work for a while to recalibrate and sort out their priorities.

These people remain highly capable professionals, but can find themselves overlooked because their resume no longer follows the traditional pattern employers expect. 

Here’s what your organisation can do to overcome that and get the most out of people returning to the workforce. 

Why employers hesitate to hire people on a career break

Most employers would like to think they assess candidates purely on merit. In practice, however, career gaps can trigger suspicion.

Some managers worry that significant time away from the workforce will render candidates’ skills out of date. They think to themselves (even subconsciously): will they really be able to adapt to new technologies, systems and ways of working or will they need extensive retraining?

There can also be concerns about commitment. If someone’s stepped away from their career once, some employers begin worrying they’ll simply do it again without warning.

While these concerns can sometimes be justified, they shouldn’t be the starting point, or lens through which every career returner is viewed. 

In fact, research suggests the opposite problem may be more common. A PwC study found that three in five professional women returning from a career break are likely to enter lower-skilled roles when they return to work, while two-thirds may ultimately be working below their potential.

After all, experience doesn’t simply disappear just because someone’s taken time off. A marketing manager who took two years off to care for young children doesn’t suddenly forget how to develop a campaign. 

In most cases, the gap won’t be capability but only familiarity with the latest tools, systems or workplace trends. And these things can often be learned much more quickly than the technical expertise, judgement and professional maturity that comes with years of experience.

The more useful question, therefore, isn’t “Why did this person take a career break?” but “How could this person contribute if we gave them the opportunity?”.

What people returning from a career break actually bring

While every candidate is, of course, different, organisations that hire career returners are often surprised by the qualities they tend to bring to the workplace. Here are some of the key ones. 

1. They’re often highly motivated

People returning to work have usually made a conscious decision to do so.

Unlike candidates who are simply moving from one employer to another, many career returners have spent considerable time thinking about what they want from the next stage of their professional lives. They’ve often had the opportunity to reflect on their strengths, priorities and long-term goals.

As a result, they’re frequently more intentional about their career choices and more committed to making their next role a success.

Many are also eager to rebuild momentum in their careers. That doesn’t mean they’ll work unreasonable hours or sacrifice work-life balance. But it often does mean they arrive with energy, focus and a genuine appreciation for the opportunity they’ve been given.

2. They bring experience and perspective

One of the biggest mistakes employers make is assuming that time away from paid employment somehow represents time lost. In reality, many people continue developing valuable skills throughout their career break.

Someone caring for young children may be managing competing priorities, resolving conflicts and making hundreds of decisions every day. Someone supporting an ageing parent is probably navigating complex systems (i.e. the health care system, finances, etc.), advocating for others and dealing with challenging situations under pressure. 

Studying, volunteering and travelling also help develop entirely new skills as well as greater perspective and often a renewed sense of purpose that ultimately makes them stronger employees. 

While these experiences may not appear in a traditional job description, they can build important qualities for the workplace, including resilience, empathy, adaptability and problem-solving.

3. They can be remarkably efficient

If there’s one thing people who’ve spent years balancing family responsibilities, caring duties, study commitments or multiple priorities tend to have in common, it’s efficiency. 

The time management skills of a young parent or carer are often peerless, because they’ve had to learn very  quickly how to identify what matters, what doesn’t and how to get everything done. 

In many cases, these employees have little interest in appearing busy for the sake of it. They’re much more focused on outcomes.

That can translate into strong productivity, excellent organisation and an ability to manage competing demands without becoming overwhelmed.

Of course, not every person returning from a career break fits this description. But many hiring managers who take a chance on career returners discover they bring a level of focus and efficiency that’s difficult to teach.

How to get the most out of someone returning from a career break 

Hiring someone returning from a career break is only the first step. As with any employee, getting them performing at their best and making the biggest contribution to the organisation means also giving them the support and resources they need.

Here’s how to do it.

1. Don’t assume they know what ‘s changed

One of the biggest mistakes employers can make is assuming that someone returning to work will automatically know how workplaces, systems and technology have evolved while they’ve been away.

Some processes, software platforms and industry practices may have changed a lot.

But, rather than viewing this as a weakness, treat it as part of the onboarding process.

Most new tech or other changes aren’t hard to pick up quickly with the right training and instructions. Also make sure they have plenty of opportunity to ask questions so they can regain their confidence and get up to speed as quickly as possible. 

2. Set clear expectations, right from the start

Returning to work can take some adjustment – especially when the way we work has changed so much in the past half-decade or so. Just think if someone left the workforce before 2020, they may have had little experience working from home – so they may not be across the written, and unwritten rules of what’s expected of them.

By communicating clearly upfront about responsibilities, priorities and performance expectations, you can help remove some of the uncertainty and let people focus on delivering results.

Employees can really only be successful when they understand exactly what success looks like. So tell them exactly how their performance will be measured and where they should focus their energy in the early stages of the role.

3. Provide regular feedback and support

Many exceptionally capable people returning to the workforce are still likely to question whether they’re meeting expectations.

Regular check-ins can help allay any fears, but also address any concerns before they become problems.

These conversations don’t need to be formal – in fact, they usually shouldn’t be. Often, a simple discussion about what’s going well, what’s proving challenging and where additional support might help is enough to build their confidence and keep them engaged.

4. Consider flexibility where you cane

For some people, the circumstances that led to their career break may not have disappeared entirely.  They may still have caring responsibilities, study commitments or other personal priorities they need to balance alongside work.

Providing flexibility where it’s practical can make a big difference on this front.

That doesn’t necessarily mean letting all career returners work from home five days a week or abandoning all workplace expectations. But it might mean allowing reasonable flexibility around hours, start and finish times or leave to attend occasional personal commitments.

In many cases, organisations will find this flexibility gets repaid through increased loyalty, engagement and retention.

Why businesses can’t afford to ignore career returners

At a time when many organisations continue to report genuine difficulties in finding good people, overlooking those returning from career breaks is becoming increasingly difficult to justify.

The reality is that most employers are competing for the same relatively small pool of candidates, i.e. those already employed, actively job hunting and able to demonstrate a reasonably linear career history.

At the same time, there are thousands of experienced professionals sitting outside the workforce who have valuable skills, proven experience and a genuine desire to return to meaningful work.

By tapping into this pool and creating the right conditions for them to thrive, you could be giving yourself a genuine competitive advantage.

After all, the organisations that benefit most from career returners are often those that recognise a simple truth: returning employees don’t need special treatment. They simply need the conditions that allow them to  demonstrate what they’re capable of.

When they’re given that opportunity, many employers quickly discover they’ve accessed a talent pool their competitors have been overlooking all along.

Want more?

Need help attracting, assessing and retaining great people? Catalina Consultants works with organisations across Australia to build stronger workplaces, develop effective people strategies and unlock the full potential of their workforce.

Get in touch with our team of HR experts to learn more.

Catalina Consultants has just been certified as a Great Place to Work for the third consecutive year, with 90% of our employees saying this is a great place to work, compared to 60% at a typical Australian company.

But the result we learned the most from wasn’t this year’s score. It was the year our results went backwards.

That’s because, instead of explaining it away, we decided to take a hard look at why and how we could fix it.

Here’s what we did, and what we think businesses of every size can take from our experience.

A flying start and then a dip… 

When we first went through the Great Place to Work certification process in 2024, we came out swinging. Overall scores were overwhelmingly positive across virtually every category.

It felt validating. We’d worked hard to build a collaborative and supportive culture and the survey suggested our people genuinely experienced it that way.

Which made year two more confronting.

Because, when we repeated the survey in 2025, our scores came back lower. Not dramatically – we were still certified and well above average – but still noticeably enough to give us pause. 

The easy thing would have been to explain them away, which is what a lot of businesses do with feedback they don’t want to hear. 

When scores dip, managers often scramble to work out why. Then someone points out that the sample size was small or that it was a tough period or that the questions weren’t quite right – and that becomes the narrative that everyone begins to adopt. 

Before you know it, the results get filed away and nothing changes.

The more courageous – and ultimately more beneficial – path is to take on the feedback people have taken the time to give you.

That’s why we decided to put last year’s result under the microscope and see how we could turn it into a positive for our people and our business.

What we actually did with the 2025 results

Rather than look at the results at a high level, we went deep, examining the areas where we’d scored lower in granular detail. Then we convened a focus group.

A small team went through the results item by item and identified around 22 distinct actions they thought would turn things around. And, most importantly, over the next year we put them all into play before taking the survey again.

The result was that our score moved back into the 90s once again.

Two things that made the biggest difference

While there may have been 22 recommendations all up, we noticed most of the changes fundamentally  came down to addressing two key things within the business. 

1. Rethinking flexibility

Since COVID, flexibility has become one of the most important issues to many workers, with surveys revealing as many as three-quarters of employees want to work away from their office some or all of the time.

Our workplace was no different, and the 2025 questionnaire surveys showed there was a strong preference among many of our people for an arrangement that allowed for two-days-from-home, three-days-in-office arrangement – the same model that had become common across many professional services firms.

But when we took that request to the focus group, a more nuanced picture emerged. For an HR consulting firm, working from a client site is central to the job. Two days away from the office didn’t just mean two days at home, it also often meant two days’ less availability to our clients. 

And that was fundamentally in tension with our commitment to providing clients with the very best service available.

So instead of simply adopting a blanket remote work policy, we asked a different question: what does flexibility actually mean to people here?

When we analysed it, we found the answer was that flexibility meant different things to different people. For some, flexibility meant location. For others, it meant control over start and finish times, school pickup arrangements, appointments, or having greater autonomy over how work fit into life. 

We also found that some level of flexibility was already partly built into how we worked. 

Catalina employees have a core commitment of 38 hours a week, but how and when those hours are worked has significant latitude.

We’ve long offered flexible start and finish times (from 7:30am through to a 6pm finish) plus a weekly flex arrangement that allowed people to build up hours and take a shorter day at some stage during the week. 

But the main issue was that people didn’t feel comfortable taking advantage of it. So, what we added was visibility, creating a dedicated Teams channel where people actively communicated how they were flexing their hours.

This normalised the use of flexibility that was already available, rather than leaving it to individuals to figure out on their own.

And, as a result, our flexibility scores went up significantly.

2. Explaining the money

The second major change was about financial transparency – specifically, helping people within the business understand its incentive structure.

Catalina has had a bonus and KPI plan in place for several years and the mechanics of it aren’t complicated. But in practice, not many people were hitting it. 

When we got into the detail, however, we found that this wasn’t because the targets were unreachable, it was because the connection between individual effort and business outcome hadn’t been made clear.

So we took the time to provide education to all employees around how we make money as a business. This led into how each person’s contribution fitted into the overall picture. It then became relatively straightforward to see how you could earn a bonus, and why you would work towards one – if that’s what motivated you.

This prompted a significant shift in the way people worked. In the following period, the number of people who reached their KPIs and achieved a bonus went up by more than 300%. 

Other team members were honest that they preferred to focus on their work without tracking against commercial targets, and that was fine too. But the people who wanted to engage with it found they now could, and that it made sense both to where the business was headed and their own career goals.

Beyond the incentive plan, we also worked hard to provide the team with more visibility into what the business spends money on and why, including training budgets, offsite programs, wellbeing initiatives. Understanding that these were conscious investments rather than unexplained expenditures made a difference to how people felt about the organisation’s priorities.

What your business can learn from our experience 

The reality is that, while earning recognition might make you feel great, the true value  of any engagement survey – whether it’s Great Place to Work, something you’ve designed internally or something that you ask us to provide – is almost entirely determined by what you do with it afterwards.

In other words, never take a survey if you’re not prepared to accept the feedback within it. If you’re just after a sticker or a stamp to put on your website, don’t bother. The whole point is to hear what your people actually think.

And, if you do score well, that’s valuable too. Understanding your strengths is invaluable when it comes to things like recruitment, retention, and branding. It gives you something verifiable to say about what your business is known for, and what your people actually experience working there.

The other dimension, which is increasingly important in 2026, is psychosocial safety. Workplace psychological safety obligations have become considerably more onerous in recent years. A good engagement survey provides one of the most direct, evidence-based ways to verify that your people feel safe and supported at work. So, in that sense, it’s like doing due diligence on your workplace practices.

Should your business get certified?

Just as it was two years ago, the short answer is yes – so long as clear eyes about what you’re signing up for.

Certification through Great Place to Work provides an externally validated benchmark. It carries weight with candidates, clients and the broader market in ways that self-reported culture claims simply don’t. And it gives you a consistent measurement tool that allows you to track genuine progress over time, including when things go backwards.

If you’d like something more tailored to your business, our outsourced HR team can design and run an engagement survey process that fits your size, industry and goals. 

But always remember that undertaking a survey or gaining certification is only the start. The businesses that get the most from it are the ones that treat any results as information to act on.

That’s what we did here at Catalina. Twenty-two actions, one focus group, and a 300% increase in people hitting their KPIs… 

The results didn’t just speak for themselves, they gave us something worth saying. 

Want more?

Interested in running an engagement survey for your business or exploring what Great Place to Work certification could mean for your organisation? Talk to the Catalina team today.

You can also read our original article on how we first became Great Place to Work certified, or visit the Great Place to Work website for more on the certification process.

Faza Wulandari first encountered Catalina not as an employee, but as a client. Fresh out of university and into her first full-time role, she found herself on the receiving end of Catalina’s HR advisory services: sitting in coaching sessions, watching how the team worked… and quietly taking notes.

This early exposure stayed with her. Over the years that followed, through roles at a boutique consultancy and later inside one of the big four consulting firms, Faza kept in touch with Catalina founder Merilyn Speiser. So, when the opportunity came to join the team properly in 2021, it felt less like a leap and more like an arrival.

Five years later, Faza has just stepped into a newly created General Manager role. It’s a significant moment, both for Catalina and for Faza. And for someone who approaches everything with genuine curiosity, the fact that it’s uncharted territory is genuinely exciting stuff.

Starting from the client side

After leaving Sydney University in 2015 with a degree in Health Science and Business Management, Faza obtained a Certificate IV in Human Resources before landing her first full time role. 

That job threw her straight into the deep end: she worked alongside a manager who was building out the company’s HR function from scratch. 

“To help me learn quickly, they arranged some mentoring from Catalina”, Faza recalls. “I had regular coaching sessions from one of their senior advisors and I had the opportunity to work with Merilyn on various initiatives and matters as well. So, I like to say they’ve known me since I was a baby”.

The relationship didn’t end when Faza moved on.  Working through a small consulting firm that was subsequently absorbed into a larger group, she found herself working closely with internal consulting teams and developing an appetite for the kind of variety and client exposure that in-house roles rarely offer. 

So, when she and Merilyn reconnected, the timing was right.

“When I was given the opportunity to work directly for Catalina, I jumped at it,” she says. 

Why consulting accelerates everything

Ask Faza what distinguishes Catalina from a conventional in-house HR role and she doesn’t hesitate: the most important difference is the sheer breadth of exposure.

“On any one day, you’re working with multiple different clients and stakeholders, and you really need to be able to adapt very quickly,” Faza explains. “The way you’ll advise  a professional services client is going to be different to the way you advise a hospitality client. The documents you’re working on, the situations, the employees – they’re all quite different.”

This, she acknowledges, can be demanding in its own way, and Faza says that the ability to context switch matters just as much as technical knowledge. Add in the kind of genuine time management discipline that professional services firms require, and you have a more demanding environment than most in-house roles, but also what Faza believes can be a far richer one. 

“You get to see situations that you wouldn’t see otherwise, or that you might only encounter once or twice in your career if you were working in-house in a large HR department”, she says. “It’s really enriching in that sense.”

It’s also, she notes, the reason Catalina is an attractive proposition for candidates. “I always tell people: you can accelerate your learning here in a way that’s genuinely hard to replicate elsewhere.”

A new role, a new chapter

Catalina has grown considerably in the five years since Faza first walked through the doors as an employee. When she joined in 2021, the team numbered around 10 people. Today it’s closer to 24, with plans for further growth.

But, Faza notes, as any business scales, the less that can be run by just one person. On this front, Merilyn had been managing Catalina’s internal operations while simultaneously carrying a substantial client load of her own. The solution was to create a dedicated General Manager role that could focus on the operational health of the business, support the team’s development, and free Merilyn up to focus on what she does best. 

Faza put her hand up.

“It was something I was interested in exploring in the future”, she admits. “Much later on. But Merilyn is a huge proponent of internal career growth, and I was fortunate that she believed I was capable of the job. She was the one who said, ‘Come back from maternity leave and I’ll teach you as you go’.”

Faza is also candid about the complexity of this kind of transition. In her previous role as an HR Consultant, she had watched several founder-led organisations grapple with the changed dynamic that comes when operational responsibilities shift to someone new –  when institutional knowledge has to be shared, priorities communicated and trust built in both directions. 

“One of the hardest things I’ve seen my client stakeholders go through is when they’ve brought in someone new to take the reins on part of the business,” she says. “It’s learning about the person’s personality and dynamic with the organisation’s leaders as well as their working style. And you can’t teach someone a personality.”

The fact that she and Merilyn already knew each other well – and that the chemistry and communication were already established – removed what she considers the hardest variable from the equation. 

The technical skills, Faza says, are teachable. The rest is harder to manufacture.

What makes a great General Manager?

When asked what defines a great General Manager, Faza also draws on five years of observation as an HR Consultant as much as her five weeks in the job.

People management sits at the centre – not in the administrative sense, she says, but in the genuine, relationship-building sense. 

“Having been in that client-facing consulting role, I’ve lived what our team goes through every day,” Faza explains. “You need to understand what the people around you need, and be able to bring them along.”

Alongside that is being able to communicate in a way that aligns people with where the business is headed, especially through periods of change.

Then there’s the balance between strategic thinking and practical execution. “The ability to take that commercial, strategic perspective and translate it into the operational pieces is vital,” Faza says. “So you’re problem-solving in a way that actually gets results, rather than getting bogged down in the day-to-day.”

Looking ahead

Five weeks into the role, Faza is clear about what excites her: the fact that this is genuinely new territory.

“It’s a new role, and I’m excited to see the impact it can make – not just on Merilyn’s workload, but on the team,” she explains. 

Her focus in the near term is on understanding the full picture of how Catalina operates, earning Merilyn’s trust on the decisions she brings forward, and creating tangible improvements in the systems and processes that support the team’s work.

She also sees this as a story about what Catalina stands for more broadly. 

“Merilyn giving me this opportunity is a testament to the commitment to internal career growth that exists here,” Faza says. “People with HR backgrounds don’t often move into operational general manager roles. I think that’s worth changing.”

It’s a perspective shaped by someone who understands, from the inside, what it means to build a career through genuine development rather than simply moving from one job title to the next.

And, for someone who describes no two days as the same, a role that’s never been done before at a business she’s known since the beginning might just be the perfect fit.

Want more?

Faza Wulandari is General Manager at Catalina Consultants. 

If you’d like to know more about careers at Catalina or how we can help your business, get in touch.

Most conversations about performance management eventually get around to mentioning Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, but we think – in 2026 – it’s best to get him out of the way right up front.

Welch was, by any measure, a serious business mind. During his two decades running GE, the company’s value increased by more than $300 billion, briefly becoming the world’s most valuable. And, in 1999, Fortune Magazine dubbed him “Manager of the Century”.

Welch put the annual performance review at the centre of the way he ran one of the world’s most successful companies. And, his approach – a system he called the “vitality curve” but everyone else knew as “rank and yank” – was not without internal logic.

Welch’s vitality curve divided GE’s workforce into three groups: the elite 20% of performers, the “vital 70%” in the middle and, then, the bottom 10%. This final group was classified as “non-producers”, and – at the conclusion of their performance review – they were promptly fired.

Welch believed this system created an organisation in perpetual self-improvement. It meant the weakest performers were always being replaced with stronger ones, and the bar was always being raised. And in the industrial, hierarchical, output-focused economy of the 1980s and 1990s, there was a version of the world where that argument made sense.

Now here’s what the legacy of rank and yank actually looks like in hindsight…

The current consensus is that Welch’s style of leadership did more harm than good. Enron adopted a version of the same system, and part of its catastrophic collapse was later attributed to employees inflating results to protect their jobs.

Microsoft ran stack ranking for years and watched internal collaboration collapse, with talented people actively avoiding working with other talented people to protect their relative position.

Even GE itself eventually abandoned formal forced ranking and, more recently, moved away from annual reviews entirely for its 300,000-strong workforce, replacing them with more frequent feedback.

The limits of system design

A 2012 survey found that 98% of HR managers believed yearly evaluations were not useful. In other words, that’s near-total professional consensus and the rank and yank era disappeared.

The more interesting question – and the one organisations are still struggling to answer – is what replaces it.

On this front, the last decade of performance management thinking has been dominated by process reform. Organisations have moved from annual reviews to quarterly check-ins, from numerical ratings to narrative assessments, from top-down evaluations to 360-degree feedback. All of that has value and some of it has even made a material difference.

But there’s a persistent problem that no process reform fully solves: a bad performance conversation is a bad performance conversation regardless of what framework surrounds it.

In other words, you can redesign the template, shorten the cycle, add a peer review component and integrate a new platform. But, if the manager sitting across from the employee doesn’t know how to run the conversation, none of this matters at all.

One of the key problems with rank and yank is that it assumed employees were to blame for lackluster performance. The same assumption – that performance is a property of individuals rather than a product of their environment, their support and their management – still runs quietly through most performance review systems today.

However, research increasingly points to the quality of the manager relationship as one of the most significant drivers of employee performance and retention. And that means investing in how managers have performance conversations is probably more important than the system of performance review.

Why “advice” works better than “feedback” (and what it tells us about manager capability)

Recent research at Harvard Business School found that employees respond meaningfully differently depending on whether a manager frames a performance conversation around “feedback” or “advice”.

Feedback, as most people experience it, is evaluative and backward-looking. It carries an implicit judgement: here’s my assessment of what you did.

Advice, on the other hand, is future-focused. It carries a collaborative implication: here’s what I think might help you. The content of the conversation can be identical but the psychological experience is not and neither, it turns out, are the outcomes.

When managers frame conversations around advice rather than feedback, employees tend to be less defensive, more open and more likely to act on what’s discussed. The conversation moves from verdict to problem-solving.

But knowing that distinction, and being able to consistently apply it under the pressure of a real conversation with a real employee about real performance concerns, are completely different skills. The first is simply a matter of reading an article, while the second requires deliberate practice, coaching and organisational support.

It requires, in short, manager training.

The re-skilling imperative

Moving from a Welch-era evaluation model to a genuine coaching-based performance culture isn’t a process change but a leadership transformation. And it requires treating manager capability as something that needs to be actively built from within.

MIT argues that, in practice, this approach to performance development frames it as an active, ongoing partnership: one that’s built around continuous goal-setting, regular coaching conversations and shared accountability between managers and employees.

But that model only functions if managers understand what coaching actually is, how it differs from managing-by-instruction, and how to create the kind of psychological safety that makes an employee willing to be honest about what’s getting in their way.

That’s a skill set that needs to be taught, practised and reinforced over time.

After all, MIT found, the managers who run effective performance conversations in 2026 tend to share some specific capabilities.

They prepare properly, reviewing notes from earlier conversations, identifying specific examples, thinking about what they actually want the employee to take away. They listen more than they talk. And they’re genuinely curious about the employee’s experience, not just eager to deliver their own assessment.

They can also hold a difficult conversation (about underperformance, about behaviour or about expectations not being met), without it becoming either a confrontation or an evasion. And they know how to end a conversation in a way that leaves both parties with a shared understanding of what was agreed and what happens next.

None of this is innate. In fact, very few people arrive in a management role already knowing how to do any of this well. Organisations need to treat these skills as learnable and invest accordingly in developing them.

Making it fair in a hybrid world

There’s one further dimension of manager capability that has become critical in the post-pandemic workplace: the ability to assess performance fairly across different working arrangements.

Visibility bias, or the tendency to unconsciously favour employees who are more physically present, is one of the most well-documented and least-addressed problems in the modern workplace. A manager who lacks self-awareness about this bias, or who hasn’t been given tools to counteract it, will systematically undervalue effective remote workers.

Over time, that distorts team culture, undermines trust and drives turnover among exactly the people organisations can least afford to lose.

The structural fix, as HBR’s research on hybrid workplaces found, is to redefine what performance actually means, so that managers focus on outcomes rather than activity or presence, and assess performance against clear deliverables that apply equally regardless of where someone is working.

But again, the system change only works if the manager is capable of implementing it consistently and honestly. A manager who hasn’t been trained to recognise their own proximity bias will apply outcome-based criteria selectively, often without realising it.

Building that self-awareness, and the practical skills to counteract it, is part of what effective manager training looks like in 2026.

What great performance conversations look like in practice

Across all the research and all the frameworks, a few things consistently distinguish effective performance conversations from ineffective ones.

  1. The performance-related conversation never comes as a surprise. By the time a formal review happens, the employee already has a clear sense of where they stand, because their manager has been having honest, regular conversations with them throughout the year. Nothing significant is being raised for the first time.
  2. The manager is prepared. They’ve reviewed previous discussions, identified specific observations and thought carefully about what a useful conversation looks like for this particular employee at this particular point in time. They’re not winging it.
  3. The conversation is genuinely two-way. The employee is asked for their perspective – on their own performance, on what support they need, on what’s getting in their way. Their answers genuinely influence the conversation rather than being received politely and then set aside.
  4. Performance is defined around outcomes. The discussion focuses on results, development and contribution rather than on effort, hours or visibility. This is particularly important in hybrid teams, where what someone produces is far more assessable than how they go about producing it.
  5. The conversation ends clearly. Next steps, a timeline and a scheduled follow-up are all agreed. Without this, even the most thoughtful review fades without impact.

All of these are learnable skills. But they don’t develop in a vacuum, and they don’t develop from a single training session.

They develop through organisations making a sustained, deliberate commitment to building manager capability, and treating that investment as seriously as they treat any other performance lever.

The bottom line

Performance reviews aren’t dead. The rank and yank era is.

The annual verdict, the bell curve, the competitive stack ranking that pitted colleagues against each other in a zero-sum fight for survival: it’s a model that’s been tried, found wanting and largely abandoned, even by the organisation that invented it.

But the organisations that have simply replaced Welch’s system with a shinier process and called it progress haven’t solved the underlying problem. They’ve just engaged in redecoration.

The organisations getting performance management right in 2026 understand that the system isn’t the only thing – or even the main thing. The manager is.

They invest accordingly in training, in coaching and in building the conversation skills that turn a performance review from an administrative obligation into one of the most powerful development tools a manager has.

That’s the real evolution of performance reviews in 2026: the capability of the person sitting across the table and the organisation’s commitment to building it.

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Frequently Asked Questions about Performance Reviews

Are performance reviews worth it in 2026?

Yes, but only if they’re done well.

The case against performance reviews is really a case against a specific version of them: the annual verdict model, where a manager dusts off a template once a year, assigns a rating and delivers months of delayed feedback in a single meeting. That version is increasingly hard to defend. Research consistently shows it produces recency bias, surprises employees with concerns that should have been raised earlier, and generates more anxiety than genuine development.

But the alternative isn’t no performance conversations, but better ones. In hybrid workplaces with evolving roles and persistent skills shortages, clarity about expectations, progress and development matters more than ever. The organisations abandoning performance reviews altogether tend to find that the conversations don’t disappear, they just become unstructured, inconsistent and even harder to act on.

The honest answer is: more often than you probably think, and less formally than you might fear.

Most performance management experts now distinguish between two different cadences.Formal reviews or structured conversations about performance against goals, development progress and forward planning work well quarterly for most roles, or at minimum twice a year.

But formal reviews are only part of the picture. The more important cadence is the regular one-on-one (weekly or fortnightly depending on the role) where performance, workload, wellbeing and development are discussed as part of an ongoing conversation rather than a set-piece event.

A performance review is a structured, periodic assessment of how an employee is performing against agreed expectations and goals. It typically covers what’s been achieved, where gaps exist, and what the development plan looks like going forward. It has a degree of formality: often documented, sometimes linked to compensation or progression decisions.

A coaching conversation is less structured and more exploratory. Rather than assessing performance against a standard, it focuses on helping an employee think through challenges, develop their capability and find their own solutions. A good coaching conversation is characterised by questions more than statements, and by a manager who is genuinely curious about the employee’s experience rather than simply delivering their own observations.

Directly and early, which is the opposite of what rank and yank actually required.
The fundamental problem with forced ranking systems like Welch’s vitality curve wasn’t that they addressed underperformance. It’s that they addressed it in the bluntest possible way, at the end of a long evaluation cycle, without any real investment in understanding why performance was struggling or what might fix it.

Effective underperformance management in 2026 begin by making sure the employee has a genuine understanding of what’s expected of them and how their performance is being assessed. It continues with early intervention (i.e. raising concerns through regular coaching conversations rather than saving them for a formal review). And it involves genuine curiosity about root causes: is the underperformance a capability issue, a motivation issue, a workload issue, a management issue, or something else entirely?

Start by acknowledging that fairness in a hybrid context doesn’t happen automatically. It has to be designed in, and it requires managers to actively counteract their own instincts.

Visibility bias is one of the most well-documented risks in hybrid performance management. Employees who are physically present more often tend to be unconsciously rated more favourably than equally effective remote colleagues, simply because their work is more visible and their relationships with their manager are more naturally reinforced. Most managers who exhibit this bias are not aware they’re doing it.

The structural fix is to redefine what you’re actually measuring. Performance in a hybrid team should be assessed against outcomes – deliverables, results, contribution to team goals – rather than activity, effort or presence. That requires setting clear, measurable expectations upfront that apply equally regardless of where someone is working, and then evaluating performance against those expectations consistently.

More than most organisations currently provide, and different in nature from what’s typically on offer.

The standard approach is to train managers on the process: here is the review template, here is the rating scale, here is the timeline, here is how to log the outcome in the system. That training is necessary but nowhere near sufficient. It equips managers to complete the administrative exercise. It doesn’t equip them to have a genuinely useful conversation.
The training that actually improves performance conversations tends to focus on a different set of skills.

These include active listening, coaching capability, delivering difficult feedback clearly and constructively and recognising and counteracting cognitive biases that distort performance judgements.

Feedback, as most employees experience it, is evaluative and backward-looking. It carries an implicit judgement about what someone did or didn’t do well. Even when it’s delivered with care, the word itself activates a defensive response in many people.

Advice works differently. It’s future-focused and implicitly collaborative. Rather than “here’s my judgement of your performance”, it says “here’s what I think might help you going forward”.

Harvard Business School found that employees respond more positively and constructively when managers use advice-framing in performance conversations.

When it comes to ROI on HR spend, most teams are being asked to do more than ever: lift performance, improve retention, implement AI, stay compliant, support leaders, strengthen culture…. all while budgets are under increasing pressure.

In response, many are trying desperately to stretch what they have, spreading their money across multiple initiatives, while hoping somehow they’ll be able lift their performance in each of them. 

But if you’re looking to optimise your return on investment for HR this year, it pays to remember this: a relatively small number of HR decisions drive a disproportionate share of outcomes. By focusing your investment on these, rather than across everything, you really will give yourself a chance of doing more with less. 

Here’s how.

1. Start with the outcome, not the activity 

Most organisations build their HR budgets around activity rather than outcomes, committing to a cocktail of training programs, systems, engagement initiatives and wellbeing efforts. But, while each of these may have a reasonable case behind them, they’re often funded without a clear link to a specific issue the business is trying to solve.

When this happens, budgets begin to lose their impact. If the underlying objective isn’t clearly defined, every initiative begins to feel equally important and spend gets allocated to activities that are broadly worthwhile but low priority from a business point of view.

That’s why your starting point should be to define, in concrete terms, what needs to change. Is it turnover within a particular team? Persistent underperformance in a critical role? The time and cost of hiring? A gap in leadership capability. In most organisations, the real pressure points are far narrower and more specific than their list of HR initiatives suggests.

Until you’ve clearly identified outcomes, there’s no reliable way to determine where investment will have the greatest effect. Without that, it is almost impossible to isolate the relatively small number of decisions that will drive the majority of results.

2. Focus on the small number of decisions that drive most outcomes

Pareto’s principle – that roughly 80% of results come from 20% of effort – applies to HR just as it does to most things we do in life. So, once you’ve nailed down the outcomes you’re after, identify the high-impact 20% of your HR activities and decisions that drive the outcomes you want. 

For example, if your goal is to reduce turnover in a critical team, the most valuable investment may sit with one manager, one role design issue or one broken process. If the issue is underperformance, the answer is probably not going to be another generic training program. It’s far more likely to involve looking at how expectations are set, how feedback is given and how performance is managed day to day.

And if the issue is productivity, could you cure this by providing your leadership with targeted training on how to get more out of their teams? After all, research from McKinsey shows that organisational health, including management practices and how work is actually run day to day, is one of the strongest predictors of long-term performance outcomes.

Across organisations, the same themes tend to recur. The quality of hiring decisions, the effectiveness of managers, the way roles are structured and the ability to retain key people consistently have an outsized influence on outcomes. These aren’t always the most visible or well-funded parts of the HR budget, but they’re often the ones that matter most.

Rather than trying to improve everything incrementally, focus on identifying and investing in the small number of areas that will make the biggest difference. 

3. Where HR budgets get wasted

Once you start looking at HR spend through this lens, the areas where value is lost become much easier to spot.

One of the most common cash-sucks is broad, generic training programs. These are often rolled out across entire teams or organisations, regardless of whether they’re relevant or whether the underlying issue is capability, accountability or something else entirely. 

Another is investing in systems or platforms which don’t lead to a corresponding change in behaviour. New HR technology can be valuable, but only if it’s adopted and used in a way that improves efficiency or productivity in decision-making or day-to-day management. In many cases, the system is implemented, but the underlying habits remain unchanged, leaving the return on that investment marginal at best.

Employer branding and engagement initiatives can also fall into this category. Organisations invest in how they present themselves to the market or measure employee sentiment, but then do little to address the underlying issues those efforts are meant to surface. 

A similar pattern shows up in the use of perks and benefits. These are often introduced as a way to improve retention or engagement, but they rarely address the specific reasons people leave or disengage (which often has more to do with people feeling their employers don’t make use of their skills). As a result, they add to the cost base without materially shifting outcomes.

That doesn’t mean these initiatives have no value – they often can, especially if the process above has been followed. However, when they’re funded as part of a broad, evenly distributed budget, they tend to absorb resources without delivering meaningful change. When they’re tied to a clearly defined outcome and applied selectively, they can be very effective.

4. Small changes that deliver disproportionate impact

After you’ve set your priorities, the next step shouldn’t be to launch more initiatives, but to make targeted changes that directly address the issue at hand. In many cases, that’s likely to mean making relatively contained adjustments to improve how work is structured and managed day to day.

For example, where hiring is a constraint, tightening role definition and selection criteria can have a significant impact on outcomes. A clearer brief, better alignment on what “good” looks like and more disciplined decision-making will usually do more than adding additional sourcing channels.

Where retention is the issue, the most effective intervention is often focused on a small group of people rather than your entire workforce. Understanding why key individuals or teams are at risk, and addressing those specific factors, is far more effective than introducing broad-based benefits that apply to everyone but resonate with few.

In environments where performance is inconsistent, the shift tends to come from how expectations are set and managed. Regular, specific feedback, combined with clear consequences where standards are not met, will typically outperform more formal or infrequent performance processes.

Even relatively simple changes to onboarding can have an outsized effect. Ensuring from the outset that new hires understand their role, priorities and how success will be measured both reduces time to productivity and lowers the risk of early attrition.

What these examples have in common is focus: they are directed at a defined problem, applied in a targeted way and designed to actually change behaviour rather than simply signal intent.

The real key: deliberateness

Optimising HR spend is not about doing more with less in a general sense, it’s about making more deliberate decisions about where effort and budget are applied.

In most organisations, a small number of factors will account for the majority of outcomes. The challenge is identifying those factors early and being prepared to prioritise them over a broader set of well-intentioned initiatives.

That often means funding fewer things, but funding them properly. It also means being clear about what success looks like and measuring whether investment is actually shifting the outcome it was intended to address.

When HR budgets are treated this way, the conversation should move away from activity and towards impact, and from blanket coverage towards focus.

In a constrained environment, that shift is what allows HR to deliver meaningful results without a meaningful spend. 

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In 2026, leaders are encouraged to be more human, more relaxed and, in many cases, more humorous at work. 

After all, humour is often seen as a cultural positive. It’s associated with connection, engagement and psychological safety. 

But humour is not inherently beneficial.

In practice, it’s one of the most unevenly applied (and least understood) workplace behaviours. The same comment that builds rapport in one setting can create discomfort or confusion in another. The same joke that humanises a leader can just as easily undermine their credibility.

This makes humour a high-impact, high-risk behaviour. And, like any behaviour that carries risk, it needs to be understood and used deliberately.

Humour is more powerful than most organisations realise

Humour is often treated as a soft, cultural extra – something that makes work more enjoyable but doesn’t materially affect outcomes. But the evidence suggests otherwise.

Used well, humour plays a direct role in how people experience work. It can reduce stress, increase engagement and strengthen relationships, all of which are closely linked to performance. Teams that feel comfortable and connected are more likely to collaborate effectively, share ideas and navigate challenges.

There is also a measurable physiological effect. Positive humour can increase the release of chemicals associated with trust and bonding, making it easier for people to work together in complex or high-pressure environments.

This means, when used appropriately, humour can make leaders more approachable and increase trust within teams because it signals a more human, more relaxed and more accessible working environment.

But, unfortunately, that’s also where the misunderstanding begins.

The problem: most workplace humour is poorly executed

While humour has clear benefits, it’s also one of the least controlled behaviours in the workplace. It depends on judgement, and judgement is highly variable.

What feels appropriate for one audience can be misinterpreted altogether by another. A comment intended to build rapport can be perceived as exclusionary, and what’s meant as a light remark can undermine credibility or cause concern.

In the modern work environment, these risks are often amplified. Digital communication removes tone and timing and hybrid settings reduce the real-time feedback people rely on to adjust their behaviour. On top of this, greater diversity among team members can also bring different expectations and sensitivities.

The natural hierarchy of the workplace further complicates the picture. When humour comes from a leader, it’s rarely received at face value. Even if people respond positively in the moment, that doesn’t mean they appreciated it – and that means it can create unintended outcomes. 

Why workplace humour so often goes wrong

If humour is so effective when used well, why does it so often fall flat? 

The answer is capability: humour relies on a set of skills that are rarely developed outside the world of professional comedy (things like judgement, timing, audience awareness and restraint). And, unlike other workplace behaviours, there are few clear standards for what “good” looks like. 

As a result, people tend to rely on personal style rather than shared expectations. Some default to sarcasm. Others mistake self-promotion for self-deprecation. Many simply misjudge the room – not because they have bad intentions, but because humour is highly contextual and context is hard to read.

There’s also an important distinction that gets overlooked and that’s the difference between humour that includes and humour that excludes. Shared references, in-jokes and familiar callbacks can build cohesion within a group – but only within that group. For anyone outside it, the same exchange can signal separation rather than belonging.

But perhaps the most underappreciated risk of all is hierarchical. When a leader attempts humour, the power dynamic changes the way it lands. People may laugh out of politeness, habit or self-preservation. That response isn’t feedback, but deference. And leaders who confuse the two can develop a significantly inflated sense of their own comedic capability.

What good workplace humour actually looks like

The research on effective workplace humour points in a consistent direction: it is less about being funny and more about being aware.

That means the most effective forms of workplace humour tend to be observational rather than performative. They’re about noticing what’s true and sharing it, rather than constructing a joke and delivering it. They tend to be inclusive rather than directional, creating a moment that everyone in the room can access, not one aimed at a specific target. And they tend to be proportionate, i.e. light enough to create connection without derailing the tone of what’s happening around them.

So, with that in mind, here are some general rules for getting workplace humour right.

1. Punch up, not down 

Humour that targets someone with less power or status (whether explicitly or implicitly) undermines trust and leaves employees wondering what you say about them when they’re not there. The safest target is yourself and, even then, you need to exercise restraint. Leaders who are too self-deprecating can inadvertently erode their own credibility.

2. Read the room before the joke 

Timing and context matter more than content. The same comment can land completely differently depending on the stakes of the conversation, the relationships in the room and what’s already happened that day. Humour in a low-pressure team meeting operates by different rules to humour in a performance review.

3. Match the medium 

Digital and hybrid communication removes the real-time signals that humour depends on tone, facial expression and timing. What reads as ironic in speech often reads as literal in a message. When in doubt, save it for a live conversation.

4. Keep it brief 

The most durable workplace humour is rarely a set piece. It’s a brief, well-timed observation, such as a comment that creates a moment then lets the conversation move on. The longer a joke runs, the more opportunities there are for it to go wrong.

The truth about trying to be funny at work

Humour in the workplace is neither inherently good, nor bad. It is, like most high-impact behaviours, simply the result of judgement applied in a specific context. However, the difference between humour that builds trust and humour that damage is execution, awareness and restraint.

The organisations that get this right treat humour in the same way as any other communication skill: something that can be understood, developed and applied deliberately. They create environments where people feel safe enough to be themselves and make it clear that being yourself doesn’t come at someone else’s expense.

In other words, in a working world that’s simultaneously encouraging leaders to loosen up and holding them to higher standards of inclusivity, guardrails and frameworks aren’t the enemy of good humour. They’re what make it possible.

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Wondering if you’ve got the wrong balance of humour in your workplace? Talk to our team of HR experts

In 2026, graduate hiring is in trouble, and the numbers aren’t subtle about it. 

Australian graduate job postings had already fallen 24% in 2024 compared to the year before, and were tracking a further 16% lower in early 2025. By December 2025, just 9% of Australian SMEs were actively hiring graduates, down from 19% two months earlier. 

But the trend isn’t confined to our shores: globally, entry-level hiring has fallen an estimated 29% since January 2024.

In short, many businesses are no longer hiring recent graduates at all. 

On one hand, it’s understandable employers have become frustrated by graduate work-readiness (more than half now say graduates don’t meet expectations on self-awareness). They’re also concerned about their resilience and written communication, you’d be excused for thinking that there was little point bucking the trend.

And yet, despite all of this, there’s still a strong case for hiring graduates. Here’s why. 

What the best employers are doing when it comes to hiring grads in 2026

Despite the widespread cuts, 91% of large employers globally are still recruiting graduates, even if many of them are trimming at the margins. In Australia, the companies most serious about long-term performance have never wavered from their policies about hiring lots of graduates. 

As smaller businesses cut back, year after year, through boom and contraction alike, the world’s largest organisations run structured graduate programs. In doing so, they invest in onboarding, mentoring and rotation and, above all, they compete hard with one another for the best candidates.

These aren’t naive operators ignoring the numbers and sticking to what they’ve always done. They’re the most analytically sophisticated employers in the country who’ve taken the view that the pipeline matters too much to interrupt.

There’s a reason for this too: experienced hires don’t appear from nowhere. The senior consultant you need in four years is the graduate you hire today. The organisations that understand this think about their talent pipeline the way good businesses think about any long-term investment, i.e. not quarter to quarter, but across a cycle.

So what the current pullback mostly reflects isn’t a rational reassessment of graduate value. It’s short-term budget pressure producing long-term consequences that won’t become visible for years. 

And, by the time they do, it will be too late to do much about them. That’s because the cost of cutting graduate recruitment gets deferred.

The pipeline doesn’t send you a warning email

When employers froze graduate intake during the GFC, the consequences weren’t immediate. Initially. budgets looked better and headcount was leaner, but when the recovery came the mid-level talent that should have been there ready to move the business forward simply wasn’t. 

A Hudson survey of more than 600 Australian and New Zealand employers taken in the aftermath of the GFC found that 84% regretted making too many redundancies during the crisis. Because, while the cuts had looked rational at the time, the consequences arrived later, quietly, in the form of capability gaps and recovery plans that took longer and cost more than anticipated.

Meanwhile, US employers who cut graduate hiring by 22% in 2009 later told the National Association of Colleges and Employers they wouldn’t do it again, because reducing graduate recruitment during the downturn had created a measurable disadvantage when the economy eventually recovered. 

The same principles applied to training junior staff. When the GFC hit, training budgets were among the first things cut and economists have since argued that this systematic underinvestment in developing employees was partially responsible for the talent shortages that followed. 

Put simply, of you don’t hire graduates in year one, by year three or four, you won’t have the junior-to-mid talent you need to service growth, deliver on projects or backfill senior roles vacated by people moving up or moving on. 

You then have to go to market for experienced hires, and you pay a significant premium for people who are, in many cases, doing the job your unhired graduates would have been doing by now.

This isn’t a new pattern. Research into the wave of training and development programme cuts in the 1980s found the same dynamic playing out over a longer timeframe: no immediate impact, then a skills drought a decade later, as the generation that wasn’t developed failed to materialise in mid-level roles. 

The wrong conclusion from the right data

Of course, none of this helps overcome the very genuine work-readiness concerns many employers have today. These are genuine observations from experienced hiring managers across a wide range of industries.

But there’s a logical leap happening between the evidence and the response, and it’s worth naming.

Graduates needing development is not a new phenomenon. It is, and has always been, the entire premise of a graduate programme. The question has never been whether graduates arrive ready because they don’t, and nobody seriously expected them to. The question is whether the investment in bringing them up to speed pays off. 

And on that question, the evidence consistently says it does.

What’s changed is not that graduates are less valuable. It’s that the post-pandemic cohort of students – who completed significant portions of their education in lockdown – tended to receive less work experience, less face-to-face feedback and less exposure to professional environments. This means they often need more deliberate onboarding than their predecessors.

The appropriate response isn’t to stop hiring, but to provide more structured support. After all, the work-readiness gap doesn’t close itself, it closes when employers invest in closing it. And organisations that understand this are turning a market-wide concern into a hiring advantage. 

Which brings us to what they’re actually doing differently… 

The organisations that keep hiring are pulling ahead

When graduate hiring contracts across a market – just as it’s doing now – the employers who maintain structured programmes actually improve their position against competitors. 

They’re recruiting from a larger pool of candidates competing for fewer spots and paying less of a premium to do so. They’re also shaping those hires around their own culture and way of working at precisely the moment when their competitors have stepped back.

The Big Four professional services firms understand this arithmetic instinctively. So do Commonwealth Bank, Macquarie, Canva and the major government departments. They run structured graduate programs not out of a sense of social obligation but because they’ve done the maths on what it costs to buy experienced talent on the open market versus growing it internally and the internal number wins, consistently and by a significant margin.

The cost of hiring an experienced employee in Australia has more than doubled since 2020, now averaging nearly $24,000 per hire. And that’s before salary premiums for mid-level experience are factored in. Growing that talent internally, from graduate level, is demonstrably cheaper. 

But the same logic extends well beyond large organisations. 

Any business that competes for mid-level talent (which is most businesses) is affected by the same pipeline dynamics. The experienced hire you need in three years doesn’t materialise from nowhere. They come, in most cases, from a graduate program somewhere. If that program is yours, you’ve shaped them. If it isn’t, you’re bidding against everyone else for a finite pool of people who were shaped by someone else’s priorities.

There’s also a timing argument that doesn’t get made often enough. A contracting graduate market is one of the few moments when the balance of power in early-career recruitment genuinely shifts toward the employer. Application volumes are up – the ISE data shows employers receiving record numbers of applications despite fewer roles. The candidates are there while the competition for them, from other employers, is reduced. 

Running a serious graduate program right now, when others aren’t, is about as close to a buyer’s market as this space ever gets.

What a good structured graduate program looks like (if you’re not in the Big Four)

A structured graduate programme doesn’t require a dedicated team, a branded cohort experience or a rotation schedule. For most Australian businesses, it needs just four things.

 

The difference between graduate hiring that works and graduate hiring that doesn’t is rarely about the quality of the graduates. It’s almost always about the presence or absence of those four things.

The organisations pulling ahead right now are those running intentional programs in a market where application volumes are at record highs and competition for graduate talent among employers has softened. 

After all, the window to do this well (and cheaply) is  open right now. But it won’t stay open for long.

Want more?

Thinking about building a graduate hiring strategy that works for your business? Talk to our team of HR experts.

Several decades ago, work/life balance referred to mothers who were trying to balance parenting with a career. Seems so archaic now, right? Then we progressed to work/life balance, meaning separation. You went to work, you came home, and – at least in theory – the two were distinct. Balance simply meant you got to leave the office on time, stayed away on weekends and had the opportunity to switch off.

For many employees, that version of work/life balance no longer exists. And for many employees, they like it this way – working from home, getting the washing done and a dip at the beach at lunchtime – but at what cost?

In 2026, work is no longer tied to a single location or a fixed set of hours. Instead, it moves across devices, environments and time zones. This means the challenge many organisations face is no longer how to separate work from life, but how to stop work from expanding to fill almost every part of it, albeit in a “flexible” way.

That, in turn, raises a more useful question: not whether employees have work/life balance, but whether the way work is structured today is actually sustainable. In other words, can employees have their cake and eat it too?

Balance is now about control, not hours

Work/life balance is no longer simply about working fewer hours. For many employees, balance means having the opportunity to structure work around real-world responsibilities – whether that’s school drop-offs, caring responsibilities, lifestyle choices, commuting constraints, or simply aligning work with periods of higher focus and energy.

Gallup research consistently shows hybrid work remains the dominant employee preference, with greater control over time cited as the primary reason for this. But the same data contains a harder finding: even among hybrid workers, employee engagement has fallen to a ten-year low, and clarity about what’s expected at work is now the lowest it has ever been. Sometimes working more flexibly actually adds to the stress!

And that points to the real issue in 2026. Having flexibility over where you work is not the same as having a workload you can actually manage. And flexibility can actually exacerbate your workload if too many variables are at play.

Flexibility without clear expectations isn’t balance, it’s availability

This is where the post-pandemic promise of flexible work is starting to show its limits.

Many employees have gained real autonomy over their hours and location. But the work still needs to get done, and more and more employees are finding that with flexibility comes the challenge of encroachment.

When an employee doesn’t provide clear expectations around their availability, flexibility can shift from a benefit into an obligation, with the freedom to work from anywhere becoming, in practice, the expectation of being reachable everywhere.

Hybrid work arrangements don’t solve the availability problem, neither do wellness programs, or Friday afternoon finish times or any policy that treats balance as something employees achieve on their own if given enough flexibility. 

Instead, it needs something more direct: clear expectations around deliverables, communication around availability, and managers who model those expectations rather than blurring them.

A performance and retention issue

Search “work/life balance” online and most of what you’ll find still treats it as a wellbeing issue. But in 2026, organisations that still take this approach are misreading what the research actually shows.

Effective work/life policies today include clear guidelines around communicating an employee’s availability and how they are accessing flexibility, and manager training that builds the capability to have real conversations about workload and expectations within that flexible regime.

When this happens, it has been shown to lead to reduced turnover, with McKinsey finding that employees who were able to manage their personal and professional responsibilities reported significantly lower rates of burnout. 

And research published in Harvard Business Review made an even more surprising finding: that effective work/life support leads to higher quality leaders and more effective leadership decisions.

The role of managers in promoting work/life balance

The research is also clear about the fact that none of this happens automatically. McKinsey found that manager behaviour was one of the primary factors determining whether work/life arrangements actually worked in practice. 

This finding connects directly to the next problem most organisations haven’t solved: that not all employees experience work (or life) the same way.

On this front, Gallup identifies two roughly equal groups in the workforce. 

Employees are more engaged and productive when the way they work and the way they prefer to work are aligned.

Managers who are too rigid, who focus too heavily on rules over results, and who force employees into ways of working that remove the benefits of hybrid and flexible work (at least in the employees’ eyes), are likely to find their efforts at work/life balance reduce productivity and retention rather than improving it.

Which means the real capability question isn’t whether a flexibility policy exists. It’s whether the managers implementing it understand that a “blender” forced into fixed hours is just as disengaged as a “splitter” who’s never allowed to switch off.

A 5-point plan for building work/life balance into your workplace

So, if you want to build work/life balance into your workplace, how do you do it? Here’s our simple guide on where to start.

  1. Set expectations around flexibility in writing. If an employee has asked for a flexible work arrangement, ensure all parties understand what this means and work towards achieving it – and resist blurring the lines.
  2. Encourage the taking of leave. Parental leave, annual leave, carer’s leave – all need to be not just a legal entitlement but actually encouraged at every level. Policies that exist but feel risky to use deliver none of the retention or productivity benefits the research suggests.
  3. Train managers, not just policies. Awareness isn’t enough. Managers need the skills to have direct conversations about workload and capacity, to identify unsustainable “flexibility” patterns before someone burns out or leaves, and to model the same expectations they’re asking their teams to maintain.
  4. Design for difference. Recognise that splitters and blenders exist in roughly equal numbers across your workforce, and that life stage and personal circumstances shape what balance actually means for each person. Build enough flexibility into working arrangements that managers can respond to individuals rather than applying rules counter-productively.
  5. Measure outcomes, not availability. Review whether your performance culture is rewarding results or rewarding visibility. If the people who get ahead are consistently the ones who are always on, no flexibility policy will change the underlying dynamic. 

Help your people understand that “visibility” is not what is expected, it’s deliverables.

Want more?

If you’re looking to build a genuine work/life balance into your organisation, get in touch.

In many workplaces, the people who make the most noise also get the most attention. Team meetings reward quick thinking and confident contributions. Brainstorming sessions favour those who are comfortable speaking up. And workplace culture frequently equates visibility – and vocalness – with value.

When that happens, organisations risk hearing the fastest ideas rather than the best ones.

Introverted employees tend to process ideas differently, often keeping a lower profile and rarely drawing the spotlight onto themselves. Rather than thinking out loud, they usually reflect, analyse and develop ideas internally before sharing them. As a result, their contributions often arrive more fully-formed but aren’t suited at all to fast-moving discussions.

This dynamic can mean that some of the most thoughtful and insightful employees get overlooked, so that their skills and potential are never fully realised.

Given that between one-third and one-half of all employees identify as introverted, this raises an important question for your organisation: are you missing valuable ideas simply because the people who hold them are quieter?

Quiet doesn’t mean disengaged

One common misconception in many workplaces is that quiet employees are less engaged or less interested in contributing. However, research on workplace personality traits suggests introverts often excel in areas such as deep focus, careful analysis and thoughtful decision-making. 

As writer and researcher Susan Cain argues in Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, quieter individuals often bring strengths such as careful thinking, creativity and the ability to work deeply on complex problems.

These qualities can be particularly valuable in roles that require sustained concentration, strategic thinking or complex problem-solving.

Introverts also tend to be strong listeners. Studies show that in team environments, this ability can help improve collaboration and reduce the risk of groupthink – that is, the tendency for teams to converge quickly around the most dominant or confident voices rather than the strongest ideas.

Despite these strengths, many workplace structures unintentionally favour extroverted behaviour. Research discussed in Harvard Business Review suggests that more outspoken employees are frequently perceived as more passionate, confident or capable than introverts – even when they’re not.

Over time, this dynamic can create a subtle bias where quieter employees are simply heard less. Their insights may emerge later, or in different forms, but if organisations rely heavily on fast-moving discussions, those perspectives can easily be overlooked.

For organisations, this presents a significant missed opportunity.

The benefits of tapping into quieter voices

When business leaders and managers actively seek input from quieter team members, it can bring genuine benefits to the organisation.

Better reasoned thinking

Organisational psychologist Adam Grant from the Wharton School and colleagues at Harvard Business School, conducted research which found introverted employees often bring strengths that are particularly valuable in roles requiring sustained concentration, careful analysis and complex problem-solving. Because they tend to reflect before speaking, their contributions can be more considered and analytical. 

This kind of deliberate thinking can improve decision quality, especially when organisations are dealing with complex problems or strategic choices.

More collaborative decision making

Another key advantage is listening. Introverts are often strong listeners, which can help teams surface different perspectives and avoid premature consensus. In group discussions, this can lead to more balanced conversations and better-informed decisions.

Greater productivity and innovation 

Grant’s evidence also found that quieter leadership styles can improve team performance. In fact, when employees were proactive, an introverted leader made them 28% more productive on average. One reason for this was that introverted leaders were more likely to listen to their team members and trust them so that their ideas helped shape decisions too.

In environments where innovation and problem-solving are important, these dynamics can be particularly valuable. That’s because, when leaders create space for a wider range of voices to contribute, teams are more likely to challenge assumptions, explore alternative solutions and develop stronger ideas.

How leaders can create space for quiet voices

If you’re looking to get more out introverted employees in your workplace, you might begin with rethinking how ideas are shared within your team. 

Many workplace structures unintentionally favour people who are comfortable thinking out loud, but relatively small changes can make discussions more inclusive of different communication styles.

One simple step is to give people more time to prepare. Sharing meeting agendas or discussion topics in advance allows employees to reflect on the issues being discussed so they can let that information simmer and develop their ideas before the conversation begins. This can make it easier for those who prefer to think carefully before speaking to contribute more confidently.

Leaders can also encourage written input alongside verbal discussion. Digital collaboration tools, shared documents or pre-meeting idea submissions can help capture insights that might not emerge during fast-moving conversations.

Structuring discussions can also make a difference. In many meetings, a small number of participants dominate the conversation while others remain silent. Actively inviting input from different team members or using structured rounds of discussion can ensure a broader range of perspectives is heard.

Finally, you could focus on building psychological safety within your team environment. Research from Google’s well-known Project Aristotle found that creating an atmosphere where people can share ideas without fear of embarrassment or negative consequences was one of the strongest predictors of team effectiveness.

When introverted employees feel comfortable speaking up, they’re far more likely to contribute their ideas and perspectives.

It always pays to remember…

The loudest voice in the room is not always the most insightful. Yet many workplace structures unintentionally reward those who are quickest to speak rather than those who have taken the time to think deeply about a problem.

By creating environments where different communication styles are recognised and valued, leaders can unlock a broader range of ideas, perspectives and insights within their teams.

Given how many employees identify as introverted, tapping into quieter voices is not simply a matter of personality or inclusion. It’s a practical leadership strategy that can improve decision-making, strengthen collaboration and ultimately help your organisation perform better.

After all, sometimes, the most valuable ideas come from the people who speak the least.

Want more?

If you’re looking to unlock the full potential of your workforce and build stronger, more effective teams, get in touch.

Over the past couple of years, artificial intelligence has moved quickly from experiment to business driver. 

In 2026, many of the processes that have traditionally defined HR are increasingly being performed or augmented by AI, including recruitment administration, employee queries, performance tracking and learning management.

Now, Gartner research suggests this shift is accelerating. In recent surveys of HR leaders, the number of organisations piloting or implementing generative AI solutions has risen sharply, reflecting growing interest in how the technology can improve efficiency and decision-making to lead to better business outcomes.

But, for HR leaders, the speed to change raises a deeper strategic question: if many operational tasks can be automated, what will companies’ HR function actually look like in four years’ time?

Recruitment and talent sourcing

Recruitment is one of the key areas where AI is already making a visible impact. 

A recent industry survey found that around 63% of recruiters now use AI tools to automate repetitive hiring tasks, while 48% of hiring managers report using AI to screen resumes and applications. 

Some estimates even suggest that 80% to 90% of organisations now use some form of AI in their recruitment process, particularly for tasks like writing job descriptions, early-stage candidate screening and application filtering. 

In other words, the first “person” reviewing most job applications is no longer a recruiter at all, but an algorithm. Some platforms can also analyse labour market data to help organisations identify emerging talent pools or benchmark salaries.

This removes much of the time-consuming administrative work associated with hiring and allows HR professionals to focus on higher-value activities. However, it also raises new questions about transparency, fairness and oversight in hiring decisions. 

AI systems are only as reliable as the data they are trained on and poorly designed models can unintentionally reinforce existing biases or filter out candidates whose experience does not neatly match predefined criteria.

As a result, HR’s role in the recruitment process is likely to shift rather than disappear. Instead of manually reviewing every application, it will be more about designing fair hiring frameworks, overseeing the use of AI tools and making sure technology supports – rather than distorts – proper decision-making about talent.

Performance management and workforce analytics

AI is also transforming how organisations analyse workforce performance.

Historically, performance management has relied heavily on periodic reviews and subjective manager feedback (the shortcomings of which we’ve written about in the past). Now, AI-powered workforce analytics tools allow organisations to analyse much richer and more objective datasets in real time.

By aggregating feedback, productivity indicators and organisational data, AI systems can help HR teams identify patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed – things like project completion rates, collaboration patterns, employee sentiment data, learning activity and internal mobility trends. 

Gartner’s research suggests that organisations who use advanced workforce analytics like these are significantly more likely to make effective talent decisions. For example, AI analytics platforms can highlight emerging skills gaps across departments, identify teams showing early signs of burnout or disengagement and analyse how leadership practices are affecting employee engagement. 

Some systems can even detect patterns associated with employee turnover risk, allowing organisations to intervene before key talent leaves.

This capability is likely to push HR even further toward a strategic, data-driven role. After all, HR may become the function responsible for translating workforce data into actionable strategy by identifying where capability gaps exist, where teams need support and how the organisation should evolve to remain competitive.

Learning, development and capability building

Traditionally, corporate training has been delivered through scheduled programs or standardised courses that treat large groups of employees the same way. AI is beginning to change this model by allowing more personalised and responsive learning systems.

By 2030, many organisations are likely to move beyond traditional corporate training programs toward AI-powered platforms that tailor learning pathways based on employee’s role, career ambitions and existing skills, as well as performance data. Generative AI could even be used to create customised training content on demand,  simulate complex workplace scenarios or provide real-time coaching during projects.

This shift is becoming increasingly important as the pace of technological change accelerates. Research from organisations such as World Economic Forum and LinkedIn suggests the “half-life” of many professional skills is shrinking, meaning employees need to update their capabilities more frequently than in the past.

In response, learning and development is likely to move away from occasional training programs toward continuous capability building supported by AI-driven insights.

The structural questions AI raises for HR

As all of this happens and AI becomes embedded in workplace systems, HR leaders are likely to face a series of dilemmas about how they can help design and govern their organisations for tomorrow.

While AI tools may begin to become a central feature of recruitment, performance management, workforce analytics and decision-making processes, someone still needs to take responsibility for how those systems operate. This includes making sure they’re appropriate and transparent, and that they’re also monitored for risks such as algorithmic bias, flawed data inputs or unintended consequences.

Another major question concerns organisational design. If certain tasks can be automated or supported by AI systems, organisations may need to rethink how work itself is structured. Some roles may evolve significantly, while others may become more focused on activities that require judgement, creativity, interpersonal skills and complex problem-solving.

This shift could also accelerate the move toward skills-based organisations, where work is structured around capabilities rather than rigid job descriptions. In this model, HR becomes responsible for mapping workforce skills, identifying capability gaps and ensuring the organisation can redeploy talent as technology reshapes roles.

Perhaps most importantly, however, HR will need to consider how to support employees through ongoing technological change. As new tools are introduced and job requirements evolve, organisations must make sure their workforce has the skills, confidence and support needed to work effectively alongside AI systems.

Managing this transition will involve building a culture where employees feel comfortable adapting to new technologies and where continuous learning becomes part of everyday work.

The future HR function

As AI becomes more ubiquitous in workplace processes, the HR function is likely to become both more strategic and more important to how a business performs. 

Organisations will need experienced leaders who can help redesign roles, develop workforce capability, shape organisational culture and guide employees through periods of change.

By 2030, HR may increasingly act as the function responsible for helping employees and the business itself adapt to technological disruption, including identifying emerging skill needs, supporting workforce re skilling and ensuring human and AI systems work together.

In this sense, the future of HR may be less about managing processes and more about shaping the workforce itself.

Want more?

Want to know more about optimising HR’s role in the age of AI? Get in touch to discover how Catalina Consultants can help. 

In recent years, Gen Z has changed the conversation from work-life balance to work-life architecture. For many younger employees, that increasingly means taking extended career breaks known as “micro-retirements” to reassess priorities, address burnout or pursue personal goals before eventually returning to the workforce – often after several months or even years.

But, while the headline coverage often frames this as a lifestyle trend, the implications for employers are very real. Here’s what you need to know about what’s driving “micro-retirements” and how your organisation can adapt its policies, culture and talent strategies to respond. 

What is a “micro-retirement” and how is it different from other career breaks?

A micro-retirement isn’t simply annual leave, unpaid leave or a sabbatical in disguise. It’s a deliberately planned, extended break from paid employment that lasts several months or even years. It’s also taken early-to-mid career.

Like traditional retirement, it’s usually preceded by a resignation; but unlike traditional retirement, it’s a temporary state of affairs. The “micro-retiree” intends to return to work at some point. 

Beyond that, it differs from traditional retirement – or even career breaks – in three key ways. 

In practical terms, this means employees may resign from stable roles not because they’re disengaged, but because they want to experience travel, undertake personal projects, further their education, reassess their career direction or even just have a mental health reset. And, for employers, this creates a different dynamic than traditional turnover.

A micro-retirement isn’t always a rejection of your organisation (although it can be). It may instead reflect a generational recalibration of how an employee’s work fits into their life.

The question is therefore not simply, “How do we stop this?”, it’s “How do we respond to a workforce that no longer sees careers as linear?”

Structural burnout, financial calculus and why this isn’t just “young people quitting”

Some managers may be tempted to think of micro-retirements as lifestyle indulgence. However, reporting from Australia and overseas consistently links extended career breaks with burnout, changing life priorities and a desire for Gen Z employees to find a “sustainable” career rhythm. 

In other words, micro-retirement isn’t simply about occasional time-off, but a response to evolving work-life expectations among younger workers, including: 

But there’s another factor at play: financial psychology. Previous generations often deferred breaks because career progression was relatively linear and long-term employment more stable. 

However, Gen Z entered a workforce shaped by pandemic disruption, layoffs, automation anxiety and casualisation. For many, the messages that have come out of this have been that:

So, when stability feels uncertain, there’s little opportunity cost involved in taking six months off.

What employers should actually do about it

If micro-retirements are emerging as a response to burnout and shifting career expectations, the instinctive response for some organisations may be to clamp down on it. We think that would be a mistake.

Treating extended breaks as disloyalty or immaturity doesn’t eliminate the underlying drivers and is more likely to accelerate permanent turnover. (Something that can be exceptionally costly to any organisation.) Instead, we believe employers need to think in three directions: prevention, containment and re-engagement. 

Here’s how you can do just that.

A. Prevention: Design work that doesn’t require escape

Before building policies around career breaks, employers should think about how to reduce the conditions that lead to “structural burnout. Ask yourself: 

These are the kind of scenarios that increase psychological pressure on young employees and make micro-retirement a very attractive preposition – not least because they’re likely to feel that resigning is one of the few ways they can actually regain control.

B. Containment: Formalise career break frameworks

That said, not all micro-retirements are a result of employer-induced burnout; and – by the same token – not every employee who wants a break should need to resign.

Organisations that introduce structured career break policies are likely to be able to retain talent that would otherwise walk out the door forever.  So consider whether you might update your policies to include:

As always, the key here is to formalise any policies or procedures. Not only will this help with your workforce planning, it will also overcome the fact that informal arrangements often lead to inconsistency and resentment.

C. Re-engagement: Make return viable

Many employers underestimate the reputational risk that comes from handling micro-retirements poorly. 

If an employee resigns for a micro-retirement and returns nine months later to a competitor because they feel unwelcome, the cost is likely to compound. 

So, instead of thinking in terms of linear career progression, consider switching to the concept of “talent ecosystems”. This involves keeping a close network of people you know can help your organisation succeed, but who don’t want a role with you right now.

You can do this by:

In doing so, you’ll be able to potentially re-engage high-performing micro-retirees when they do return from their break, or even further down the line.

The workforce planning test most businesses aren’t doing

Micro-retirements also raise a harder question for leadership teams. What happens if one of your strongest early-career performers resigns for nine months?

Many organisations are more dependent on individual employees than they realise. For instance, institutional knowledge can sit within one employee’s inbox or client relationships can depend on one trusted contact. 

The truth is that, if your business can’t absorb the temporary departure of a capable employee without serious disruption, that’s not a Gen Z issue, it’s an organisational one. 

In this sense, the rise of micro-retirement may be the perfect excuse for a little bit of organisational re-design. Perhaps it’s time for a proper audit to work out where informal knowledge sits, and to get it into a format that can be shared more broadly. 

It could also be a signal to examine client relationships to make sure they’re not just sitting with a single individual, and that you have proper succession plans in place across the business – not just for the management team.

Think of micro-retirements as a stress test that exposes how concentrated ability is across your organisation and how prepared you are for volatility in early-to-mid career talent.

Viewed this way, the issue shifts from wellbeing or generational change to governance, continuity and commercial risk. And these, really, are leadership questions, as well as HR ones.

The truth about micro-retirements

Micro-retirements may not yet be common, but the thinking behind them is spreading. Younger employees are questioning whether relentless intensity is the only path to success, and whether a career has to be uninterrupted to be meaningful.

That should prompt uncomfortable questions for your leadership team: If capable people feel they need to resign in order to recover, what does that say about how work is designed in your organisations? And how do you build the structures to keep talent here for the long term, even if employees decide they need a temporary break. 

OIncreasingly, organisations that answer these questions constructively will give themselves a good chance of keeping their best employees over the long-term, even if not for the near-term. Those that don’t – or who mistake exhaustion for disloyalty – may pay the price in higher staff turnover and constant recruitment costs.

Want more?

Want to minimise the loss of talent through micro-retirements in your workforce? Get in touch to discover how Catalina Consultants can help. 

In 2026, a lot of employers are saying the same thing: “There just isn’t any good talent out there”. Yet, at the same time, many strong candidates report frustration with slow communication, excessive interview rounds and unclear decision-making processes.

So, if you’re struggling to attract people, could the issue actually be recruitment friction rather than talent scarcity?

We explore four key friction points that could be repelling high-quality candidates from your organisation without you even realising it.

1. An over-engineered recruitment process

Over the past decade, recruitment processes have become increasingly layered, with stages like psychometric testing, multiple panel interviews and task simulations becoming standard in many organisations.

Individually, we know these tools can be useful – in fact, for many hires, we use some of these techniques ourselves. (You can read about how we hire here.) However, used indiscriminately or applied too early in the interview process, detailed steps become  paralysing rather than empowering.

In fact research published in the Harvard Business Review has shown that lengthy, complex hiring processes often reduce acceptance rates among top candidates. Meanwhile, organisations that streamlined their hiring process to 10 to 14 days saw a 70% increase in candidate acceptance rates.

That’s little wonder when the strongest applicants are usually progressing through multiple opportunities at once. So, when one employer takes weeks to move from first interview to decision, while another makes a clear offer within days, the outcome is predictable to say the least.

But it’s not just candidates who suffer, your employees do too. Complexity also creates internal fatigue, with staff becoming frustrated, interviewers becoming inconsistent and decisions taking longer to reach. 

2. Slow decision making 

Speaking of which… 

When we talk about speed in recruitment, we don’t mean that you need to rush your hiring decisions. However, you do need to be clear about what you’re looking for in a candidate and the processes needed to make sure you get the best fit. 

That way, when someone does match what you’re looking for, you’ll be able to make a call more confidently, and therefore more quickly.

When candidates experience long silences between interviews, delayed feedback or extended “internal discussions”, they often interpret it as a signal you’re not interested – or more damagingly, as organisational dysfunction.

In line with this, The Conversation recently highlighted the rise of “ghosting” in recruitment, with employers failing to respond to candidates to let them know where they’re at, why there’s a delay in hiring or why they’re not proceeding at all. Not only did this turn people off, it also seemed to lead to the rise in candidates doing this back to recruiters.

From a behavioural perspective, when communication just stops without explanation, people assume the worst. Even if you’re still proceeding with the hire, high-performing candidates often feel they can’t trust your organisation or your hiring processes. So they’ll just move on. 

So if you’re slow in responding to candidates, analyse why, and how you can overcome it. In our experience, it’s often the result of uncertainty stemming from:

These are operational issues within your own organisation and having nothing to do with talent shortages. But they’ll almost certainly affect your ability to reliably secure strong applicants.

3. Lack of internal consistency 

One of the most common friction points in recruitment is internal misalignment.

HR can draft a great position description based on your workforce planning needs, but the hiring manager might have a different picture in mind altogether. Then, senior leadership might step in too, introducing new expectations around budget or capability that mean the original job description no longer matches what you’re looking for at all.

These shifting goalposts waste candidates’ time.

Behavioural science research on trust suggests that an organisation’s credibility depends on being reliable and consistent – not on constantly changing your mind. So before you advertise any role make sure: 

Without noting this upfront, you’re likely to face the kinds of delays that cause trust to evaporate – putting off the very people you’re trying to attract. 

If you’re not convinced, think about how you’d feel if you’d put in the effort to progress through two or three rounds of interviews only to hear that the organisation is now “reconsidering the profile” or “reviewing structure”. Would you still want to join that business if another opportunity came up?

4. Overlying on systems without accountability 

For many employers, technology has streamlined a lot of the recruitment process. But, while applicant tracking systems, automated screening tools and AI-assisted shortlisting might seem to improve efficiency, they still can’t fully replace judgement and accountability.

If your organisation’s screening filters are poorly configured, strong candidates may be excluded before a human review even happens. So, if you’ve introduced technology to screen applicants, make sure you’re actively auditing the quality of hires you’re attracting, as well as the recruitment process itself. 

For instance, you should regularly audit:

What this means for your recruitment in 2026

While 2026 may be seeing a rise in the number of people staying put in their jobs, top talent is still available. However, it is growing more selective than it once was. 

High performers will evaluate your organisation on responsiveness, transparency and consistency, just as much as they will on salary and the role itself.

Over-engineered processes, slow decisions and internal misalignment send unintended signals about how your organisation is run. So, if you’re consistently losing strong candidates at later stages of recruitment, your job is to identify the friction points and work out how you can overcome them. 

Reviewing how you hire, not just who you hire, may be one of the most commercially-important HR exercises you undertake this year.

Want more?

Need support with your recruiting or hiring frameworks? Get in touch to discover how Catalina Consultants can help. 

As 2026 gets underway, business owners, senior leaders and HR professionals find themselves navigating a different regulatory and practical landscape.

Legislation is expanding, employee expectations are shifting, technology adoption is accelerating and uncertainty around job security is influencing both employer and employee behaviour.

How your business prepares for this new environment is likely to go some way to determining whether you have a successful year or find yourself slipping behind.

With that in mind, we explore the five factors that you need to be across when it comes to hiring, firing, managing and retaining employees this year.

1. New regulations, more enforcement

Between 2023 and 2025 we saw a lot of new workplace laws being drafted, but it’s in 2026 that the practical impact of many of those forms is likely to be felt. As AHRI notes, employers should be ready for key changes across four main areas.

2. Flexible work is no longer a “perk”, it’s now structural

In 2026, flexible work arrangements have moved beyond being a pandemic-era concession to become embedded in Australia’s employment framework.

The Fair Work Act now allows a broader group of employees to formally request flexible working arrangements, including parents and carers, workers aged 55, people with disability, pregnant employees and employees experiencing family or domestic violence.

What’s more, if someone who falls within these categories applies to work flexibly, an employer can only refuse their request on “reasonable grounds” and must also provide a written response that demonstrates they’ve considered it genuinely.

At the same time, flexibility remains one of the strongest drivers of attraction and retention. According to national workforce surveys, flexible working conditions consistently ranks alongside pay and job security as the main factor influencing job choice and employee satisfaction.

The practical challenge for employers is that many flexible arrangements are still being handled informally, negotiated manager-by-manager, without clear policy frameworks and relying on discretion. Whilst this is OK for a small business, once you start growing a discretionary approach can lead to inconsistency, perceived unfairness, operational risk and potential exposure to discrimination or adverse action claims.

Every employer, including you, ideally needs to document and communicate clear eligibility criteria and approval processes. You should also be implementing these consistently if you want flexibility to remain an advantage rather than a liability.

3. Improved retention: a problem more than a saving?

On paper, Australia’s labour market remains relatively stable. Unemployment is low by historical standards (just 4.2% according to the latest ABS data). And, while AI is causing some disruption, so far layoffs haven’t been too widespread – at least outside certain sectors such as creative.

But underneath these headline numbers, employee behaviour is shifting in ways that create new retention risks.

Cost-of-living pressures, mortgage stress and ongoing uncertainty about automation have made many workers more cautious about changing jobs. As a result, employees increasingly prioritise perceived security over career movement (a phenomenon known as “job hugging”) and job mobility has fallen compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Many employers might see this as good news: replacing an employee can cost up to 250% of their salary according to HBR. But low staff turnover can be a false economy, creating a lot more harm than good.

When employees remain because they see no other option, it usually leads to lower engagement and even lower productivity – a consequence of reduced discretionary effort and declining morale.

The real risk, however, comes as confidence returns. When economic conditions improve or hiring activity picks up, deferred movement often translates into sudden spikes in resignations, particularly among high performers previously too afraid to move on.

To avoid this, your retention strategy should move away from reactive counteroffers and salary adjustments to focus on creating career pathways, regular engagement check-ins and stronger frameworks for internal mobility.

4. Performance management back on the agenda

Speaking of which, after several years in which many organisations prioritised retention over high performance, productivity pressure is rising again in 2026.

Inflation, high borrowing costs, margin compression and cost controls are biting into the profit of many businesses, forcing them to focus more closely on output and accountability than they have since pre-COVID times.

As a result, many organisations are beginning to set clearer boundaries when it comes to performance expectations. But, as any experienced HR professional will tell you, increasing expectations without proper frameworks will almost always result in unnecessary risk.

After all, inconsistent feedback can create perceptions of bias and unfair treatment. Unclear role expectations make it difficult to effectively address instances of underperformance. And poorly documented performance processes are a recipe for increasing exposure to unfair dismissal, general protection and adverse action claims.

For this reason make sure that early in 2026 you take the time to:

Read more about what performance management should like like in a post-pandemic world

5. The convergence of technology, culture and compliance

HR in 2026 is no longer neatly divided between systems, culture and compliance. Instead, these three concepts are increasingly becoming one-and-the-same.

More organisations are adopting payroll automation, integrated HR platforms and AI-assisted recruitment tools. And, while these systems can offer efficiency gains, they also introduce new governance responsibilities around data privacy, bias, decision transparency and system configuration.

At the same time, regulators are placing greater emphasis on psychosocial safety. Employers now have a clear duty to manage risks related to workload, burnout, bullying and workplace behaviour under WHS frameworks – potentially issues that AI isn’t yet that great at detecting or acting properly on.

So this year, effective HR strategy will require aligning any technology systems with leadership capability, policy frameworks and workplace culture. In short, it means what AI developers would call “keeping humans in the loop”.

If you don’t, you may find you’re compromising your ability to build a resilient, compliant and high-performing workplace. And, in a time when margins are shrinking and productivity is back on the business agenda, this could be the factor that drags your organisation behind competitors who’ve already adapted to the realities of the modern tech-enabled workplace.

Bringing it all together

HR in 2026 is less about reacting to individual changes and more about building systems that can absorb ongoing complexity.

New legislation is tightening compliance expectations. Flexible work is becoming formalised. Retention risks are shifting beneath the surface. Performance accountability is returning. And technology, culture and regulation are increasingly intersecting before our eyes.

For employers, the biggest risk of all is not missing a single update, it’s assuming that what worked in previous years is still enough for today.

Want more?

Need support reviewing your HR policies, performance frameworks or workforce strategy for 2026? Get in touch to discover how Catalina Consultants HR Experts can help.

One of our highlights of 2025 was attending an Indeed labour market webinar led by senior economist Callam Pickering, which used the platform’s data to analyse trends for recruiting into 2026.

What stood out to us wasn’t a single statistic, but this broader insight: fear and uncertainty are increasingly shaping how people think about job security, mobility and career decisions. And the key to overcoming them? Transparency, openness and a willingness to go where other employers aren’t. 

With that in mind, we took a look at what the latest labour market data really tells us, why confidence has become a critical factor in talent strategy, and how employers can navigate this new economic landscape to build their own talent advantage.

A labour market shaped by fear rather than fundamentals

Despite persistent headlines about economic uncertainty, Australia’s labour market has remained more resilient than many people assume. Jobs have continued to be created, large-scale layoffs have stayed relatively low, and overall participation remains strong by historical standards. 

The latest ABS data shows that Australia-wide unemployment in November 2025 stood at 4.3%, workforce participation was 66.8% and the number of employed people was actually 1.3% higher than the year before. 

What has changed, however, is sentiment.

Over the past couple of years, cost-of-living pressures have placed genuine strain on households, particularly when it comes to the price of housing, energy and everyday essentials. And while wages have actually been rising more quickly than at any point since the GFC (3.4% in the 12 months to December 2025) any increases are still only just enough to keep pace with inflation. 

If this alone wasn’t enough to make people concerned, it comes at the same time as many employees grow concerned about the role of artificial intelligence. 

On this front, Indeed found that, while only a fraction of job ads referred to generative AI, the number that did had grown by 310% in just the 12 months to May 2025. The fear that this means the robots are coming for our jobs has been amplified recently with several high profile instances of companies laying staff off in favour of AI. 

The result is a workforce that feels more cautious, even in sectors where demand remains solid. 

Why confidence matters so much to recruitment

This matters because confidence plays a significant role in hiring. When people feel uncertain, they’re less likely to change jobs, more hesitant to negotiate and more inclined to prioritise perceived security over opportunity. Again, this is reflected in ABS data, which reveals that job mobility has been decreasing over the past couple of  years.

From an employer’s perspective, a lack of movement might look like improved retention. But, as we wrote recently, it often reflects the fact that people are staying put even when they’re not fully satisfied, simply because the perceived risk of moving feels high.

This can lead to a less engaged workforce and low productivity, as well as spike in turnover when confidence returns.

It also has an immediate and profound impact on recruitment. When fewer people are willing to move, the pool of genuinely motivated, high-quality candidates becomes smaller. And this, in turn, means longer hiring timelines, more cautious decision-making from candidates and increased competition for the same limited group of mobile talent.

What employers can do to access the best candidates in 2026

The good news is that the Indeed data also provided valuable insights into exactly what employers can do to overcome challenges in today’s labour market and attract the right talent.

Here’s what it found. 

1. Advertise pay, clearly and early

In a cautious labour market, salary information has become one of the most effective ways to pique the interest of the right candidates. 

Indeed’s data shows that almost 97% of job searches say salary information determines whether they apply for a role in the first place. And yet, just 36% of job ads included it.

When confidence is low, the absence of pay information increases perceived risk. Candidates are less willing to invest time in the application process without knowing whether the role will meet their financial needs. So including salary ranges reduces friction at the very first decision point. 

2. Embrace remote and hybrid work where it genuinely fits

Despite some pullback from pandemic-era peaks, job seekers still often want remote and hybrid work. However, Indeed’s data shows that only a minority of job ads explicitly offer it (12%).

For candidates weighing whether to move roles in an uncertain environment, flexibility can help shift the risk-reward calculation. It can also dramatically expand the available talent pool, particularly for roles that are otherwise constrained by geography.

3. Broaden hiring lenses and recruit for diversity

Another theme Indeed identified in its data was how much talent remained under-utilised due to narrow hiring practices. 

This is particularly true of older workers. Just 56% of employers said they were open to hiring candidates aged between 50 and 64, while only 21% said they would consider hiring someone above that age. 

But it also applies to recent migrants (especially those from non-English speaking backgrounds), the neurodivergent and women.

But employers’ conservativeness can be your gain.  As we’ve written previously (in relation to neuroinclusion) widening your recruitment lens can actually be a competitive advantage, giving you access to skills, perspectives and talents your competitors aren’t tapping into. 

4. Reduce uncertainty wherever you can

Across all of these findings, there was a common thread: in an environment shaped by caution, transparency mattered. 

Clear information about pay, flexibility, expectations and progression can reduce perceived risk and help candidates overcome any hesitancy.

In other words, the talent advantage in 2026 won’t come from offering more but from being clearer.

Bringing it all together

Taken together, the data points to a labour market that may be less fragile than it feels, but also more sensitive than it looks. 

Economic fundamentals remain relatively sound, but fear and uncertainty are shaping candidate and employee behaviour in ways that directly affect recruitment, retention and workforce performance.

For employers, the risk isn’t simply misreading the data; it’s also misreading how people respond to it. Reduced job mobility doesn’t necessarily signal contentment. Increased application volumes don’t always translate into confident candidates. And short-term stability can mask longer-term engagement and turnover risks.

The organisations best placed to attract and retain talent in 2026 will be those that recognise this gap between perception and reality, and respond deliberately. 

After all, in an employment market shaped by caution, confidence could become your differentiator, and an open mind and transparency your strategic advantages.

Want more?

Need help planning your recruitment for 2026? Get in touch with our team of HR experts. 

For most Australian organisations, December and January are treated as write-off months. Projects slow, decision-making is postponed and attention turns to leave calendars, end-of-year handovers and winding down.

But for HR leaders, we think this time of year represents something very different…

With the noise of the year finally easing, it can often become the one time when HR leaders can properly zoom out without the usual day-to-day pressures to build a strategic roadmap that sets them up for next year.

The only question is whether you use this time deliberately, or just let it slip by…

Why end-of-year is uniquely valuable for HR strategy

From December to late January, the rhythm of most Australian organisations changes. Annual targets are largely locked in, major projects are either finished or parked, meeting volumes drop and a significant proportion of employees are on leave or working reduced hours.

You also often see a measurable slowdown in activity, with ABS data showing business turnover typically falling in January and February before picking up again in March (with the exception, of course, of holiday-driven sectors like hospitality and retail).

But the shift in tempo creates a psychological opening as well as a practical one. Behavioural research on the “fresh start effect” shows that people are more likely to initiate ambitious goals at temporal landmarks like the start of a new year or a new quarter, because these moments help them separate their “old” selves from the person they want to be.

For HR teams, this combined effect can be powerful. The Dec/Jan quiet period offers fewer day to day distractions and a workforce that’s often naturally more reflective and open to change.

So if you want the best chance of your strategic HR reset succeeding, here’s how to do it over this holiday season.

1. Conduct a real year-end workforce review (not just a tidy-up)

Most organisations do some kind of year-end people review. But for many, it’s little more than a headcount check, a skim of engagement scores and a quick look at who’s resigned over the past 12 months.

The Christmas slowdown gives you a chance to go much deeper because the pressure to “just keep things moving” isn’t usually there like it is for most of the year. So if you want to use your Dec/Jan period for a proper workplace review, we think you should ask a different set of questions.

How well are we really recruiting?

Don’t just analyse how fast roles were filled. Go deep into whether new hires are still here six or 12 months later, how they’re performing and whether their managers believe they were the right hires.

Who left this year and (most importantly) why?

Patterns in resignations will tell you far more than any engagement survey alone. Are losses clustered in certain teams? Under certain managers? After certain business changes?

Where are the capability gaps showing up?

Review  managers’ feedback and look hard at the numbers to find out where work stalled, quality dropped or pressure peaked. Was it because the right skills weren’t in place?

Where is leadership under strain?

Burnout, bottlenecks and decision overload tend to surface most clearly at the end of year, and research on leadership fatigue shows it directly affects team performance, safety and retention. So if your leaders are struggling, find out why and work out what you can do about it.

Who’s carrying the organisation?

Every business has a large middle group of solid performers who absorb a lot of the workload without much fanfare. Understanding how stretched this group is often matters more than focusing only on top and bottom performers.

2. Analyse (and potentially reset) your EVP

The Dec/Jan lull is also one of the few times HR can pause long enough to pressure-test the real Employee Value Proposition against the one on the careers page. That doesn’t mean making sure it sounds right, it means analysing how it’s playing out in practice. So review exit interviews, engagement survey comments and informal manager feedback to see if you can spot any patterns.

After all, most EVPs don’t fail loudly. They just begin to stop matching the lived experience of work – especially in a post-pandemic world.

To see how you measure up, ask yourself some uncomfortable but necessary questions:

3. Set up your talent pipeline to run properly

A lot of employees use their end-of-year break to reassess their roles, pay and career direction. They may not resign immediately in December, but this is when many start planning a move. The result is a predictable spike in job applications, resignations and hiring activity across late January, February and March.

HR teams that wait until those resignations hit their inbox are already on the back foot.

Instead, use this period to prepare your recruiting for the year ahead.

4. Fix policy and compliance cracks before they widen

In Australia, employer obligations have expanded significantly over the past few years. The positive duty to prevent sexual harassment, psychosocial hazard regulations under WHS law, expanded flexible work rights and the increasing scrutiny of workplace investigations have all raised the bar on what “reasonable steps” now look like in practice.

But during the year, HR policy and compliance work often becomes reactive. Something happens, a workaround is applied, and everyone moves on. December and January are often when you finally get the breathing space to step back and ask the harder questions.

What catches many organisations out is not a lack of intent but policy drift. Behaviour standards might technically exist in a handbook, but no longer reflect how work is actually done. Flexible work arrangements may have expanded rapidly during and after COVID, but without clear guidance on boundaries, performance expectations or fairness. Investigation processes may still be built for a slower, simpler risk environment than the one employers now face.

The Dec-Jan window is your opportunity to safely bring these issues back to ground by testing whether your policies remain fit for purpose, whether managers genuinely understand their obligations and whether employees trust your reporting and investigation pathways.

5. Read the real cost of the year

By the time December rolls around, the physical and psychological cost of the year is no longer theoretical; it’s clearly visible in sick leave patterns, interpersonal conflict, employee disengagement and resignations.

Things like work overloads, role ambiguity, lack of autonomy and low psychological safety directly increase turnover, reduce productivity and eat into profitability.

As the pace drops at the end of year, you get a clearer view of where systems have been stretched too far. For instance:

This is also when employees themselves are most reflective. Many people decide whether to stay or go during the break, even if they don’t act immediately. That makes this an unusually powerful time to listen closely to feedback, to connect turnover trends with workload and leadership pressures, and to confront whether wellbeing strategies are actually reducing risk or merely reassuring leadership.

6. Make sure leaders reflect the right culture

More than any policy or program, it’s leadership behaviour that determines what it feels like to work in an organisation.

When the pace eases at the end of year, you often have the chance to see leadership patterns that were previously easy to ignore.

For instance, which leaders consistently lifted their teams through pressure? Which struggled to manage workload, conflict or change? Where did decision bottlenecks form? And where did leadership break down under operational strain?

The quiet period gives you time to review employee feedback and other data to properly analyse:

Turning reflection into a disciplined 2026 people roadmap

Finally, it’s always worth remembering that end-of-year reflection only matters if it turns into action. That’s why one of the real keys to success is turning your review into a short, disciplined people roadmap for the year ahead.

Turn any workplace risks you identified should turn into resourcing decisions for Q3 FY2026. Make sure leadership pressure points become coaching plans. Use burnout signals for workload redesign, not just another wellbeing campaign. And convert any EVP gaps into a priority list for what needs to change before recruitment scales again.

In short, if you use the quiet period to draw up your action points for the coming year, you’ll set yourself up for HR success. If you don’t, you may find yourself scrambling to stabilise HR risk and rebuild momentum in 2026.

The choice is yours.

Want more?

Need help planning for 2026? Get in touch with our team of HR Experts

Christmas parties might take place in a different setting, but legally and culturally they’re still part of the workplace. That means your duty of care doesn’t clock off once the music begins.

Under WHS laws and the positive duty to prevent sexual harassment, employers are required to take reasonable and proportionate steps to keep people safe. And expectations about what this should involve have grown significantly over the past few years.

In 2025, fulfilling your duty of care goes far beyond offering food and limiting the drinks package. It includes setting clear behavioural expectations, planning safe travel options and making sure leaders are present and prepared to intervene.

Here are some of the biggest shifts in how the risks involved in a workplace party have changed.

1. Social media amplification

Unfortunately, the digital footprint of a party now lasts far longer than the hangovers. Social media misuse is common: things like tagging colleagues without consent, sharing screenshots in group chats and live streaming or posting unflattering videos happen all the time.

A moment that feels fun in the moment can quickly turn into reputational damage or a formal complaint.

2. AI & deepfake content

If that wasn’t enough, any photos or videos taken at work events can now be edited, altered or deepfaked in seconds. A harmless incident can be turned into something damaging and shared widely before anyone knows about it.

That means you need to think not just about conduct in the room, but about the potential for manipulated content that appears to come from the room.

3. Hybrid teams meeting IRL for the first time

In 2025, many teams who collaborate online may have only ever met on Slack or Zoom. For some, the Christmas party will be their first real life interaction – and it comes with a bar tab.

Without the buffer of a screen and the alcohol flowing, social cues can be missed and banter can be misread. This can lead to boundaries being crossed, even if unintentionally.

For many modern organisations, this makes the Christmas party the first real test of their culture, communication and psychological safety.

4. Drugs, vaping & non-alcohol intoxicants

Alcohol is still the main enabler of bad Christmas party behaviour, but it’s not the only one. Vapes, edibles and other illicit substances introduce new safety concerns that went under the radar in years gone by.

WHS duties mean every employer should provide clear guidance on what’s permitted, how impairment will be managed and what leaders should do if they suspect someone is unsafe – even when the substance involved isn’t alcohol.

5. After-parties: The hidden risk zone

Most Christmas party misconduct doesn’t happen at the official event. It occurs afterwards at the pub, nightclub, karaoke bar or someone’s house.

An employer’s positive duty means ignoring after-parties is no longer defensible. If managers are present, if work groups have organised it or if attendance feels expected, liability can follow.

Practical steps to keep the celebration fun (and liability free)

Against this backdrop, employers need to take a more hands-on approach to managing the Christmas party celebrations.

1. Set expectations early (and keep them simple)

One short, plain-English message can prevent half of the problems. Send a company-wide email that sets expectations around responsible drinking, general behaviour and social media use (see 5. below).

2. Brief your leaders before the event

Leaders are behaviour multipliers. The way they behave at the event will set the tone. So remind them to stay approachable, visible and sober enough to intervene if they have to. Visibly drunk managers are never a good look for your organisation.

3. Control the environment, not the vibe

Small things can often prevent big issues. Be sure to provide good food (and plenty of it), as well as access to water and even transport options – especially if there are none nearby.

4. Address after-party boundaries

Let everyone know when your responsibility ends by announcing a firm end time. Also, make it clear managers should not organise or encourage unofficial gatherings.

That way people will know any “kick-ons” are not endorsed, nor part of the official function, even if you acknowledge they happen.

5. Put social media boundaries in writing

It’s essential in 2025 that everyone plays by the same social media rules:

6. Formalise reporting channels

Tell employees how to raise concerns and what support exists if something goes wrong. A simple, accessible process – like speaking with the line manager, or appointing an HR representative – should lower risk and increase trust.

The final word: Christmas parties should be fun, not fraught

End-of-of-year celebrations are an important part of the work calendar. Done well, they bring people together, strengthen culture and create shared memories. But they’re not risk-free, and the risks are no longer just about alcohol and conduct.

In 2025, employers, managers and HR teams need to navigate a landscape that involves AI, hybrid work, positive duty obligations, after-party exposure and a permanently online environment.

With clear expectations, present leaders and the right guardrails, you can host a Christmas party that’s enjoyable, inclusive and safe… without the HR hangover.

Want more?

If you need help preparing your end-of-year workplace policies, get in touch.

High staff retention always looks like a win. At least, that is, until you zoom in and realise it sometimes isn’t.

In an era of growing AI-driven job instability and economic uncertainty, it seems as though the era of mass job-hopping may have peaked. Instead, many employees are now staying put even when they’re discontent, bored or blocked – a phenomenon known as “job hugging”.

When people stay because they must, not because they want to, it can stunt growth, disengage your best talent and erode your competitive edge.

So how can you spot and stop job hugging in your organisation? And what actions do you need to take right now? Read on to find out.

Why staying put is no longer always good

Employee retention has been one of the traditional ways business leaders evaluate team health. Fewer exits and longer tenures are associated with a strong workplace culture, especially in a tight job market.

But in 2025, as the employment landscape changes, these assumptions are breaking down fast.

According to a Robert Half survey from July 2025, only 27% of US employees planned to look for a different job before the end of the year. This was down from 29% in January and 35% the previous year. While similar data isn’t available for Australia, anecdotally we’ve noticed more people staying their roles, and a quieter candidate market than we were seeing 12 months ago – especially in sectors like financial and professional services.

The reason for this, according to survey results, is economic uncertainty. The cost of living is rising and inflation remains high and there are fewer attractive roles on offer than there were. But, interestingly, many employees also say they fear AI and automation may soon make their skills redundant – so taking a gamble on switching roles, and becoming the last employee into an organisation that may be about to cut staff, just doesn’t seem worth it right now.

How job hugging impacts your business

If low turnover is masking job-hugging in your organisation, the consequences can be far more serious than just a few stagnant roles.

The first and most obvious risk is a lack of skill growth, not just in individual employees but also in your teams. Because when people stay put without moving, learning or being stretched, your organisation’s entire capability development slows. This, in turn, impacts productivity and innovation, and studies show that a workforce that feels safest staying still is far less likely to experiment, propose new ideas or drive meaningful change.

But job hugging also creates a false sense of stability and lack of ambition among team members. When one employee becomes disengaged and just does the bare minimum it starts to impact the amount of effort others put in.

It also leads to blockers in the career pathways for other potential higher performers – who may find themselves resigned to never getting ahead. This could lead them to decide to stop putting in the effort needed to advance or even force them to move on to a more dynamic role. In which case you lose a good employee who could be a part of your future, but retain an underperformer who you’d probably be better off without.

Finally, job-hugging introduces a delayed-impact risk. When employees stay primarily out of fear or uncertainty, they’re far more likely to leave en masse the moment market confidence improves, effectively creating a “Great Resignation 2.0” that will hit your business all at once.

For business owners, these aren’t abstract HR problems. They are direct threats to productivity, growth, competitiveness and the long-term health of your organisation.

The two types of job huggers (and how to spot the unhealthy kind)

That said, not everyone who stays is doing it for the same reason. Broadly, there are two types of job-huggers – and every business leader should know how to tell them apart.

The growth-minded stayer is someone who remains because your organisation offers challenge, development and a clear path forward. They’re engaged, learning and choosing to build a future with you.

Then there is the fear-driven stayer. This is the employee who stays not out of commitment, but because they feel they have limited options or they’re wary of change.

These are the people who step back from their work. They tend to show low initiative, little movement and a sense of “waiting it out”.

For businesses, the danger lies in treating both groups as the same. Commitment and caution can look identical on a spreadsheet but they play out very differently in your culture and performance.

So how do you spot unhealthy job-hugging in your workplace? Here are the practical signs:

These are the early indicators that people aren’t staying because the culture is strong: they’re staying because they’re stuck. And that’s when job-hugging becomes a risk.

What you should do to combat job hugging right now

If you’re worried about job hugging in your workplace, here are some strategies that could turn risk into opportunity:

  1. Create “micromobility” pathways: Use short-term projects, cross-functional rotations or stretch assignments to give people a challenge. This lets employees move without needing a full role change.
  2. Invest in capability & learning: Build transparent upskilling and reskilling pathways so people don’t feel stuck. Show people how staying means growth, not stasis. Link it to your business strategy: “Here’s what our future needs, here’s your path.”
  3. Refresh career conversations: Have real conversations with your team members (but be mindful of employment law). Find out why they stay and what could pull them away.
  4. Refresh your EVP (Employee Value Proposition): If your offer is just “come and don’t leave”, you’ll only ever retrain stayers. So highlight learning, internal mobility and future-readiness.
  5. Measure what matters: Instead of just retention, try to measure development, internal mobility and productivity. Then compare this across teams.
  6. Watch for warning signs: Absenteeism creeping up or innovation slowing? These may be early flags of job-hugging and disengagement.

Final message: stability isn’t the same as strength

In the current climate, where the job market feels less certain and the ramifications of an AI-driven future remain unclear, it’s easy to understand why many employees see staying put as a smart decision. But for many businesses, their safety could be high risk.

If low turnover is simply the result of fear or lack of options, you’re not building capability, you’re treading water. And sooner or later, that stagnation will cost you one way or another.

That’s why the best organisations are building growth- and mobility-rich environments where staying becomes a choice and “getting comfortable” simply isn’t an option.

Want more?

If you’re worried about job hugging in your workplace. Catalina Consultants can help you audit your retention, identify hidden stagnation and design strategies that drive performance.

Get in touch to find out how.

You know the moment. The interview’s going well, the candidate’s relaxed and somewhere between “Tell me about yourself” and “Do you have any questions for us?” someone slips in a little smalltalk: “So, do you live nearby?” or “How do you juggle work and family?”.

It’s meant to be friendly and inclusive: you’re curious and interested in their life. But in reality, these kinds of personal questions can actually land you in hot water.

That’s because Australia’s discrimination laws apply to interview questions, even when there’s no bad intent behind them.

The consequences of asking illegal interview questions

Getting it wrong can be awkward… and expensive. Beyond missing out on great candidates, asking illegal questions can expose you to Fair Work claims and state tribunal complaints.

That said, you’ll struggle to find tribunal decisions specifically about interview questions. Most claims settle quietly before they ever reach a hearing because the employer knows that public perception of discrimination is a reputation killer.

But, by then, the damage to your employer brand is often already done. Even without a formal claim, one bad interview can live forever on Glassdoor, LinkedIn or within the rumour mills of your industry.

The 10 most common illegal questions

So what exactly crosses the line? Here are 10 of the most common illegal questions employers ask at interviews (often without even knowing it).

1. “How old are you?”

Why it’s illegal: Age is a protected attribute under the Age Discrimination Act 2004 (Cth). So, unless you’re legally required to verify a minimum or maximum age (i.e because the role involves serving alcohol or driving a heavy vehicle), this question can be seen as discriminatory.

What to ask instead: If age is genuinely relevant, request proof of licence or working rights after making a conditional offer. Otherwise, focus on skills and experience: “Tell me about your recent work in…”.

2. “Do you have kids?” or “How do you manage childcare?”

Why it’s illegal: Questions about family responsibilities can discriminate on the basis of gender, parental status or carer’s responsibilities. Even if you’re trying to gauge availability, it can imply bias against parents or carers.

What to ask instead: Ask about role requirements directly: “The role includes travel and occasional weekend work. Will you be able to meet these requirements?”

3. “Where are you from originally?”

Why it’s illegal: While this may sound like friendly conversation, it can expose you to claims of racial or national origin discrimination. Employers can only ask about work eligibility, not cultural background.

What to ask instead: If you’re concerned someone isn’t eligible to work, stick to lawful questions, for example: “Are you legally entitled to work in Australia?”. Otherwise, save your curiosity about someone’s background for another time.

4. “Do you live nearby?”

Why it’s illegal: This can indirectly discriminate based on socioeconomic status, family responsibilities or even race (especially if a suburb is associated with a particular demographic). In some cases, asking this question has been linked to postcode bias, which disproportionately affects certain communities.

What to ask instead: Focus on practicalities: “This role is based in Parramatta and requires working onsite three days a week. Are you comfortable with that commute?”

5. “Have you ever been injured or had an illness?”

Why it’s illegal: Health and disability are protected attributes under both federal and state law. You can’t ask about past injuries, medical history or workers’ compensation claims unless they directly affect the inherent requirements of the role.

What to ask instead: Phrase it around job requirements: “Are you able to safely perform the physical tasks associated with this role?”

6. “Are you planning to retire soon?”

Why it’s illegal: Questions that suggest older workers are less capable, committed or valuable can amount to age discrimination. The same applies to implying that someone is “too young” or “not experienced enough”.

What to ask instead: Talk about career plans in a neutral way: “What are your professional goals over the next few years?”

7. “Do you have any religious holidays or commitments?”

Why it’s illegal: Religion is protected under the Fair Work Act 2009 and most state anti-discrimination laws. Even well-intentioned scheduling questions can appear discriminatory.

What to ask instead: Outline the job’s scheduling upfront, e.g. “This role involves weekend or public holiday work. Would you be available to work then?”

8. “What are your thoughts on [insert politician/political party]?”

Why it’s illegal:  Political opinion is a protected attribute under federal law. Unless you’re hiring for a political advocacy or campaign role where ideology is an inherent requirement of the job, asking about someone’s political views is irrelevant and risky.

What to ask instead: Focus on whether they’re aligned with your organisation’s values or mission: “How would you contribute to our team’s purpose?”

9. “Do you identify as male, female, or other?”

Why it’s illegal: Gender identity, sex, and sexual orientation are protected under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth). Asking for this information during an interview can make your business liable especially if used, even unintentionally, in a hiring decision.

What to ask instead: Avoid gendered questions altogether. Use inclusive language until the candidate offers their preferred pronouns voluntarily.

10. “How would you fit in with our young, energetic team?”

Why it’s illegal: It might sound like harmless culture-fit chat, but this phrase can imply bias based on age, disability or personality traits. “Cultural fit” often becomes a code for sameness. (Besides, studies show hiring only the same kinds of people usually leads to lower performing teams.)

What to ask instead: Reframe it as “culture add”, e.g. “What kind of team environment do you perform best in?”

Reality check: Most breaches are innocent enough

Every interviewer knows they can’t ask someone about their age or marital status. But – as the examples above show – most illegal interview questions don’t come from ignorance, they come from habit, curiosity and, well, just being human.

We make conversation, we look for connection and we try to fill silences – even (or perhaps especially) in job interviews. That’s just how our brains are wired.

But it’s often the throwaway lines that candidates remember and give weight to.

The risk is that small talk can expose bias before the person’s even had a chance to prove their worth, sending a quiet message about who belongs and who doesn’t.

That said, a fair interview isn’t about being robotic. It’s about being disciplined and knowing what information you actually need to assess the role and what’s simply your curiosity getting the better of you.

How to avoid asking illegal questions in your next job interview

So, if you’re looking to make sure you – and your team – don’t ask the wrong thing in the next interview, how do you do it? Here are our tips.

Or if you want a really simple rule, just think about this: if you can’t defend the relevance of a question to the job’s core requirements, don’t ask it.

Curiosity is a great trait for any successful person but, in a job interview, it needs boundaries.

And, if a candidate volunteers personal information, thank them for sharing, but make it clear your decision will focus solely on their ability to meet the role’s requirements. Document that redirection, if possible, so that you can demonstrate you’ve acted in good faith.

In short…

Getting hiring right starts long before the interview. It lives in your planning, processes and workplace culture.

At Catalina Consultants, we help organisations build recruitment systems that let them attract the right candidates without the legal landmines.

From interview training to end-to-end talent strategy, we’ll make sure your team knows what to ask, what to avoid, and how to hire for the future you’re building.

Rethinking how you attract and grow talent? Get in touch.

In 2025, the rules of employment are changing fast, so employers can no longer rely on old assumptions. That was the theme of our recent HR Hotspots briefing, which we co-hosted with Brown Wright Stein Lawyers.

From redundancy and redeployment to restraints and remuneration, 2025’s biggest cases and legislative changes (both potential and already passed) are forcing HR leaders to rethink how they manage people, processes and risk.

1. The Redundancy revolution: A deeper inquiry regarding “redeployment”

One of the key issues discussed at the HR Hotspots briefing was recent changes to redundancy law – and especially the redeployment requirements in the Fair Work Act.

Until now, most organisations have treated redundancy as a simple two-step test: confirm there’s no available position and ensure consultation obligations were met.

That’s no longer enough after the High Court decision in Helensburgh Coal Pty Ltd v Bartley [2025] HCA 29.

The High Court’s decision means that the Fair Work Commission (FWC), will now be taking a broader, updated approach to whether or not it would have been reasonable in all the circumstances to redeploy someone before ending their employment, on grounds of redundancy.

This includes looking beyond vacant roles in which the redundant employee could have been deployed, to actively examining whether an employer could have created or made available a suitable role by adjusting existing workforce arrangements.

From now on, employers are expected to consider:

In short, redundancy decisions will now face a broader and more forensic test in relation to redeployment that looks at the entire workforce ecosystem; the “no vacancy” defence will no longer safeguard against unfair dismissal findings.

Our take: Catalina and Brown Wright Stein Lawyers

As our Founder, Merilyn Speiser and Dean Schubert, Partner at Brown Wright Stein Lawyers, told the audience, all employers should be looking to front-end their risk assessment process prior to implementing any proposed restructure, to build redundancy review templates, and develop redeployment checklists that call for a deeper inquiry in relation to redeployment options, consistent with the recent High Court decision.

Also, keep detailed notes of contractor usage and outsourcing arrangements, and vacancy forecasting. If an employee is unable to be saved by way of suitable redeployment, make sure your reasoning is explicit, documented and defensible.

2. Set-off clauses suffer a setback

A lot of employers have been relying on “set-off” clauses in employment contracts, including to simplify compliance with modern awards.

The logic of set-off clauses is that if a salaried employee’s total pay is high enough to cover all potential entitlements (such as overtime, penalties or allowances), the employer should be able to balance any “overs and unders” at the end of a quarter or even across a full year.

That approach is now on shaky ground.

Recent Fair Work interpretations confirm that set-off arrangements must align with the timing of award payment pay periods, not long accounting periods.

This means you can’t simply pay an annual salary and argue that, “on average” it exceeds award minimums. Each weekly or fortnightly pay cycle must, in itself, satisfy the relevant award obligations.

If an employee’s contract assumes flexibility (e.g. working longer hours during peak periods) you’ll need to demonstrate that the salary still compensates them adequately within each pay period. If not, you may face pay-back claims, civil penalties and reputational risk.

Our take: Catalina and Brown Wright Stein Lawyers

Annualised salary models and set-off arrangements aren’t dead yet, but they need to be watertight.

So we recommend you treat this as an opportunity to modernise your pay frameworks. Audit your salaried workforce to identify which roles are Award covered, check contracts for outdated wording and review your payroll systems to make sure you’re meeting record-keeping requirements.

Above all, get professional advice. As BWS Lawyers’ Dean Schubert noted during the briefing: “This isn’t just about compliance; it’s about timing. Employers who can’t show that their pay aligns with the award each pay period could be in trouble”.

3. Fixed-term frenzy

Since December 2023, employers have faced strict limits on how long they can engage someone on a fixed-term basis. Under the Fair Work Act amendments, a fixed-term contract can now:

If an employer breaches these rules – for instance, by re-signing someone to a third contract or letting a contract roll past its two-year mark – that person is likely to be automatically treated as a permanent employee, with all the entitlements that status brings.

While there are some limited exemptions, many of these were temporary and are set to expire next week on 1 November 2025 (e.g. for NFPs, athletes and public hospital staff).

The intent behind the reform is clear: to reduce “permanent insecurity” and stop employers from using fixed-term contracts as de facto probation periods.

But the practical challenge for businesses could be significant. Many roles legitimately require flexibility, including grant-funded projects, time-limited roles or parental-leave backfills.

Our take: Catalina and Brown Wright Stein Lawyers

Now is the time to audit your fixed-term workforce and plan ahead.

As Merilyn Speiser told the audience: “If a position still matters after two years, it’s not really temporary. Get ahead of that conversation now before the law catches up.”

4. Non-competes on notice

For decades, non-compete clauses have been a standard fixture in employment contracts and a way for businesses to stop departing employees from walking straight into a competitor’s arms. But that era is almost over.

The Federal Government has confirmed its intention to ban non-compete clauses for employees earning below the high-income threshold (currently $183,100), with legislation expected in early 2027.

The reform is designed to promote mobility and competition by removing what policymakers see as an unnecessary restraint on workers’ right to earn a living. And its effects will be far-reaching.

Once the changes are in force, non-compete clauses will be presumed void and unenforceable. Courts will no longer uphold restrictions that prevent a person from taking a job where their only “advantage” is their skill, knowledge or experience.

That doesn’t mean employers are left unprotected. Three key restraint types will more than likely remain valid:

Our take: Catalina and Brown Wright Stein Lawyers

All employers will ultimately need to audit their contracts to find out whether they have non-competes with employees who fall below the income threshold. If you find you do, it may be that they are no longer enforceable once the changes are legislated, unless they are solely focused on confidentiality and non-solicitation.

This means that securing your IP will fall more to your off-boarding processes, which should be tight enough to ensure departing employees return all confidential material and understand their obligations once they’ve left.  And of course ensuring that customer relationships are maintained within your business.

As Merilyn Speiser told the HR Hotspots audience:

“If the only way someone can use their skills is at a competitor, a court won’t stop them. The future is about protecting relationships and information, not restricting opportunity.”

5. Everyday HR watchpoints

Not every workplace change is headline-grabbing, but it’s often the smaller shifts that catch businesses out. From casual conversion requests to Christmas parties and ChatGPT, these are the everyday areas where HR teams need to stay alert in 2026.

Casual conversion: A matter of choice

When casual conversion laws first landed, many employers feared a tidal wave of requests from casuals wanting permanent status. That never quite eventuated: eight months in, the FWC reports minimal disputes, suggesting most casual employees are still choosing flexibility over permanence.

But that doesn’t mean you can necessarily relax. The rules still require employers to respond in writing within 21 days of receiving a request to convert, and to justify any refusal on limited, objective grounds (such as ongoing uncertainty about work hours or future business needs).

Right to disconnect: Still finding its rhythm

The much-discussed Right to Disconnect laws are officially in force (August 2024 for most employers, August 2025 for small business). But despite the hype, the new rules don’t actually prohibit employers from contacting staff outside hours, they simply give employees the right to ignore those communications if they are deemed to be unreasonable, in all the circumstances, without repercussions.

In practice, it’s about boundaries and reasonableness. Calling someone at 8pm over a genuine emergency will rarely be a breach but expecting instant responses to routine emails might be.

Christmas parties: Avoiding a Coldplay conundrum

It’s a perennial HR topic, but the guidance remains the same: fun doesn’t excuse poor judgment.

The HR Hotspots session coined it memorably – “avoid a Coldplay conundrum” – referring to those post-party situations where an organisation’s tone, policies or leadership silence turns a festive night into a legal headache.

To be safe, we recommend you take the following steps before this year’s Christmas party:

The goal isn’t to over-regulate fun, it’s to prevent preventable issues and protect both culture and reputation.

AI in the Workplace: Embrace with boundaries

Artificial intelligence is now embedded in many workplaces, from drafting proposals to analysing data. Yet as the HR Hotspots panel noted, few businesses have formalised their approach.

In tech and professional services, AI is widely used, but often without clear rules around confidentiality, verification or accountability. As we discussed at the seminar, every organisation should now have a simple AI policy that answers four questions:

  1. When is AI use encouraged?
  2. When is it restricted (for example, HR or disciplinary decisions)?
  3. What constitutes responsible verification before information is shared?
  4. What happens when the rules are breached?

Our take: Catalina and Brown Wright Stein Lawyers

Train staff on how to use AI productively, safely and securely – not just cautiously. The future of compliance will reward responsible experimentation, businesses that combine innovation with integrity, while ensuring safe and secure use by employees.

The bottom line

Whether it’s redundancy, restraints or right-to-disconnect, one theme runs through all the 2025 reforms discussed at the HR Hotspots seminar: reasonableness.

Employers are being asked to show that they acted fairly, transparently and with genuine consideration for their people, not just that they ticked a compliance box.

Those who prepare early, document decisions and communicate openly will find these changes easier to navigate. Those who wait for a claim or audit to test their processes may find themselves learning the hard way.

Want more?

If you’d like to know more about how any of these issues impact your workplace, get in touch.

The world of work is changing so fast that our CVs can’t keep up. Automation, AI and constant reinvention mean a person’s last five years of experience may have little bearing on what they’ll need to do next. Add the interruption of Covid to this and we are often seeing some patchy experience at best!

For HR leaders, this presents a major challenge, but also a powerful opportunity.

Across the globe, organisations are rethinking how they define and evaluate talent. And instead of hiring purely for experience, they’re increasingly hiring for potential: focusing on the capabilities that matter most today – adaptability, learning agility and problem-solving – to build teams that can evolve with whatever comes next.

Why experience alone is no longer enough

When assessing a CV, the first thing most employers and recruiters have always looked at is a candidate’s experience. Entries like “Five years in X”, “10 years in Y” have long been the shorthand for capability. 

The logic was simple: if someone’s been doing a similar job for long enough, they should be able to do this one too.

But as work changes, these assumptions are breaking down fast. Technology, automation and new business models are rewriting job descriptions faster than people can accumulate experience. The half-life of skills – once measured in decades – has shrunk to just five years, according to HR Daily Advisor. 

In other words, anything you learned in October 2020 is worth half as much as it is today in October 2025. And it gets worse… IBM found the half-life of specialised tech skills is just two years. That’s right, something you learned in October 2023 could now be obsolete.  

As this happens, entire categories of work are emerging that didn’t exist when today’s job-seekers started their careers.

So what mattered yesterday – things like familiarity, repetition and deep specialisation – don’t count as much anymore. In fact, they can even become a liability in a role that demands adaptability, learning agility and creative problem-solving. 

So the best candidates and most successful employees are no longer those with the longest track record. They’re those who can learn, unlearn and re-learn the fastest.

The rise of the skills-based workforce

Across industries, many organisations are starting to judge candidates not by where they’ve been, but by what they can do and how fast they can adapt.

This approach, known as skills-based hiring, shifts the focus from credentials and tenure to demonstrated capability. It’s already transforming recruitment in global firms like IBM, Dell and Accenture. 

In fact, IBM removed degree requirements from 50% of its US-based jobs, and instead created apprenticeship programs and an internal “Netflix for learning” platform tailored to individual skill sets. As a result, its share of US hires without a degree is now approaching 20%. After one year, non-degree hires’ results were equivalent to those of employees with degrees. They were also observed to be more diverse, and ‘thirstier for education’. 

Research backs the shift. A 2024 Harvard Business School and Burning Glass Institute study found that employers who adopted skills-based hiring practices increased their candidate pools by more than six times and improved retention by 10%. 

This reflects what many business leaders already feel – the talent shortage isn’t about too few people, but too few who meet outdated definitions of “qualified”. 

While Australia may lag in potential-based hiring, the same logic applies. With critical skills shortages across some sectors like healthcare, digital, education and the professional services sector, organisations that look beyond the CV have a distinct advantage. They can tap into overlooked talent pools, build more diverse teams and create workforces that evolve alongside their industries.

Hiring for potential: what it really means

Before we get to how to hire for potential, an important clarification: this doesn’t mean experience has become worthless. 

In roles requiring deep regulatory knowledge, complex stakeholder management or highly specialised technical expertise (like a chief financial officer, cardiovascular surgeon or patent lawyer) years of practice still matter enormously. 

The difference is that even in these fields, what kind of experience counts is changing. A decade of repeating the same year 10 times is no longer equivalent to a decade of continuous adaptation and growth.

For businesses, the key is recognising that experience and potential aren’t opposites, they’re complementary. The question isn’t whether to value experience, but whether to let it be the only filter we use, especially for roles where the work itself is being redefined.

If you’re thinking of joining the trend towards hiring for potential, it also pays to remember that it goes beyond simply ticking off a list of current skills. It’s about identifying the qualities that signal future growth. 

These are characteristics like curiosity, adaptability, problem-solving and a willingness to keep learning even when the goalposts move.

Where traditional hiring asks “Has this person done it before?”, hiring for potential asks “Can this person figure it out?”

The best indicators of this are usually found in how candidates approach challenges. 

Do they learn quickly? Can they transfer knowledge across contexts? Are they comfortable with ambiguity? These are the traits that often predict long-term success.

The most progressive organisations are building assessment models around these attributes: using situational questions, project-based tasks and collaborative exercises to reveal how people think and learn.

How to make hiring for potential work in your organisation

Think your business is ready to join the growing number of leading organisations hiring for potential? Here’s how you can implement it.

1. Redefine job requirements

Start by stripping out the unnecessary in your job ads. Replace “five years’ experience” or “degree required” with clear statements of capability – but only where you can. This means stating what the role actually needs someone to do. Focus on outcomes rather than the past. 

2. Look for signals of learning, not just achievement

In your job interviews, ask candidates about how they’ve adapted to change, solved new problems or learned something unfamiliar fast. These stories often reveal more about future success than polished credentials.

3. Use practical assessments

Work samples, simulations and case studies can go beyond how someone presents to show how they actually think. Psychometric and aptitude testing can level the playing field for candidates who might not fit a conventional profile.

4. Map and mobilise internal talent

Before hiring externally, it often helps to properly understand the skills you already have. Internal mobility programs, stretch assignments or temporary roles outside an employees’ comfort zone often uncover untapped capability that’s been hiding in plain sight.

5. Link hiring to learning and development

Hiring for potential only works if you can nurture it. So be sure to build pathways for upskilling and reskilling new and existing employees, and reward adaptability as much as expertise in your pay rises, bonuses and promotions. This turns recruitment from a transaction into an ongoing investment.

6. Measure what matters

Track outcomes, including workplace diversity, performance and retention. Data helps refine your approach and can help you measure your ROI on hiring for potential. 

The way forward

In short, hiring for potential won’t just be another passing HR trend. It will become something that sets the best businesses apart.

As industries transform and skills evolve faster than job descriptions can be rewritten, organisations that focus on adaptability, learning and curiosity will outpace those still hiring by habit.

The shift may require courage but the payoff will be a workforce built for what’s next, not just what’s now.

If you’re rethinking how you attract and grow talent, we can help you design hiring and retention strategies that identify potential, develop capability and future-proof your workforce.

If you’re rethinking how you attract and grow talent, Catalina Consultants can help. Get in touch to find out how.

Around one in five Australians are neurodivergent. Yet many organisations still rely on workplace systems, recruitment methods and management styles that unintentionally exclude people who think differently.

And that means they’re missing out.

That’s because in 2025, studies have proven neuroinclusivity isn’t charity, it’s a genuine business advantage. Teams that include diverse cognitive perspectives are often more innovative, more resilient and better at solving problems.

So what does neuroinclusion look like in practice? And how can HR leaders help design workplaces where everyone can perform at their best? We explore.

What is neurodiversity?

The term neurodiversity was first coined in the late 1990s to describe the idea that neurological differences (such as autism, ADHD, tourette’s syndrome or dyslexia) are part of the normal range of human diversity, not deficits that need to be “fixed”.

Being neurodivergent (ND) simply means that a person’s brain functions, learns or processes information in a way that diverges from what’s considered “neurotypical” (or NT).

Birkbeck University’s 2024 Neurodiversity in Business Report also highlights that many neurodivergent individuals have overlapping profiles (e.g. ADHD and dyslexia or ADHD and autism spectrum disorder (ASD)).

This can influence how they communicate, focus, organise tasks or respond to sensory input. And, although it can sometimes create challenges, it can also offer powerful differences in perspective and approach.

After all, while neurodivergent employees experience the world differently, they also bring unique strengths, such as creativity, hyperfocus, attention to detail, pattern recognition and a problem-solving ability that doesn’t always come naturally to all workers.

The benefits of a neurodiverse workforce

Back in 2017, Harvard Business Review described neurodiversity as “an untapped competitive advantage”. In doing so, it noted that Australia’s Department of Human Services (DHS) had already been specifically targeting neurodiverse employees for certain roles, especially in tech. DHS’s own data showed its neurodiverse testing team was 30% more productive than other testing teams.

More recently, research from Deloitte found that neurodiversity doesn’t just correlate with innovation, it often drives it. That’s especially true when the work involves a degree of complexity or change. So, in an era of tech and AI-disruption, building a neurodivergent workplace could even mean the difference between displacement and survival.

Little wonder then, that eight years later, many private organisations, including Telstra, EY and IBM have introduced targeted programs to attract and retain neurodivergent talent. Each of these employers has reported gains in productivity, engagement and staff retention, as well as a stronger workplace culture.

Because, beyond performance, neuroinclusion also enhances wellbeing – not just for ND employees but for everyone. When employees feel safe to disclose their needs and work in ways that suit them, absenteeism drops and loyalty rises: both critical metrics in a tight labour market.

The challenges and barriers to neuroinclusivity

Despite the proven benefits of neurodiversity, many businesses still struggle to take advantage of hiring ND people. And, on the flipside, many ND employees face obstacles at work, not because of capability, but because of systems and environments designed for NT brains.

Recruitment bias

Traditional hiring processes often prioritise social confidence and the ability to behave in a “typical” fashion, over actual skill. Structured interviews, timed assessments and ambiguous “cultural fit” questions can unintentionally screen out great candidates who may communicate differently or experience sensory stress in unfamiliar settings.

In other words, many organisations set up their hiring processes to miss the very talent they most need – analytical thinkers, creative problem solvers and detail-oriented specialists.

Read more about how to hire the best employee for your business

Environmental barriers

Workplaces themselves can pose challenges – especially for employees with ASD. Open-plan offices, fluorescent lighting, unpredictable noise and even strong scents can all cause sensory overload, draining focus and energy.

These aren’t just small issues, either. Research from the Australian Psychological Society (APS) suggests environmental stressors are among the leading causes of disengagement for neurodivergent employees.

Unclear expectations

For many ND employees, ambiguity can create real anxiety. Vague instructions, shifting deadlines or unwritten social rules can make it difficult for some employees to perform at their best. ND staff often thrive when expectations are clear, communication is direct and processes are predictable.

Stigma and fear of disclosure

As many as half of ND people choose not to disclose a diagnosis of ADHD, ASD, dyslexia or another neurotype to their employer or colleagues. That’s usually because they fear it could affect career progression, credibility or workplace relationships.

But, as the APS notes, most barriers for ND are environmental or procedural not ability-based.

That’s good news for employers: it means HR and leadership teams have the power to remove them by designing roles and procedures with ND employees in mind, as well as by communicating clearly and fostering genuinely inclusivity.

Practical steps for creating a neuroinclusive workplace in 2025

Tapping into the benefits of a neuroinclusive workplace requires smart design. The goal is to build systems, spaces and cultures that let every kind of thinker do their best work.

1. Role design

The first step is to really examine the role you are hiring for, and what precisely the business needs are for the deliverables of this role. Can the role be performed in a diverse manner or is it important that a particular approach is followed? How critical are deadlines, precedents and social interactions to the success of the role? If the role can be performed more flexibly you may be able to consider how to design the role to accommodate this.

2. Awareness and training

Neurodiversity training for managers and teams can help demystify conditions like ADHD and ASD, challenge stereotypes and build empathy. This training should also help people spot when someone may be struggling with sensory overload, communication differences or burnout.

Importantly, awareness training should go beyond a one-off session. The most successful programs integrate neuroinclusion into ongoing leadership development, DEI initiatives and wellbeing frameworks.

3. Redesign your recruitment and onboarding

You probably don’t have to overhaul your entire recruiting process, but it pays to remember that traditional hiring processes often unintentionally filter out neurodivergent talent.

By simply adding structured, skills-based assessments to conversational interviews, ND candidates are more likely to be able to show capability rather than only social performance.

Offer flexible ways to apply for jobs and to interview, especially in the early stages of the recruitment process. Depending on the needs of the role, you might allow video or written responses instead of screening candidates via phone.

During onboarding, provide clear written information, visual guides and a consistent contact person to reduce uncertainty.

4. Make environments work for different brains

Often reducing sensory triggers can help ND employees thrive. Simple changes like providing quiet zones and adjustable lighting or allowing employees to work with noise-cancelling headphones can have an outsized impact on their focus, comfort and productivity.

The same principle applies to digital environments: simplifying workflows and using clear, visual instructions can help minimise cognitive load where this is possible. This might mean reducing notifications, colour-coding key tasks or breaking large projects into smaller, sequential steps.

5. Communicate clearly and predictably

Clear communication helps every employee, but for ND staff it’s critical. That means setting explicit expectations, giving advance notice of changes and avoiding ambiguous feedback. Put things in writing where you can.

Visual checklists, written follow-ups after meetings and consistent routines can give ND employees enough information and structure to do their best work.

6. Offer flexibility in how people work

Neuroinclusive organisations recognise that productivity doesn’t look the same for everyone. When possible, flexible start times, remote work options and task-based (rather than hour-based) KPIs can help people manage energy and focus.

For example, someone with ADHD may do their best work in short, high-focus bursts, while a colleague with ASD may prefer longer uninterrupted blocks of deep work. Someone with both may need to balance both modes – periods of intense focus, followed by recovery time.

Allowing that ebb and flow can help sustain performance and prevent burnout. If the role permits, the key is flexibility: giving people the freedom to structure their work in ways that align with how their brains actually function, not how we assume they should.

7. Create psychological safety

A neuroinclusive workplace is one where employees feel safe to disclose their needs (or not to) without fear of judgement. Managers play a crucial role here: model openness, listen without assumptions and keep any disclosures confidential.

Research shows that when employees trust their employer to respond positively to disclosure, engagement, wellbeing and loyalty all rise dramatically.

And if the role really doesn’t allow for the kind of flexibility needed by your ND worker, consider alternative roles and responsibilities that may be more suitable.

8. Lead with strengths, not stereotypes

Neuroinclusion is ultimately a shift from “accommodation” to “appreciation”. Instead of asking how someone can fit in, ask how their unique way of thinking can make the team stronger.

Whether it’s creativity, analytical depth or pattern recognition, focusing on strengths creates more balanced and innovative teams. When managers take time to understand each employee’s individual strengths, the result can be better collaboration, higher engagement and better business outcomes.

Looking ahead

In 2025, the conversation about workplace diversity is evolving, and neuroinclusion is fast becoming its next frontier. Today’s leading organisations are realising that true inclusion means designing for cognitive as well as cultural difference.

The payoff is tangible. Neuroinclusive workplaces report higher innovation, stronger engagement and lower turnover. But the deeper benefit is cultural: when people feel safe to be themselves, everyone performs better.

In the next few years, we expect to see more employers embedding neuroinclusion into their talent and wellbeing strategies: from how they write job ads and design spaces, to how they coach leaders. The best results will come from treating neuroinclusion not as a project, but as part of how good management looks in a modern workplace.

Because ultimately, inclusion isn’t just about accommodation it’s about unlocking potential – both in your employees and in your business.

Want more?

Need help building a neuroinclusive workplace? Get in touch with our team of local HR experts.

As we enter the final quarter for 2025, Australia’s hiring market looks very different from where it started the year. After a prolonged period of going backwards, job ads have been rising steadily since April, according to SEEK’s most recent Employment Report. 

But applications per job are at record levels too, indicating more competition for roles but also giving employers more choice when it comes to attracting and retaining talent.

So where does the hiring market stand in October 2025? And what should employers be thinking about as they head towards year’s end? 

We analyse the data to help you find out.

The broad trend: momentum returning to Australia’s jobs market

National job ads rose 0.8% in August, according to SEEK’s data, marking the fourth straight month of growth. While the volume of job listings is still down from a year ago – it’s now only by -2.8%. This is the smallest annual decline since late 2022.

Applications, however, continue to surge, climbing another 0.7% in July (recorded with a one-month lag) to reach the highest level in SEEK’s history – a sign that more employees also feel more confident making a move. 

In other words, even as demand for workers rises, supply is outpacing it, with more candidates vying for every role advertised.

For employers, we think this dual trend has two important implications:

Services and construction drive growth

Victoria led the way for job growth out of all the states in August, with a 1.6% monthly rise in job ads. This was fuelled by strong demand in the Hospitality & Tourism sector (+5.7%) and rising Trades & Services roles (+2.2%). 

New South Wales also posted its third consecutive month of growth (+1.3%), again driven by tourism-related hiring.

The biggest industry story continues to be Community Services & Development. Job ads in this sector jumped 2.4% in August and are now more than 50% higher than pre-COVID levels. With aged care, disability support and employment services under sustained pressure, the need for talent is structural, not cyclical. 

So expect shortages in this sector for some time to come. 

Hospitality & Tourism has also enjoyed a run of job ads growth (+7.6% since February), reflecting both the post-COVID rebound in travel – Australia received 7.8 million visitors in the year to June 2025 – and seasonal hiring ahead of summer.

Another industry looking for people was Construction and Trades. Construction ads rose 1.8% in August, supported by demand for Trades & Services (+1.4%) and Engineering (+0.4%). 

Given the push for new housing supply and infrastructure, these industries are also likely to remain strong throughout the next year. 

What this means for employers in 2025 and 2026

With the hiring market reshaping itself, employers across the board need to think hard about what they can do to keep attracting the best talent effectively, but also efficiently. Here are our key takeaways based on the SEEK numbers. 

1. Expect more applicants, but not always the right fit.

Right now, SEEK is recording the highest number of applications per job ad in history. On the surface, that might sound like great news, but the reality is a bit more complex.

That’s because more applications doesn’t automatically translate into better candidates. Without effective screening, you’ll risk having to spend hours filtering through CVs of candidates that don’t meet your requirements.

To make sure this doesn’t happen, you should consider:

Read more about how to streamline your hiring process

2. Focus on your employee value proposition (EVP)

Just because more people are likely to apply for any job you advertise, that doesn’t make top talent any easier to come by. Good employees still expect a competitive salary. But, even more than that, they want to be part of a good culture and a company that offers them genuine career progression.

That means you need to articulate a strong EVP – that is, a reason why employees should choose to work for your organisation. When you do, think about factors such as:

Read more about how to develop an effective Employee Value Proposition

3. Plan now for summer and 2026

In sectors like tourism and retail, most employers have already started their seasonal hiring for the Christmas holiday period. But it’s not as common in other sectors.

If you’re in an industry like construction and community services – where good employees are becoming harder to attract – you really need to begin your workforce planning right now. That way you can avoid having to compete with other organisations and make sure your staffing levels keep pace with demand into the new year.

Looking ahead towards 2026

The rising number of job openings is no longer confined to isolated sectors: it’s becoming a broad trend with almost all industries (outside perhaps of professional services) showing momentum. But it’s also being accompanied by a lot more job applications, as more employees feel confident enough to start making a move. 

For employers, this creates both challenges and opportunities. 

While greater candidate choice should mean a better chance of finding the right people, good employees can still pick and choose. 

That means getting the right ingredients in place – competitive salary, good culture and the right screening processes – remain just as important as ever.

Want more?

Need help attracting the right talent to work in your organisation? Get in touch with our team of HR experts. 

When the Australian Financial Review recently asked whether we should be using emojis at work, it touched a nerve. For some, emojis are unprofessional, while for others, they’re the only way to add tone and empathy to digital-first communication.

That single debate captures a bigger workplace reality: with Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z now working side by side, every message comes with different assumptions about format, formality and intent. 

A quick Slack message might feel efficient to one employee and brusque to another. A phone call might seem personal to some, while others may find it intrusive.

These aren’t just quirks of style, they’re differences rooted in technology adoption, values and lived experience. And unless organisations pay attention, these differences can harden into workplace tensions.

Here’s how HR leaders can understand and bridge the generational communication gap.

The multigenerational challenge

With four distinct generations in the workplace – all of whom default to communicating a different way – getting a message through is no longer as easy as it once was. After all, these differing preferences don’t merely cause mismatches in format; they also affect tone, formality and response expectations.

Generally speaking, different generations are used to different ways of communicating.

In fact, one study conducted by the Adaptavist Group across the UK, US, Canada, Australia and Germany found that 50% of employees over 50 were annoyed with younger colleagues who didn’t use traditional communication tools. Meanwhile, 47% of Gen Z found older workers slowed things down with “dated techniques”. 

Digital mismatches are significant too: 43% of team members say they misunderstand tone or context in online messages and 33% get confused about response speed expectations or emoji interpretation.

The upside of difference

These figures confirm what many HR leaders have experienced: a brief Slack message seen as efficient by one person can come across as curt – even rude – to another. Emojis intended to soften tone may land as passive-aggressive to some people. Speed-efficiency and succinct digital language can feel abrupt when contrasted with formal, reflective communication styles.

The result of these misunderstandings can be a breakdown in productivity and trust, as employees who feel their communication style is dismissed become disengaged.

But at the same time, it’s important not to overstate the generational divide. As Inclusion Geeks points out, miscommunication is often about assumptions rather than age itself. 

A Gen Z employee may prefer brevity because of habit, not because of disrespect while a Boomer may favour phone calls out of practicality, not stubbornness. When people fall back on stereotypes like “Millennials are always on their phones” or “Boomers can’t adapt to tech,” they often reinforce division instead of solving the problem.

Instead, the key takeaway from the research is that generational differences are real, but they aren’t destiny. With the right framing, teams can learn to treat communication diversity the same way we treat other kinds of diversity: as an asset to be leveraged rather than a barrier to be managed.

Practical strategies for HR and leaders

Bridging these communication gaps shouldn’t be about forcing everyone to adopt the same style for every communication. Instead, it should be about creating clarity, flexibility and shared norms. 

Here are four intergenerational communication strategies HR leaders can implement right now.

1. Channel flexibility: match the medium to the message

Not every message belongs in Slack, just as not every decision should sit in a 12-person meeting. However, HR can set clear expectations for when to use each medium. For example:

By putting this in writing (on all mediums) and making it explicit which channel should be used when, you can help reduce frustration. 

2. Norm-setting: agree on the “rules of the road”

Unspoken rules create conflict, so don’t just start and end by setting channels. Cover things like whether an emoji should be used in a work chat and whether a 24-hour response is expected or is “seen” enough.

HR can facilitate team agreements around response times, tone and preferred channels. This is especially useful in hybrid settings, where assumptions can differ widely.

3. Manager coaching: help leaders flex their style

Managers are the front line of communication culture, so HR should train them to adjust their tone and medium depending on their audience. For example:

Coaching leaders to read the room and flex accordingly helps prevent misfires and shows respect across generations.

4. Leverage diversity: treat differences as an asset

Each communication style has strengths. For instance, short, sharp messages keep momentum while formal emails document decisions and face-to-face builds trust. 

When HR encourages teams to see these as complementary rather than competing, they create more resilient and agile communication systems.

In other words, the goal isn’t uniformity. It’s multilingual leadership, or the ability to adapt across communication “languages” and bring out the best in every style.

The upside of difference

It’s easy to frame generational communication as a source of conflict – emojis vs emails, brevity vs detail, speed vs formality. But the real opportunity for HR leaders is to treat these differences as a strategic advantage.

When teams learn to adapt across communication styles, they don’t just avoid tension, they gain new strengths. These include:

What This Means for HR Leaders

Instead of trying to erase generational styles, HR can choose to leverage them strategically, covering all communication bases such as speed, depth, clarity and adaptiveness.

Collaborative frameworks like shared leadership or mentoring can also help harmonise potential friction, turning it instead into creative tension. 

In short…

By connecting generational strengths, HR can amplify innovation and make communication diversity an advantage, not a hindrance.

Want to know more about building communication across the generations in your workplace? Get in touch with our team of HR experts.

For years, many businesses treated workplace mental health as a “nice to have”: something that sat in wellness programs, EAP brochures or posters on the wall. In 2025, that era is over.

Under Australian WHS law, psychological health now sits on equal footing with physical safety. That means HR leaders aren’t just encouraged to care about mental health, they’re legally required to treat workplace stress, burnout and psychological harm as seriously as any other safety hazard.

But this shift isn’t just about compliance, it’s also about performance. Every year, one in five Australians experiences poor mental health, costing the economy up to $22.5 billion annually. At the organisational level, every dollar spent on workplace wellbeing returns up to $2.30, according to Beyond Blue.

Whether you’re motivated by legal obligation or business opportunity, the message is the same: mental health has moved from the wellness corner to the boardroom. 

So if you’re looking to build a resilient, high-performing workforce that meets both legal requirements and business goals, here’s how to do it.

HR as the guardians of psychological safety

Workplace health and safety was once seen mainly through a physical lens with an emphasis on things like safe equipment, hazard controls and accident reporting. 

Now, under Australian WHS law, psychological health sits on equal footing with physical safety. That makes HR a frontline guardian of compliance as well as culture. 

In practice, HR professionals now wear two hats when it comes to wellbeing – that of cultural leader and compliance officer. But this isn’t just about law, it’s also about building a workforce that can perform sustainably under pressure. 

And it means HR needs to take the front foot on wellbeing in several ways. 

Done well, HR’s dual role doesn’t just prevent legal breaches, it will create a safer, more productive workplace where employees know their wellbeing is taken seriously. 

Building a ‘speak up’ culture 

The reality is that you can have all the best practices and policies in the world. But employees will usually only speak up about mental health when they trust their immediate manager will behave supportively. HR has a role to play in making sure this is the case. 

First, it can lead the company on talking openly about mental health, whether that’s by acknowledging stress in a busy period or through sharing personal experiences. It can also encourage leaders to do the same, by embedding mental health into leadership development, meetings and staff communications.

HR should also lead the drive to equip every manager with early intervention techniques, including recognising early warning signs such as changes in performance, disengagement or irritability. It should also make sure managers are trained in how to have supportive, non-judgemental conversations.

When employees feel they can raise concerns, admit mistakes or ask for help without fear of punishment, support becomes cultural. That means issues tend to get raised and addressed while they’re still manageable.  

Getting leadership commitment that sticks 

Beyond Blue calls out three non-negotiables for mentally healthy workplaces: leadership commitment, broad participation and ongoing communication. In practice, that means HR must do more than draft policies, it needs to coach leaders to live those values, make sure staff see and feel the commitment and ensure communication is consistent over time.

Here are some of the ways it can do just that.

Building a resilient workforce 

Resilience in the workplace isn’t about telling people to “toughen up” or handing out mindfulness apps. It’s about creating the conditions where people can adapt, recover and keep performing without burning out. 

HR leaders can build resilience into the workplace systematically by focusing on both risk reduction and positive supports. 

For instance, Beyond Blue notes that role ambiguity is one of the biggest drivers of stress. Employees need to know what’s expected of them, how their role connects to the bigger picture and how they can achieve their workload. 

So HR can address this by auditing job design and using pulse surveys to identify teams where expectations are unclear or workloads are excessive.

HR can also try to model behaviours that prevent burnout by normalising practices like switching off after hours, enforcing minimum rest breaks and setting clear expectations around email and messaging. It should also monitor workload patterns (e.g. overtime, unused leave) and encourage regular check-ins for staff to raise pressures before they escalate. 

When these elements align, resilience stops being something you hope for and becomes something you can count on.

In short…

With Mental Health Week soon upon, the message for HR and business leaders is clear. Mental health isn’t a perk. It’s a strategic priority that drives performance, reduces risk and strengthens your workforce for the future.

Need help building wellbeing into your workplace? Get in touch with our HR team at Catalina Consultants. 

Promotions are supposed to be good news. Recognition, reward, progress… what’s not to like? 

But the reality is that they can sometimes backfire. The person promoted feels overwhelmed, underprepared and isolated. Overlooked colleagues begin to feel resentful and demoralised. Suddenly, that big shiny promotion becomes a source of disengagement for the whole team.

So how do you recognise the risks and design a promotion process that motivates rather than deflates your employees? We show you how.

When promotion feels like punishment

Not every employee who gets promoted feels empowered.

For some, the shift in role is isolating or destabilising. They may have been promoted for strong technical performance, but suddenly find themselves managing people or navigating conflict.

This can then be made worse if they’re expected to show leadership without any training. 

One US study found most managers didn’t receive any leadership training until they’d been in the job for years. Instead, they were left to learn from their own bosses, often modelling their bad habits. 

In effect, most companies who promote employees give them more responsibility and more stress and often more complex tasks, while providing less support to do the job than when they were performing a lesser role. 

When that happens, even great people start to doubt themselves. It becomes the fast path to disengagement, performance anxiety, imposter syndrome and eventually withdrawal. 

Little wonder then that the study also found 29% of employees actually left their employer within one month of receiving their first promotion. This compared with 18% of non-promoted employees. 

The psychology of being overlooked

For those who are overlooked in favour of a colleague, a promotion from within can carry a heavier emotional toll still – much heavier than employers often realise.

The result often isn’t just disappointment, it’s a shift in how an employee sees themselves and the organisation. Confidence usually drops, motivation slides and once-engaged performers can begin to adopt a quiet “why bother” stance that’s hard to reverse.

Worse still, this disengagement doesn’t stay contained. Research by McKinsey has found that lack of career development and advancement is the leading cause of employee attrition, especially among mid-career professionals.

And, when the reasons behind a promotion decision aren’t clear or communicated well, the perception of unfairness can ripple across the team – particularly if the promoted employee wasn’t respected or seen as a star performer. 

How to do promotions right

Too many businesses treat promotions as reactive or as a short-term ploy. This includes: 

Instead, promotions should be tied directly to your overall business strategy – and that goes for whether you’re hiring internally or from outside. 

Here’s the four-step process Great Place to Work recommends for doing just that.

1. Before any role exists: clarify aspirations

Set the groundwork with each of your employees early and in a systematic way. At least twice a year, you should be scheduling one-on-one “career map” conversations with each employee so you can understand their goals, discuss their strengths and gaps, and discuss likely next roles and steps. 

From this, you can create targeted “stretch assignments” that will prove whether they’re ready for the step up. This makes the path visible long before a job is posted.

2. When a role is posted: encourage and advocate

Eliminate any logical argument that promotions are somehow fixed. 

Publish the selection rubric in advance, including must-haves, nice-to-haves and how each will be weighed. Use a small panel, keep notes and debrief every applicant within five business days. 

You should also personally invite qualified people to apply, especially those who may underestimate themselves. Be direct and use plain language like, “I want to see you raise your hand for this. Even if you do not feel 100% ready, it is good practice and helps us plan your next step.” 

You could even coach applicants on what evidence to include. Ask for concrete impacts, numbers that show outcomes and stakeholder feedback that maps to the selection criteria for the role.

3. Once a decision is made: generate buy-in

Don’t just announce who got the job, explain why they got it. Tell people how and why the successful applicant met the criteria and the difference their work has already made. Spell out how this promotion helps the team and your customers or clients. 

When you do, you frame the moment as a shared win, not a zero-sum contest.

4. Post-announcement: re-calibrate

Close the loop with everyone who applied or considered applying. Re-set expectations and next steps, so they know what they need to do next time.

Not now: If the role was a bit above their skill level, work together to agree on a 90-day plan to close specific gaps.
Not this: If it was the wrong promotion for them, explore adjacent roles that align better with strengths and aspirations.
Not here: If an employee’s values or path have diverged from the company’s, be honest and supportive while you assess whether they fit and how you can help them into something more aligned. 

After the decision: make it succeed in the real world

Now that you’ve explained the reasoning and re-calibrated with the team, it’s time to turn the promotion from an announcement into performance. 

Set the bar and support the step-up

Every promotion should launch with a clear success plan. Agree a 30/60/90 day plan with the newly promoted employee, which outlines the top three deliverables, the key stakeholders and the specific support – including training – the person will receive. Also, confirm how their previous workload will be backfilled and who owns it, so that they’re not still looking backwards.

Build the scaffolding

Give the promoted person the scaffolding to thrive. Provide role-specific manager training, a mentor outside their line and fortnightly one-on-one meetings for the first 12 weeks. Add focused training on feedback and conflict so they’re not learning the hardest parts on the fly. 

Make progression a choice, not a default

Create two parallel career tracks with matching levels, titles and pay bands: an expert individual-contributor (IC) path and a people-leader path. IC promotions should be based on scope, depth and cross-team impact. Manager promotions should be based on team outcomes and coaching. 

If someone wants to try managing, run a 60–90 day trial with training and a mentor, then confirm or return to the IC path with no penalty.

Know if it is working

Review a tight set of quarterly data, including:

The bottom line

HBR notes that when employees believe promotions are managed well, discretionary effort and intent to stay both more than double. When they believe leaders  act with integrity the retention rate is five times higher. 

So, make the path visible early, publish the bar, invite people to reach it, explain the why, and back the step-up with coaching, time and a plan. Do that and each promotion becomes a shared win that lifts performance and trust across the team.

You’ve probably heard people say: “You can’t fire someone unless you’ve given them three written warnings.” It sounds like it might be right but it’s not. 

Australian law doesn’t require three written warnings – or even sometimes one – before you can fire someone. Instead, the test under the Fair Work Act 2009 is whether a dismissal is “fair, valid and reasonable”.

But if you’re thinking about letting someone go without first putting something in written words, be careful. While the absence of a written warning doesn’t make a dismissal automatically unfair, it often makes it much harder to defend.

So when can you dismiss someone without a written warning? And when is it a legal and reputational risk?

Here’s what every HR leader, people manager and business owner needs to know.

The standard process: Written warnings and procedural fairness

There’s no black-letter law that says you must give a written warning. But the Fair Work Commission always expects you to follow a fair and reasonable process. That’s especially true in cases of alleged poor performance or ongoing behavioural issues.

The FWC has made it clear that, as a matter of practicality, this should usually involve:

In other words, if someone’s underperforming, you can’t just fire them out of the blue.

Instead, the Fair Work Commission’s website puts it like this: employers must give workers a “reasonable chance to fix the problem” unless the conduct is so serious that immediate dismissal is justified.

Putting the warning in writing protects the business even more than it protects an employee. That’s because, if an employee lodges an unfair dismissal claim, your written warning becomes your evidence that:

And no, a warning buried in a vague calendar invite doesn’t usually cut it. Neither does a passing comment during a performance review or a casual mention in the break room. 

The FWC wants to see clear, documented communication that leaves no room for ambiguity.

For example, if an employee is missing deadlines, you should document each incident, flag them clearly in a one-on-one or performance review, outline what “improvement” looks like (e.g. no missed deadlines for 30 days), and give them the tools or support to get there – whether that comes in the form of training, coaching or closer supervision.

The exceptions to the rule: When a written warning isn’t necessary

There are two key exceptions where dismissal without a written warning is likely to still be lawful.

1. Serious misconduct

If someone engages in serious misconduct – i.e. theft, assault, wilful damage, serious breach of policy or gross insubordination – employers have the option to summarily dismiss them. 

But, if you’re going down this track, you need to tread carefully:

2. Casual employees (but with a big asterisk)

You’re more likely to be able to terminate the employment of a casual employee. However, it’s not a given. Even casual employees can bring an unfair dismissal claim if: 

 

In other words, just because someone is a casual member of staff doesn’t mean you can always apply different rules to them. 

You also need to be mindful that simply calling someone a ‘casual’ doesn’t mean they are in practice. Employees employed after 24 August 2024, are only considered casual if:

3. Probationary employees (but process still matters)

Probationary periods are generally covered by employment contracts. While there’s no maximum probationary period, three to six months tends to be standard. 

When an employee is on probation, they’re still entitled under the National Employment Standards (NES). That means: 

While a written warning isn’t legally required, clear communication and fair expectations still go a long way in avoiding disputes and protecting your brand.

Read more about how to dismiss someone when they’re on probation.

Why these rules exist (and what happens if you ignore them)

The Fair Work Commission doesn’t just ask why someone was dismissed. It looks at how it was done. Was there a valid reason? Was the process fair? Was the communication clear and documented?

If you can’t answer “yes” to all three, you’re at risk, regardless of how justified the dismissal may have been (or at least how justified it felt at the time).

The FWC isn’t moved by gut feeling. It deals in facts, fairness and evidence.

If you get it wrong, the consequences can be serious, including:

More importantly, providing a written warning shouldn’t just be about avoiding legal risk. It should be about building a culture where performance is managed clearly, fairly and with consistency – not through panic

or improvisation.

Checklist for dismissing an employee 

If you’re unsure whether you’ve covered your legal and ethical bases, ask yourself the following questions.

Before dismissal:

For serious misconduct:

For casual employees:

If you’re answering “no” or “I’m not sure” to any of the above, pause and get advice. Once the dismissal is done, it’s a lot harder (and more expensive) to undo.

 

Final thought: Written warnings as your insurance policy

Giving feedback and managing underperformance isn’t always comfortable. But the risks of skipping it are much higher.

Whether you’re dealing with a full-time employee, a casual team member or a short-fused misconduct case, clarity, documentation and fairness always matter.

Because in Australian employment law how you do something often matters almost as much as what you do. 

Want more?

If you’d like to know more about the processes, documentation or legal considerations behind managing dismissals, get in touch with our team of HR experts.

 

When Astronomer CEO Andy Byron was filmed at a Coldplay concert cuddling up to a woman who wasn’t his wife, the internet erupted. 

But what turned a personal misstep into a full-blown corporate scandal was the revelation that the woman in question was not just his romantic partner, she was also the company’s Chief People Officer.

Within days, both were placed on leave and Byron soon resigned but, still, the social media backlash was intense. 

Then, in a surprising PR twist, Astronomer responded with a viral Gwyneth Paltrow campaign video, poking fun at the scandal while attempting to reset the narrative.

But behind the memes and marketing lies a serious HR dilemma: what happens when the most senior people leader in an organisation becomes part of the problem? And how do companies manage relationships at the executive level when trust, impartiality and governance are at stake?

Here’s what the Astronomer story reveals for HR leaders and employers more broadly.

The problem with relationships at the top

In Australia, there’s no law that outright bans workplace relationships – even between a CEO and a direct report. But the higher up the hierarchy you go, the greater the risk to reputation and even bottom line.

The issue isn’t romance itself (of course, people who work together are sometimes going to fall in love). Instead, it’s the power imbalance, the conflict of interest and the potential for loss of trust in internal processes: especially when one of the people involved is meant to be the champion of fairness and psychological safety.

For instance, what happens if the CEO becomes embroiled in a dispute or is accused of behaving badly, and they’re also dating the CPO? 

It’s almost certainly going to send a potentially dangerous signal: that HR is no longer an independent voice, that complaints won’t be handled impartially and that workplace culture guidelines apply to some, but not all.

It’s also likely to mean the CPO’s peers and subordinates potentially perceive her as receiving favourable treatment. 

A viral video alone won’t fix culture 

Astronomer’s decision to lean into the scandal with a self-aware campaign featuring Gwyneth Paltrow was bold. It bought them time and even won over parts of the internet. That was thanks in part to a production partnership with Ryan Reynolds’ agency, Maximum Effort, and a script that leaned into the absurdity of the situation rather than denying it.

It worked, at least externally. The campaign went viral, trended on TikTok and Insta, and reframed Astronomer’s image as self-aware, culturally fluent and forward-looking.

But while it may have done well externally, internally optics can only go so far. 

That’s because good PR can shift public perception but it doesn’t rebuild internal credibility or fix governance gaps. And it certainly doesn’t restore trust in leadership if people feel betrayed.

In fact, research consistently shows that when HR fails to live up to its own standards, it erodes employee engagement and damages psychological safety. Ultimately, this can lead to a culture of cynicism and ‘learned helplessness’.

When employees see leaders bending or bypassing the rules, they lose faith in the system. Reporting drops, compliance slips and cultural values start to feel like lip service.

This, ultimately, is the difficult part, and it means:

Because if your reputation strategy moves faster than your internal reform, staff notice. 

Should they have resigned?

Both Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot resigned, but did they need to? 

Andy Byron’s exit: expected and crucial.

Astronomer’s board accepted Byron’s resignation within days of the viral incident, replacing him with an interim CEO and noting that his conduct “did not meet” the company’s standard of conduct and accountability. This was inevitable and necessary: you can’t have a CEO publicly involved in a scandal that calls their judgement and ethics into question. 

Kristin Cabot’s situation: less clear cut

Initially placed on administrative leave, the Chief People Officer remained listed on the leadership page, fuelling speculation that her position might still be salvageable. However, she eventually resigned too.

Why resignations matter: beyond legalities

Leadership roles are both operational and symbolic, so Byron’s departure signalled that the company’s values weren’t optional. 

Meanwhile, Cabot’s exit closed the gap: when your Chief People Officer is part of the scandal, the function meant to protect your culture becomes the weakest link. An HR leader embedded in a conflict of interest undermines every internal system meant to hold power to account.

But what if they hadn’t resigned?

Some US legal commentators noted that the company may have found it easy to fire her anyway. However, if the scandal took place in Australia, it may have been more difficult. 

Having a workplace relationship is, obviously, no grounds for dismissal on its own. However, you can be lawfully terminated for reasons that might be connected to a relationship – like sharing confidential information or having a genuine conflict of interest. 

So, generally, it’s good practice for companies to have senior people declare any potential conflicts up front.  

How to prevent an ‘Astronomer’ from happening in your organisation

Here’s what your organisation should be doing to avoid similarly damaging scandals from happening in your workplace. 

1. Transparent, enforceable relationship policies

Top-down relationships aren’t against the law, but they’re high risk. Companies need clear policies requiring disclosure of conflicts as well as of workplace relationships, especially when power asymmetries exist. That includes scenarios involving the CPO. Remember: ambiguity breeds scandal while transparency prevents it.

2. Build structural independence for HR

Ensure your HR function isn’t beholden to the CEO but to the company more broadly. That means giving oversight to another function like audit, risk or ethics committees. A dotted-line to the board always creates a safeguard between HR and executive influence and can help maintain trust.

3. Enforce accountability equally

The same corporate standards must apply regardless of name or title. Byron’s exit saved face but any internal investigation should apply the same scrutiny to all, including the CPO. That means consequences, not exceptions.

4. Follow through with remediation, not just rhetoric

After the headlines fade, you need to start working on behind-the-scenes repair. That includes:

5. Rebuild trust through meaningful action

When employees see leadership misstep and then own it, they also need to see follow-through. Public apologies matter but so do internal audits, independent oversight, and structural reforms. Culture work must continue behind the scenes.

In short…

The real test isn’t whether your organisation can weather a scandal like Astronomer’s, it’s whether you’re building the kind of culture where such scandals become (virtually) impossible in the first place. Because in an age where every concert gets filmed and every relationship gets scrutinised, having the right governance framework isn’t just workplace policy, it also becomes your insurance policy.

Psychological safety has become one of those corporate buzzwords that means both everything and nothing at the same time. Managers are told to “create a safe space”,  employees want to “feel heard” and consultants deliver slide decks promising culture transformation. 

But in the rush to embrace the idea, too many workplaces are getting it wrong. So, let’s set the record straight.

At its core, psychological safety is about one thing: feeling safe to speak up.

It means people can raise a concern, challenge an idea, admit a mistake or offer feedback, without fearing personal fallout. That’s it.

It’s not about being comfortable and it’s certainly not about being nice.

So, with that in mind, here are the six biggest myths about psychosocial safety in 2025.

Myth 1: Psychological safety means no conflict

A psychologically safe team is not one where everyone gets along all the time. In fact, teams that never argue are often the most dysfunctional. Real safety shows up in how disagreements are handled. And that should be with respect, candour and a shared commitment to getting it right, not just getting along.

As Harvard’s Amy Edmondson, the leading voice on the topic, puts it: “Nice is the opposite of candid”. 

When we prioritise comfort over truth, we collude in mediocrity. Teams that don’t surface hard truths are more likely to fail.

Myth 2: Psychological safety means getting your way

Being heard isn’t the same as being agreed with. A healthy workplace encourages input, not consensus by obligation. Leaders still need to make decisions. Not every idea will fly, but that doesn’t mean the team is unsafe. It means you’re operating in reality.

Myth 3: It’s about job security

Psychological safety isn’t the same as certainty. Redundancies, restructures or difficult conversations are still going to happen. However, when safety exists, employees feel empowered to ask questions, offer feedback or express concern without fear of personal attack or retaliation. What matters is the freedom to speak, not the promise of a permanent job.

Myth 4: It’s a policy problem

Here’s the truth: you can’t mandate psychological safety. You can’t legislate trust or demand people be honest because it says so on the intranet. Safety is built moment by moment through behaviour and culture. It lives in tone, in response, and in how leaders handle feedback, mistakes and dissent.

That’s why current WHS regulations across Australia – including Safe Work Australia’s model Codes of Practice for managing psychosocial hazards – focus on proactive risk management, not reactive reporting. 

In other words, you don’t wait for a complaint to act. You embed practices that surface potential harm early and address it constructively.

Myth 5: We did our risk register last year, so we’re done

This one’s common. But managing psychosocial hazards isn’t a one-and-done exercise. It’s an ongoing duty, just like with physical risks. The best-performing organisations review controls regularly, gather feedback through multiple channels (not just surveys) and check that staff actually trust the systems in place. 

As many WHS consultants point out, the absence of reports doesn’t necessarily mean the absence of risk.

Myth 6: It all comes from the top

Yes, leadership matters. But safety is built locally – within teams, projects and conversations. You can have a great CEO and still have a toxic department. The most powerful lever businesses have is not a keynote or policy update – it’s the quality of day-to-day interactions. Psychological safety is everyone’s responsibility.

So what actually works?

The best-performing teams share three things.

This isn’t about perfection, it’s about habits. Culture change starts with small things done consistently: asking the extra question, naming the tension in the room, thanking someone for raising an awkward truth.

It’s not always comfortable. But it is the foundation for high performance, innovation and trust.

Need support building a safer, smarter workplace?

We help businesses turn good intentions into actionable systems – from psychosocial risk assessments and compliance strategies to culture diagnostics and leadership training.

Get in touch to find out how we can help your business.

The way we work is changing fast. The gig economy, once seen as a fringe phenomenon, is now firmly entrenched in the workforce. 

In fact, according to some estimates, more than 250,000 Australians are now engaged in gig work, and that number is set to grow. For business leaders and HR professionals, this presents both a major opportunity and a compliance challenge.

After all, done right, gig work can drive agility, innovation and cost-efficiency. Done wrong, it can lead to legal risks (especially with the Closing Loopholes Acts now in effect), reputational blowback and poor workforce cohesion. 

With that in mind, we thought there was no better time than right now for all businesses to review their contractor and freelancer strategies.

Why organisations are embracing gig talent

For many organisations, the appeal of engaging gig workers is clear. Used properly, they can help a business:

The pandemic accelerated acceptance of remote, project-based work. Platforms like Expert360, Upwork and Fiverr now make it easy to source, vet and onboard talent globally. 

In many industries, a flexible external workforce is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’, it’s essential infrastructure.

But there’s a catch: compliance is tightening

Until recently, gig work in Australia operated in something of a legal grey zone. That’s now changing. The Closing Loopholes Bill No. 2, which passed in early 2024, significantly reshapes employer obligations and gig work is directly in the crosshairs.

Since August 2024, gig workers on digital platforms can be classified as “employee-like” and be entitled to minimum pay and safe working conditions under orders from the Fair Work Commission. In other words, employers can no longer hide behind the contractor label if the relationship looks, walks and talks like employment.

The new legislation also:

For HR and legal teams, the legislation means re-evaluating your use of gig workers. Every freelancer relationship should now be assessed against real-world dynamics, not just what’s written in the contract.

The downside of the gig model

While gig work offers flexibility and efficiency, it isn’t without problems, especially for workers. Without paid leave, super, job security or consistent hours, many gig workers face financial insecurity and lack basic protections. 

Exploitation has been well-documented in sectors like delivery, rideshare and low-skill services, leading to overwork, accidents and in some tragic cases, fatalities.

For businesses, this creates both an ethical and reputational risk. Public scrutiny is rising, and the regulatory tide has clearly turned. Short-term savings achieved by misclassifying or underpaying workers can now come at a steep long-term cost.

So how can employers do it right?

The goal isn’t to abandon flexible work models, it’s to manage them effectively. That means blending compliance with capability, and moving from ad hoc resourcing to a structured external talent strategy.

Here’s how we believe your business can get the balance right. 

1. Start with smart contracts

Make sure every gig worker agreement is up-to-date, transparent and fit for purpose. Avoid one-size-fits-all templates. Define deliverables, timelines, IP ownership and review points clearly. Most importantly, avoid creating “employee-like” relationships – don’t set hours, locations or obligations that mirror traditional staff arrangements.

2. Use technology to streamline management

Digital platforms can help automate contractor onboarding, payments and compliance tracking. Some platforms even integrate performance reviews and contractor availability, allowing you to build a trusted freelance “bench” over time.

3. Integrate, don’t isolate

Even short-term workers perform better when they understand your values and ways of working. A basic onboarding process, cultural briefing and inclusion in relevant meetings can boost productivity and reduce friction.

4. Think about performance and learning

Freelancers can play a role in upskilling internal teams through knowledge sharing or by documenting key learnings. Tools like “learning in the flow” – or microtraining embedded into work – can help bridge knowledge gaps between internal and external talent.

5. Build long-term relationships

The best gig workers are in demand. When you find someone good, keep them close. Repeat engagements, retainer-style agreements or minimum-hour guarantees can help make sure they’re available when you need them and signal that you value their contribution. Again, just be careful to comply with the legislation so that you don’t accidentally create an employee-employer relationship. 

A strategic shift, not just a legal one

What we’re seeing isn’t just a compliance update, it’s a shift in how work is structured. In an era where speed, adaptability and innovation define competitiveness, the most successful organisations will treat external talent as a strategic asset, not a cost centre.

That means rethinking procurement, reimagining performance management, and redesigning workforce planning around a mix of permanent, casual and contingent contributors. It’s not just about avoiding legal risk, it’s about unlocking capability at the right time, in the right way.

Want to know more?

Want to build a compliant, high-performing external workforce strategy that turns fair, flexible working into your advantage? We can help. 

Get in touch to find out more.

The ‘Great Resignation’ may have faded from the headlines, but the war for talent hasn’t ended. If anything, it’s actually intensified. 

Across Australia, small businesses and corporate teams alike are grappling with the same problem: how to attract great people – and keep them – in a market where flexibility is expected, loyalty is rare, and competitors are always hiring.

That’s where your Employee Value Proposition (EVP) comes in. 

If you’re not familiar with the term, don’t worry. You’re not alone. But in 2025, it’s one of the most powerful levers any employer can pull. And, if you get it right, it can help you win in ways that salary alone never will.

So what is an EVP, exactly?

At its simplest, your EVP is the answer to a candidate’s unspoken question: “Why should I work here, and not somewhere else?”

It’s not just your perks or your pay. It’s the full experience your company offers in exchange for someone’s time, energy and talent, including how they’ll grow, how they’ll feel, what they’ll learn and whether it’s worth it.

An effective EVP isn’t a tagline. It’s a promise. And done, properly it will feel real, not aspirational.

Why an EVP matters more now than ever before

The post-pandemic workforce is different. Employees, especially knowledge workers, are increasingly driven by meaning, autonomy and growth. And, as Gen Z takes up an increasing proportion of the workforce, that’s happening fast.

They’re looking for more than just a job. They want alignment, culture and impact. And, if they don’t feel it, they’re not hanging around. (Read the 6 signs an employee is about to quit.)

At the same time, remote work and international hiring have broadened the talent pool, but also the competition. You’re no longer just up against the company down the street. You’re competing with global employers who can often offer higher salaries, greater flexibility or more compelling missions.

And here’s the kicker. Despite this increasingly competitive market for employee talent,  most EVPs look and sound exactly the same. 

In a recent KPMG study, only 18% of organisations said their EVP was clearly differentiated from their competitors. Everyone else was just using generic copy-paste promises about “great culture” and “work-life balance”.

The four pillars of a compelling EVP

According to Harvard Business Review, the most successful EVPs deliver across four dimensions, not just one or two. Here’s how to think about them:

1. Material offerings (short-term, individual)

Yes, this includes salary, but also flexible work options, parental leave, equipment and the physical work environment. These are the table stakes. But alone, they’re not enough.

2. Growth and development (long-term, individual)

People want to feel like they’re progressing. That might mean career advancement, job rotation, training, mentoring or the chance to build skills that future-proof their career.

3. Connection and community (short-term, collective) 

This is where culture comes alive. Belonging, recognition, collaboration and psychological safety all sit here. With hybrid teams, this is the piece most at risk – and also the most often ignored.

4. Meaning and purpose (long-term, collective)

This is the “why”. What does your business stand for? What impact are you making beyond just profits? People want to work for companies that give them a reason to care.

Think of these four elements like gears in a machine. Focus too hard on one (say, pay) and you can throw the rest out of alignment. But get them working together, and you build something far more powerful than a compensation package: you build loyalty.

Where most businesses fall down

Too many companies still fall into the “give them what they want” trap. 

It seems like each year there’s a new benefit bandwagon to jump on. In 2022 it was remote work. In 2023 it was four-day weeks. In 2024 it was wellness budgets. And now? Who knows.

These one-dimensional perks are easy for competitors to match, and even easier for employees to get bored of.

The real risk? You create a shallow EVP that feels transactional. One that says: “We’ll throw benefits at you, but don’t ask for purpose, growth or culture.”

And when that happens, good people leave.

How to build an EVP that works (especially if you’re not Google)

You don’t need to be a tech giant or Fortune 500 to build a compelling EVP. You don’t need to promise the opportunity to change the world. You just need to be intentional and honest. Here’s how to start:

1. Talk to your people

Don’t assume. Ask. What do they love about working here? What do they tell their friends? What would make them leave? This will give you raw insight into what your real EVP already is and where the gaps are.

2. Define your “give and get”

A strong EVP is a two-way street. What do you offer employees? And what do you expect in return? Be clear, be fair and be bold enough to own it.

3. Make it feel real

Avoid buzzwords. Show, don’t tell. If you say you value development but never promote from within, people will notice. If you say culture matters but everyone works remotely and never meets, that promise feels hollow too.

4. Tailor it to your audience

What matters to a 28-year-old UX designer is probably going to be very different from what matters to a 55-year-old finance manager. Consider your talent segments and personalise where it counts.

5. Live it – then communicate it

The best EVPs aren’t written on websites. They’re lived in every touchpoint: hiring, onboarding, manager conversations, reviews, even exit interviews. Once it’s real, tell the world.

Final word

Your EVP is more than an HR asset, it’s a business advantage. It helps you attract the right people, reduce turnover and build a culture that can scale.

In a market where talent has options, the organisations who win aren’t the ones who pay the most. They’re the ones who connect most.

Want help building a compelling, credible EVP that actually works?

We help growing businesses define and communicate their value to the people who matter, both inside and out.

Get in touch to learn more.

In theory, a candidate-rich market should make hiring easier, right? There are more applicants, more options and you have more bargaining power. 

But in practice, any experienced recruiter or HR professional will tell you often the opposite is true. 

In 2025, Australian employers are navigating a surge in job applications. According to JobAdder’s 2025 State of the Market Report, job applications have nearly doubled in the past year, while job creation has declined by 5.4%, leading to an exceptionally competitive job market.

In many sectors, such as creative, marketing and administrative support roles that once attracted 50 applicants now see more than 200 (sometimes far more). 

And yet, hiring managers report that finding the right fit feels harder than ever. Why? Because quantity doesn’t equal quality and without a refined recruitment strategy, more noise just means more confusion.

After all, when application volumes surge, so do the risks: decision fatigue, longer time-to-hire and the very real possibility you’ll miss the best person in the pile.

With that in mind, we explore 10 ways your business can navigate a candidate-rich market and hire with confidence.

1. Don’t confuse volume with value

A flood of applications can feel like a win, until you realise most don’t meet your core criteria. This is especially true in sectors like administration, customer service and early-career roles, where job seekers cast wide nets.

The key is to filter early and filter smart. That means:

Your goal isn’t to manage applications. It’s to identify alignment.

2. Be ready before you advertise

In a candidate-rich market, speed matters, but so does clarity. Before you post a role, make sure you’ve:

Delays in feedback or shifting goalposts mid-process are red flags for candidates, and can cost you the best ones.

3. Don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “great”

When options abound, it’s tempting to hold out for the unicorn: the ideal candidate who ticks every single box. But in most cases, that’s a myth.

Instead, focus on potential. Look for:

Always remember you can train for skills, but not for attitude or alignment.

4. Sell your opportunity, not just the job

Top candidates want more than a role. They want purpose, progression and belonging. So, make sure your job ads and interview process communicate:

A compelling employer brand isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s a competitive advantage.

5. Streamline your process, but keep it human

Efficiency is crucial, but not at the expense of candidate experience. Use technology to:

Personalised communication and genuine engagement can set you apart in a crowded market. So always make sure there’s a human touch at key stages. 

6. Train your interviewers

Inconsistent interviews lead to inconsistent hires. Equip your hiring teams with:

This won’t just improve hiring outcomes, it will also mean the candidate perceives your organisation in the best light. 

7. Build a talent pipeline

Not every great candidate will be the right fit now, but they might be in the future. Maintain relationships with:

A robust talent pool reduces time-to-hire and ensures you’re not starting from scratch each time.

8. Make decisions (and offers) quickly

Even in a market where candidates seem to hold all the Aces, good candidates are in demand. That means hesitation can cost you. So, once you’ve identified the right candidate always be sure to:

A delay could lead a candidate to accept another opportunity and put you back at square one.

9. Review and refine your process regularly

By recording and analysing data you can keep refining your processes so they’re less costly, more efficient and produce better outcomes. So regularly assess:

Then use these insights to tweak your approach, making sure it remains effective and candidate-centric.

10. Partner with experts when needed

Sometimes, the best approach is to seek external expertise. Recruitment consultants, like Catalina Consultants, can enhance your recruitment strategy and outcomes by providing:

Recruiting in a candidate-rich market requires a strategic, empathetic and agile approach. By focusing on quality over quantity, maintaining a human touch and continuously refining your process, you can attract and secure top talent – even amidst the noise.

Want more?

If you’re finding it challenging to navigate the current hiring landscape, Catalina Consultants can assist you in developing a streamlined recruitment strategy tailored to your needs.

In March 2025, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) published its latest data on Australia’s gender pay gap. On the surface, it looked like progress: the average full-time woman now earns 78 cents for every $1 earned by her male counterpart – the narrowest gap in history.

And yet, that still leaves a 21.7% difference in median total remuneration between what a man and woman receive. In dollar terms, that equates to a shortfall of $26,393 per year. So the message is clear: while change is finally visible, we ‘re still a long way from equality.

With that in mind, we take a look at what’s actually shifted in 2025, and what employers need to do next. 

A new era of transparency

The biggest shake-up came with WGEA’s mandatory public reporting laws, which for the first time required large employers (those with 100 or more staff) to publicly disclose their gender pay gap data.

When those numbers were published in March, they hit like a thunderclap.

Public sector organisations were also in the spotlight, including the ABC, Australia Post and DFAT – all of which recorded double-digit median pay gaps: 17.1%, 17.3% and 14.4% respectively. While each pointed to role composition and seniority mix as key drivers, the data laid bare just how far even progressive, high-profile employers still have to go.

We’re hopeful that this is a turning point. Employers can no longer explain away the issue with generic statements like “we pay men and women equally in the same roles”. 

The new reporting regime forces businesses to examine representation, progression, and pay at every level – from graduates to the C-suite.

Going beyond the average

WGEA’s current framework doesn’t just look at base pay. It also includes:

This granularity is powerful. It makes visible the systemic patterns that previously slipped through the cracks. Things like the bonus disparity, lack of progression into revenue-driving roles or the “motherhood cliff” that derails women’s earnings after their first child.

Meanwhile, the pressure to respond is real. Since the data became public:

For employers, this isn’t a PR problem, it’s a governance issue. 

But it’s also a strategic opportunity.

What needs to shift now?

While WGEA’s public reporting highlights what the problems are, it’s up to each employer to decide how to respond. Based on the data – and what we’re seeing in workplaces – here’s where we believe the change needs to come from.

1. More women represented at the top

According to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), while women make up 51% of the workforce, they hold only:

This disparity isn’t merely a pipeline issue; it’s structural. Even in sectors with high female participation, women are underrepresented in top-tier positions. This lack of representation at the highest levels contributes significantly to the overall gender pay gap.

WGEA’s 2025 data also reveals women are overrepresented in lower pay quartiles and underrepresented in the highest pay quartile. This distribution underscores the systemic barriers women face in ascending to higher-paying roles.

To counter these, we believe organisations should be doing more than just setting diversity targets. They should be reviewing:

Until more women occupy roles with significant financial accountability, the overall pay gap will persist.

2. Performance and promotion bias

It’s one thing to offer flexible work and generous parental leave. But do women get the same high-impact projects, ratings and promotion velocity as their male peers, especially when working part-time?

Often, the answer is no.

Performance assessments, bonus eligibility and sponsorship are frequently affected by gendered expectations: subtle patterns that add up to major pay inequity over time.

So employers need to interrogate:

And if something’s broken? Fix it publicly. Staff will respect honesty more than silence.

3. Many employers are still taking a reactive approach

The 2025 WGEA Report indicates that, while 68% of employers conducted a gender pay gap analysis, the depth and effectiveness of these analyses vary. 

Some organisations have taken proactive steps, such as setting clear targets for narrowing the gap, conducting annual audits, and linking executive remuneration to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) outcomes.

However, others have adopted a reactive approach, focusing on defensive messaging or attributing gaps to outliers rather than addressing systemic issues. This approach often lacks transparency and doesn’t really instigate any meaningful change.

Notably, the public sector has shown some progress. A study found that the gender pay gap in the Australian public service was 13.5%, lower than the private sector’s 21.7%.  

This improvement was attributed to deliberate efforts in workforce gender balance and managerial representation. However, challenges remain, especially in supporting men taking carers leave and ensuring part-time workers are not overlooked for promotions.

So, while transparency may have increased, for many – if not most – organisations translating this into actionable strategies remains a challenge. 

Proactive measures are essential steps in addressing this. These could include, for instance:

Public pressure is rising

Australia’s gender pay gap is no longer just a quiet statistic on a government website. It’s front-page news, LinkedIn chatter and water-cooler conversation. And in some sectors, such as media, tech, law and finance, the reputational risks are mounting.

As Women’s Agenda reported, the 2025 WGEA release revealed major disparities even within the public sector. Some government agencies had gaps exceeding 15%, despite strong public diversity policies.

While the overall national average is down, there is enormous variation by sector and organisation. That means every employer needs to now take ownership. There’s no longer safety in averages.

Where to from here?

The expectation in 2025 and beyond is not perfection, but progress and transparency.

That starts with:

The best companies are moving beyond compliance, turning their data into insight and insight into action. 

After all, if your gender pay gap isn’t shrinking your people, your investors and your future hires will increasingly want to know why.

Want more?

Whether you’re preparing your next WGEA submission or reviewing internal pay equity, get in touch with our team of HR experts. We can help you address your organisation’s pay gap with a plan that’s measurable, defensible and real.

After more than a decade supporting clients across Australia, Catalina Consultants has officially opened a Melbourne office. 

The move is a natural next step: one driven by growing demand, longstanding client relationships in Victoria and the opportunity to bring Catalina’s people-first consulting model to a new audience.

“It’s something we’ve been quietly working towards for a while,” says Merilyn Speiser, Catalina’s Founder and Managing Principal. 

“We already had a strong client base in Melbourne, and post-COVID, we saw a shift – head offices might be based anywhere, but businesses still want a trusted HR presence on the ground. So it was the right time to commit.”

Enter Rachel Bloom, Catalina’s new Melbourne Principal: an experienced HR leader with deep roots in professional services and a proven track record across sectors.

Why Melbourne, and why now?

Catalina’s new southern base isn’t just about geography, it’s also about connection.

“We’ve always believed in human-centred HR. That means being close to the people and businesses we support,” says Merilyn. “The opportunity came at the right time, and the right person came with it.”

Rachel was introduced to Catalina through a shared connection, and Merilyn says she could sense her alignment with the business’s values instantly. 

“It felt like a shortcut,” says Merilyn. “Rachel brought the network, the commercial mindset, and the values that matter to us.”

Rachel says that the connection was mutual. “From the first conversation, I could see the culture was something special,” she says. “This was clearly a team that walked the talk.” 

“They’re certified a Great Place to Work for a reason.”

Meet Rachel Bloom

Rachel’s background spans banking, accounting, medical and education – both in-house and consulting. She’s led teams, built businesses and brings something Catalina values highly: real commercial instinct.

“There are a lot of great HR professionals out there,” says Merilyn, “but not all of them are wired to work closely with SMEs. Rachel gets it. She’s got the experience, the credibility and the human touch that clients respond to.”

As Principal of the Melbourne office, Rachel’s role is to grow the team, support local clients, and bring Catalina’s model to life in a new market.

Rachel also holds postgraduate coaching qualifications – something Merilyn calls “another string to the bow”. Merilyn also believes it will provide clients with a new lens for guiding through complexity and change.

“It’s the perfect blend,” she says. “I still get to do the consulting and coaching I love, but I also get to build something – shape a team, grow the business and help more companies get the HR support they deserve.”

What’s different about Melbourne?

While Catalina has always worked across Australia, having a physical presence in Melbourne unlocks new possibilities, Rachel says.

“Melbourne is a relationship-driven market,” she explains. “Clients want to know who they’re working with. They want trust before engagement. That suits me perfectly, because I genuinely enjoy those connections.” 

“I’ve had more coffees in the last six weeks than I can count!”

Already, Rachel has connected with new clients from sectors including accounting, wealth management, education and manufacturing. 

For Catalina, that diversity represents the opportunity to take tried and tested HR practices and models into all new territory.

“We’ve historically had a strong focus on professional services,” says Merilyn. “But Melbourne opens the door to creative industries, national businesses with head offices in Victoria and sectors where HR hasn’t always had the tailored support we offer.”

What comes next?

Catalina’s Melbourne office will grow steadily, with plans to build a small, close-knit team of three to four staff over the next 12 months. The CBD presence mirrors Catalina’s Sydney setup, creating a seamless national experience for business.

For Rachel, however, success won’t just be measured by business growth (although she expects that will happen fast). Instead, it will also be about building trust within the Melbourne market.

“It’s about showing up for clients, delivering on what we promise and creating a place where the team loves to work.”

“That’s what Catalina has done so well for 13 years, and that’s what I want to build here.”

Want to know more?

If you’re looking for Melbourne-based HR support, Catalina Consultants is now local. 

Get in touch with Rachel now to find out how we can help.  

The new financial year isn’t just another date on the calendar, it’s a line in the sand for compliance, payroll and workplace rights.

From rising super contributions to expanded paid parental leave, several changes take effect on 1 July 2025, while others, introduced in the past 12 months, are now unavoidable. 

Here’s your FY26 HR Playbook: eight critical updates every Australian business needs to take action on now.

1. Super Guarantee hits 12%, but cap drops

From 1 July, the Superannuation Guarantee (SGC) increases from 11.5% to 12%. But for the first time, the maximum super salary base has decreased, from $262,500 to $250,000. That means the annual SGC cap is now $30,000 (12% of $250,000).

The concessional contributions cap also remains unchanged at $30,000, bringing it into alignment with the SGC cap.

Why it matters:

The change to the SGC contribution increases payroll costs, affects total remuneration and “plus super” contracts and introduces a trap. You may now breach the concessional cap with standard SGC alone.

What to do:

2. Minimum wage increases 3.5%

The National Minimum Wage rises to $24.95/hour or $948.70/week, effective 1 July 2025. Updated award schedules have now been published.

Why it matters:

Modern award rates move in lockstep, and casual rates must include the 25% loading, bringing the minimum casual hourly rate to $31.19.

What to do:

3. High-income threshold increases to $183,100

The Fair Work Commission has confirmed that the high-income threshold for unfair dismissal claims rises to $183,100 from 1 July (up from $175,000).

Why it matters:

Employees earning above the threshold can’t file unfair dismissal claims (but they can still bring unlawful termination ones). However,  general protections still apply and awards may still cover them.

What to do:

4. Redundancy tax-free thresholds increase

From 1 July, the ATO’s tax-free redundancy cap increases to $13,100 + $6,552 per full year of service.

Why it matters:

After-tax severance entitlements may shift, and old calculators may be using outdated numbers.

What to do:

5. Paid Parental Leave expands to 24 weeks

From 1 July 2025, the Federal Government’s Paid Parental Leave scheme increases to 24 weeks (120 days) for eligible births or adoptions.

Why it matters:

This affects employer top-up policies, return-to-work plans and your long-term leave liability.

What to do:

6. Right to Disconnect extends to small business

The Right to Disconnect, already in force for large employers, takes effect for small businesses (<15 employees) on 26 August 2025.

Why it matters:

Employees will have the legal right to ignore unreasonable out-of-hours contact. Failure to comply can trigger Fair Work orders.

What to do:

7. Same Job, Same Pay fully operational

This reform took effect on 1 November 2024, but FY25 is when many businesses will feel the full impact. Labour-hire workers must now receive equal pay to host-site employees performing equivalent roles.

Why it matters:

Labour-hire and contracting costs may rise. Misalignment exposes employers to penalties and reputational risk.

What to do:

8. Stage 3 tax cuts are live… and still catching people out

The restructured Stage 3 tax cuts came into effect 1 July 2024, with updated PAYG withholding tables issued for FY2025 that remain current into FY2026. (Although a new tax cut is coming next financial year). 

Why it matters:

If your payroll system hasn’t updated properly, employees may be over- or under-withheld,  triggering ATO penalties and employee frustration.

What to do:

Are you FY2026 ready?

As FY2026 begins, there are plenty of HR-related changes that businesses need to be on top of. 

If you have any questions regarding the changes or are keen to find out how they could impact you or your business, speak with one of the Catalina Consultant team members today.

When a key role opens up, do you promote someone from within or bring in fresh talent from the outside?

Every growing business eventually faces this same question, and it’s not always an easy one to answer. 

On paper, both approaches make sense. 

Internal hires already know the company and its culture. They’re faster to onboard, lower cost and often more loyal. But external hires can bring new ideas, new skills and a level of experience you may not have in-house.

So the decision is rarely black and white. It requires weighing immediate needs against long-term goals, while being clear-eyed about culture, capability and risk.

Here’s how to get it right.

The case for promoting from within

For many businesses promoting internally is often the first instinct. And there’s usually nothing wrong with that. The person knows your systems, your team and your customers. They understand how things work and can often ramp up in days, not months.

Hiring internally also costs less. There’s no advertising, agency fee or relocation cost. In fact, research suggests internal promotions typically come with 18–20% lower salary premiums than external hires.

But the benefits go deeper than just cost. Internal promotions signal there’s a future at your company. That loyalty and effort are recognised. That high performers don’t have to look elsewhere for growth. 

And that message can be a powerful retention tool, especially in a tight labour market.

However, there are caveats. Promoting from within will create a vacancy elsewhere, potentially triggering a cascade of hires. It can also stir internal politics, particularly if others feel overlooked. Bringing in an outsider doesn’t usually trigger the same reaction. And, if you promote the wrong person – either too soon or without proper support – you risk setting them (and the team) up to fail.

In short, internal promotions work best when part of a clear talent development strategy, not a rushed reaction to a sudden vacancy.

The case for hiring externally 

When you need specific skills, experience, or a shift in mindset, hiring externally can be the smartest move. A new hire brings a fresh set of eyes – and often also ideas or methods that don’t exist within your current team.

External recruitment can also help you fill gaps that internal candidates simply can’t. Whether it’s digital transformation, entering a new market, or scaling a new function, you sometimes need people who’ve done it before.

There’s also a diversity dividend. External hiring often improves cognitive diversity, bringing in people with different ways of thinking, problem-solving, and working. This can be especially valuable when your business is evolving.

But there are risks. External hires are more expensive. They take longer to get up to speed. And they’re more likely to churn in their first year, especially if the culture fit isn’t right.

And brace yourself… Research from Wharton shows that external hires tend to be paid more, perform worse in their first two years and are more likely to exit early compared to internal hires.

That doesn’t mean external recruitment is wrong. It just means it needs to be done deliberately, with clear expectations, structured onboarding and strong cultural alignment.

Common pitfall: Quiet hiring 

One mistake we’re seeing more of lately is “quiet hiring”, when organisations quietly increase the responsibilities of an internal employee without formally recognising or rewarding the shift.

It’s often framed as a stepping stone or a temporary solution. But when it drags on it breeds resentment, fatigue and attrition. If someone is stepping up, they should be supported with a clear plan, development support and a timeline. And they should be compensated accordingly.

Worse still is promoting someone temporarily, letting them deliver strong results, then hiring externally above them. That sends a clear message: your loyalty isn’t valued and the real opportunities lie elsewhere.

So please, we beg you to avoid quiet hiring whenever you can. It’s not just about fairness, it’s about culture and long-term sustainability. 

So which should you choose? 

The smartest companies don’t pick one strategy over the other. They build systems that let both options work together.

Here’s a general guide for what to choose when. 

Promote internally when:

Hire externally when:

And if neither option feels perfect? Get creative. 

Consider interim appointments with mentoring. Support “stretch” internal candidates with external training or coaching. Or hire externally with a clear mandate to upskill your internal team as part of their remit.

The final word

Whether you hire from within or bring in new talent, the real challenge is ensuring the move doesn’t just fill a vacancy but strengthens your team. 

That means having a clear talent strategy, transparent processes, and a culture that values both loyalty and excellence.

Get that right, and you won’t just make the right hire, you’ll build a workforce that’s ready for anything.

Want more? 

Need help designing a smarter hiring strategy, building talent from within or avoiding the quiet hiring trap?

Catalina Consultants works with growing businesses to align people, process and performance.

Get in touch today to talk recruitment, retention and building the right team for your business. 

The digitisation of work is accelerating, with AI and automation transforming tasks across every industry.

Half of what a person knows in their job today will be outdated, irrelevant or less valuable in five years’ time, according to HBR. In some tech fields, it’s closer to two and a half.

That’s not just a stat, it’s a ticking clock.

Against this backdrop, HR is no longer a support function. It’s the engine room for survival. Because in this new reality, talent isn’t just recruited, it’s built from within.

The skills crisis: no longer hypothetical

In 2025, upskilling and reskilling aren’t “nice to have” L&D buzzwords anymore. They’re existential.

According to PwC, one in three jobs is likely to be disrupted or disappear in the next decade due to technology. Half of all low-skilled jobs could vanish altogether.

You can’t hire your way out of this. There simply aren’t enough people with the skills already in hand.

The only viable option is to build those capabilities from within, across all levels of the organisation. And this doesn’t just mean teaching people how to use AI tools. It means teaching them how to think, lead and adapt in a world where the rules are being rewritten in real time.

Shift 1: Reskilling is strategic, not charitable

Reskilling isn’t about guilt relief during layoffs anymore. Leading companies now treat it as competitive strategy.

Infosys has retrained more than 2,000 cybersecurity specialists, HBR notes. Vodafone is filling 40% of its software developer roles internally. Amazon runs an internal machine learning university to grow its own experts.

They’ve made these calls because hiring externally is slow, expensive and unreliable. Building talent internally is faster, cheaper and culturally aligned. It drives loyalty and agility: advantages that no job ad can buy.

Shift 2: HR can’t do this alone

Only 24% of companies align reskilling with their corporate strategy. At most organisations, it’s still seen as HR’s problem.  But that’s a big mistake.

At Ericsson, reskilling is wired into quarterly KPIs. CVS has embedded workforce reskilling into its operational strategy, with individual business leaders accountable. Amazon even uses team development as a performance metric for promotions.

The message in the best companies is that while HR may lead, success only comes when the entire leadership team owns the outcome.

Shift 3: Culture change, not course catalogues

Reskilling doesn’t succeed through content alone; it needs context. It requires changing mindsets, reshaping incentives and redesigning roles.

That means resolving “talent hoarding” from middle managers. It means building programs that blend formal instruction with job shadowing, coaching and real-world integration. It means mapping roles, forecasting needs and supporting people through transitions.

ICICI Bank’s reskilling program includes four months of simulation-based learning followed by eight months of mentored fieldwork.

That’s what transformation looks like.

Shift 4: Employees will reskill if it’s worth it

Most people aren’t lazy, they’re calculating. Reskilling is a risk. So if the outcome is uncertain, uptake will lag.

The best companies reduce that risk. Amazon’s Career Choice pays all education costs up front. Bosch gives engineers two days a week to study, plus time off for exams. Vodafone sets aside dedicated learning days. These are serious investments, but they’re also serious retention strategies.

Shift 5: It takes a village

No company can tackle this challenge alone. Reskilling at scale demands partnerships with governments, nonprofits and education providers.

Initiatives like AWS’s Skills to Jobs Tech Alliance and the EU’s Automotive Skills Alliance show how collective efforts can create industry-wide talent pipelines. Programs like Year Up in the U.S. help connect disadvantaged youth to corporate careers, with an 80% placement rate.

If companies keep trying to solve this inside their own walls, they’ll fall short. Ecosystems are the future.

Enter GenAI: From optional to urgent

The rise of generative AI has added both urgency and complexity. McKinsey says early adopters of GenAI are investing more heavily in talent development than laggards and they’re focusing on outcomes first, not just job roles.

That means learning needs to evolve too: more personalised, embedded, just-in-time.

GenAI tools are already being used to coach employees, map internal mobility, and suggest learning paths. The best L&D teams aren’t delivering content. They’re designing experiences.

HR’s Moment of Reckoning

HR now stands at a crossroads. Will it remain the department of compliance or become the architect of future capability?

That depends on whether it can:

This isn’t about filling gaps. It’s about reimagining how companies grow, compete  and stay relevant.

The digital age won’t wait. The question is whether your workforce – and your HR team – will be ready.

There’s a type of manager who gets away with everything. The tantrums. The eye-rolls. The public dress-downs. The snide emails sent to “reply all.” And why? Because they “get results”.

They’re labelled “driven”, “demanding”, maybe even “visionary” – anything but what they actually are: rude. And in too many workplaces, that rudeness isn’t just tolerated, it’s rewarded.

“He’s not rude, he’s just efficient.” That’s what Porath and Perason’s seminal study on workplace incivility noted a company said about one manager who screamed at juniors in meetings, dismissed every idea that wasn’t his and once told a client their shop looked like “sh*t in your father’s day, and worse in yours.”

Three days after that incident, his direct report had a heart attack. True story.

Sure, he delivered results. Until, that was, you factored in the cost of turnover, disengagement, diminished creativity, lost customers and seven weeks a year spent managing the interpersonal fallout.

In this sense, rudeness isn’t a personality quirk. It’s a tax. And if you allow it in your workplace, you’re overpaying.

Politeness is productive. Rudeness is contagious

If you think a little brusqueness never hurt anyone, think again. The data on incivility is clear and brutal.

According to the same study, 98% of employees have experienced workplace incivility. Unfortunately, as many as half encounter it weekly.

It doesn’t need to be a chair-throwing meltdown or an HR-worthy tirade. Rudeness wears a thousand faces: the eye-roll in a meeting, the email ignored, the credit unshared, the colleague who interrupts every sentence like it’s a sprint event.

And the study found rudeness spreads. Like second-hand smoke, you don’t even need to be the target to suffer the effects. Just witnessing a rude exchange makes you 50% less likely to help someone else.

It’s social secondhand embarrassment and performance degradation.

The Hidden Costs: Productivity, performance and profit

Here’s what Porath and Pearson found actually happens when people get treated badly at work:

And customers? They see it. One study showed that when a bank employee was rude to a colleague – not to the customer, to a colleague – just 20% of observers said they’d continue to use the bank. The rest walked, metaphorically or literally.

Rudeness doesn’t stay in its lane. It drives off the road and crashes into every function: HR, sales, legal, everything.

Creativity dies in a toxic room

In one experiment, participants exposed to rudeness generated 25% fewer ideas, and those ideas were measurably less original.

Ask them what they could do with a brick, and they’ll say “build a house.” Ask a well-treated person, and they’ll say “auction it on eBay as modern art.”

Why? Because rudeness triggers a defensive state. It flips your brain from collaborative to combative, from curious to cautious. And no one does their best thinking while bracing for the next verbal slap.

If your innovation team’s gone quiet, it might not be a strategy problem. It might be that Steve keeps snorting every time someone suggests something. And nobody’s told him to shut up.

Expensive to ignore, very cheap to fix

According to Fortune 1000 firms, managers spend 13% of their time dealing with the aftermath of incivility. That’s seven weeks a year per manager. You could write a novel. Or rebuild a culture.

Instead, you’re playing kindergarten cop because Dave from Accounts can’t stop “just being honest” at 11am meetings.

Companies like Cisco, which tried to quantify the cost of incivility, landed on $12 million a year. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a budget line. And it’s why Cisco, Zappos, and others eventually implemented workplace civility programs, with measurable ROI.

That’s because respect isn’t just nice, it’s strategic.

Gallup found that employees who feel respected are 63% more likely to be engaged. And engagement drives performance, loyalty and profitability. Yet only 11% of organisations even ask about civility in the hiring process.

What can you do about incivility in your workplace?

If you’re worried about the impact of rudeness in your workplace, here’s what you can do.

1. Hire for decency.

Brilliance isn’t worth it if it comes wrapped in bile. Southwest Airlines and Four Seasons famously screen for kindness, and both companies top customer service charts year after year.

2. Model the behaviour.

Employees copy what works. If their manager interrupts, dismisses or gossips, they will too. Rudeness is a team sport.

3. Create micro-norms.

Things like the “10/5 Rule” (making eye contact with people at 10 feet, greeting at five) may sound twee, but they can shift the culture by stealth.

4. Reward the good stuff.

Zappos gives out “Wow” bonuses for everyday acts of respect. At $50 a pop, that’s cheaper than another exit interview.

5. Fire the brilliant jerk.

If someone poisons morale, productivity and retention, it doesn’t matter if they can close. Their cost is almost certainly greater than their value.

The rudeness litmus test: Would you work with you?

Here’s a simple gut check: imagine you’re at a dinner party. Someone constantly interrupts, mocks others’ ideas, checks their phone mid-conversation and never says thank you. Would you invite them back?

Now imagine that’s your team’s daily experience. Still surprised they’re disengaged?

Ask yourself:

Because make no mistake: if people feel disrespected, they will disengage. First emotionally, then mentally, and finally, physically by walking out the door.

Respect is a business imperative

The most resilient teams aren’t just smart; they’re also civil. They communicate, they collaborate and they stay. They do their best work because they don’t have to spend half their energy bracing for blowback.

You don’t need a ping-pong table to make your workplace work. You need people who don’t dread the Monday meeting.

So don’t just measure what people produce. Measure how they behave.

Because rudeness isn’t just a human problem, it’s a business one.

And fixing it might be the highest-ROI decision you make all year.

We’re excited to let you in on some big news – Catalina Consultants has expanded into Melbourne!

Following the launch of our dedicated Talent Advisory division last year, this expansion marks the next step in our long-term growth journey. Over the past 13 years, we have proudly partnered with valued clients and referrers, and thanks to that continued support, we’re growing in both size and reach.

Our Melbourne office, located at 8/150 Lonsdale Street Melbourne will be led by our new Principal, Rachel Bloom. Rachel brings a wealth of experience and energy, over 25 years of HR and business experience and we’re thrilled to have her on board. While she’ll be focused locally down in Melbourne, our existing clients will continue to work with the same Catalina team they know and trust – our values, people, and approach remain the same.

Thank you for being part of our journey – we’re so excited for what’s ahead.

“We’re looking for someone who’s a good cultural fit.” It sounds smart. Strategic. Safe. Doesn’t it?

But in reality, hiring for cultural fit might simply be the most professionally acceptable way of saying, “We want someone just like us.”

So, if you’re conducting your hiring this way, you could be turning away exactly the kind of person who could take your business somewhere new and possibly better. We explain why.

What is cultural fit anyway?

When companies talk about cultural fit, they often mean shared values: collaboration, initiative, curiosity. On paper, that sounds reasonable. You want someone who thrives in the same kind of environment, right?

But here’s where it gets slippery: these values can easily be interpreted through personal lenses.

“Collaborative” might start to mean “gets my jokes”; “Proactive” might become “talks like me”; “Curious” might translate into “Grew up on the same books and bands.”

In practice, cultural fit can drift into something far murkier: shared backgrounds, shared banter, shared playlists. It can become about chemistry. About comfort. About whether the person sitting opposite you feels familiar. And here’s the problem: comfort isn’t a competency. Familiarity isn’t a qualification.

When hiring becomes a “vibe check”, it pushes away people who might think differently, solve problems differently or work in a way you haven’t seen before—but who could add enormous value.

Cultural fit is often sold as a way to protect and nurture your team dynamic. But if everyone fits too neatly, you start to lose the very friction that leads to innovation. That’s how businesses end up stuck: full of people who work well together, but never challenge each other.

And, in a world that’s changing fast, sameness isn’t safe. It’s risky.

Sameness is not a strength

When you hire for comfort, you get sameness. You build a team that might look great in the Christmas party photos but won’t challenge each other, won’t bring new ideas, and won’t adapt well to change. That’s not culture. That’s inertia.

Writing in HBR, Netflix’s Chief Talent Officer, Patty McCord, famously pushed back against the idea of “A-players” being universally recognisable. One company’s top talent might be average elsewhere. Success is contextual.

That means great hiring is about finding the person who matches the problem—not just the person who makes you feel comfortable in a meeting.

This kind of comfort-driven hiring is especially risky in fast-changing markets. It creates echo chambers. Teams start thinking alike, solving problems the same way, and missing what’s obvious to someone from the outside. Homogeneity isn’t just boring. It’s dangerous.

Bias wears a friendly face

McCord says there’s also a bigger issue at play: bias wears a friendly face. Especially in recruitment agency settings, candidates are often expected to play a game they don’t know the rules of. It’s what researchers call “faking friendship”—a style of banter-heavy small talk that masks real power dynamics.

If a candidate doesn’t intuitively mirror the recruiter’s tone, humour, or style, they may be quietly marked down as “not a fit.”

In one study, a white working-class man was rejected after a 14-minute interview in which he was friendly, open and forthcoming—but too informal. He didn’t mirror the recruiter’s code. Another candidate, a woman from a migrant background, aligned her tone and humour to the recruiter’s and was placed within weeks.

Same recruiter. Same agency. Two completely different outcomes—not based on capability, but on conversational alignment.

So what if the candidate who didn’t laugh at your joke has the resilience your team needs? What if the person you quietly dismissed could have brought a way of working that elevated everyone else?

Familiarity isn’t a value

Too often, “cultural fit” is used as a vague, unaccountable reason to reject someone who feels different. The risk is that you’re not hiring for values—you’re hiring for familiarity. And that’s how you end up with a company of clones.

It also means you risk missing out on people who’ve been shaped by very different experiences—migrant backgrounds, different class perspectives, neurodiversity, non-linear career paths—because they didn’t speak your language, or tell the kind of stories you’re used to hearing in interviews. But those are often the people who drive real change.

From fit to impact

Some companies have tried to shift the language—from “culture fit” to “culture add.” The idea is to look for people who bring something new, not just blend in.

It’s a good start. But it only works if you back it up with deeper change: structured interviews, skills-first assessment, training for hiring managers and space for different styles of excellence to emerge.

“Culture add” only works if you’re genuinely open to people who challenge how you think and work—and willing to adapt the culture in response. Otherwise, it’s just a new label for the same old gatekeeping.

You can’t just rename the problem and hope it solves itself.

Let your culture stretch and grow

Because here’s the thing: the best people might not fit your culture. They might change it. They might stretch it. They might build it into something better.

The businesses that thrive long term are the ones that evolve. That means inviting difference. It means asking not just, “Do they fit in?” but “What will they make better?” It means welcoming a bit of discomfort, because growth lives there.

So if you’re serious about performance, resilience, and innovation—stop hiring for fit. Start hiring for impact. And let your culture grow around the people who will take it somewhere new.

Want more?

Want to help build your recruitment capability beyond cultural fit? Get in touch with our HR experts to find out how we can help.

When HR fails, it rarely stays internal. Poor people management can blow up into lawsuits, shareholder revolts, reputational damage—and, in extreme cases, even Royal Commissions. 

The worst part (or the best, depending on how you look at it)? Most of it is preventable.

Australia’s most famous HR nightmares of the past few years offer loud-and-clear lessons for any business that cares about culture, compliance and credibility. Here are five infamous case studies—and what they teach us all about how to lead, hire and manage better.

1. PwC Australia: Culture eats strategy for breakfast

The disaster

In 2023, PwC Australia was rocked by revelations that a senior partner had leaked confidential government tax plans to clients. This led to a significant loss of trust, and the sale of PwC’s government consulting arm. 

Beyond the headline scandal, the deeper issue was cultural: the behaviour was allegedly known internally for years, but nothing was done about it.

What went wrong

Ethics were sacrificed at the altar of revenue. HR and leadership let toxic behaviours fester, especially when tied to high-performing rainmakers.

The lesson: Culture is built by what you tolerate.

2. Seven West Media: When power and HR collide

The disaster

The public fallout from an affair between CEO Tim Worner and executive assistant Amber Harrison became a long-running HR and PR disaster. The company reached a confidential settlement with Harrison—then pursued legal action when she broke the silence. 

So what started as a workplace conduct issue spiralled into headlines, accusations of hypocrisy and a public trust deficit.

What went wrong

There were no clear boundaries around relationships in the workplace—especially involving senior executives. Channel Seven’s response seemed to prioritise corporate protection over accountability and discretion.

The lesson: Workplace rules must apply to everyone—even the boss.

3. Qantas: The cost of cutting corners

The disaster

In the wake of COVID-19, Qantas laid off and outsourced 1,700 ground crew—only for the High Court to later rule the move illegal. This followed a pattern of deteriorating staff morale, customer service issues, and a broader perception that the airline had lost touch with its people.

What went wrong

Short-term cost-cutting trumped people strategy. HR became reactive, not proactive and—while Qantas was hit hard by the pandemic—decisions were made with little regard for long-term consequences.

The lesson: Your people aren’t a line item.

4. AMP: Reputation is the real bottom line

The disaster

AMP promoted Boe Pahari to CEO of AMP Capital, despite a prior sexual harassment complaint. The move triggered internal backlash, investor pressure and a rapid loss of trust. Pahari was removed from the role within weeks.

What went wrong

Leadership failed to anticipate how the appointment would land—internally, externally and ethically. HR red flags were ignored in favour of maintaining the status quo.

The lesson: What you reward defines you.

5. Commonwealth Bank: When culture turns toxic

The disaster

The Banking Royal Commission uncovered widespread misconduct in CBA’s financial advice businesses, from charging fees to recommending incompatible products, and from dead customers to systemic failures in risk and compliance. While much of the focus was on financial conduct, HR was part of the failure—especially in failing to build a culture of accountability and ethical behaviour.

What went wrong

A culture of profit over principles took hold. Staff were incentivised to hit sales targets at the expense of compliance, and internal warnings were often overlooked.

The lesson:

Culture isn’t soft—it’s structural.

In short…

HR failings may start in private but they often end in very public outcomes. From lost trust to legal risk, the fallout can reshape companies—and careers.

The common thread in every one of these disasters? Warning signs were missed, minimised, or ignored. 

Bad culture isn’t just a people problem—it’s a leadership failure. And when leaders sideline HR, or treat it as an afterthought, they create blind spots that can turn into headlines.

The good news? Most of this is preventable. If you:

…you’re not just avoiding disaster. You’re building a business people want to be part of.

Because in the end, culture isn’t what’s written on the walls—it’s what you walk past.

Want more?

Want to build the systems and culture in your business that let you avoid a HR disaster? Get in touch with our team of HR experts to find out how we can help.

Office politics is a dirty word for most of us. It’s shorthand for backstabbing, brown-nosing and power games. It’s everything we’re taught to avoid if we want to be decent, honest professionals.

But here’s the thing: office politics isn’t the problem, avoiding it is.  In fact, it could be good for your workplace and good for your career.

Three decades of research, coaching, and career wake-up calls, one thing has become crystal clear — the people who rise in organisations aren’t just smart and capable. They’re usually the most politically savvy. They know how to navigate relationships, influence decisions and stay visible for the right reasons.

And no, that doesn’t make them sell-outs. Done well, office politics isn’t manipulative. It’s a skill — and it might just be the most underrated one in the modern workplace.

Politics isn’t a game. It’s how things get done.

Too many of us buy into the myth that if we keep our heads down and deliver great work, we’ll be rewarded. But as Carla Harris from Morgan Stanley put it: “Work doesn’t speak. People do.”

That was the hard lesson Niven Postma, author of If You Don’t Do Politics, Politics Will Do You, learned after being laid off despite performing well. She’d avoided politics out of principle — only to find out that principle doesn’t protect you when decisions get made behind closed doors.

What she eventually realised — and now teaches to professionals around the world — is that politics is just the informal side of work. The conversations before the meeting. The relationship with the exec who quietly champions your work. The ability to read the room and frame your idea in a way that sticks. 

None of this is unethical. It’s smart, and it’s necessary.

The science backs it

If you’re still sceptical, the data’s got your number. 

Psychologist Dr Rob Yeung points to a body of research showing that political skill is directly linked to higher performance, lower stress and faster career progression. The key isn’t deception or fakery — it’s self-awareness, sincerity, adaptability and strong relationships.

Political skill, Yeung argues, is made up of sub-skills like:

None of this requires selling your soul. In fact, the best political operators often look a lot like the best leaders — tuned in, trusted, and good at building bridges. Little wonder then, that they tend to rise to the top. 

But politics isn’t fair — and that’s the real problem

Now for the ugly side of the story. Not everyone gets equal access to the political arena. 

A recent study out of Queen Mary University of London and King’s College London found that office politics is still, in many organisations, a “white man’s game.”

The researchers interviewed 40 mid-career professionals from ethnic minority backgrounds and heard a common thread: exclusion. From being left out of informal conversations to lacking advocates in senior leadership, many participants saw politics as something that worked against them, not for them. 

And so they disengaged — often at the cost of missed opportunities, growth, and visibility.

But here’s the kicker: the issue wasn’t politics itself. It was the way access to political capital was hoarded — not shared.

The study also found something more hopeful. In some organisations, office politics was demystified. Managers proactively coached new hires on how things really worked. Politics was openly acknowledged and taught — not whispered about inside conversations. 

When this happened, politics wasn’t seen as dirty. It was seen as useful, inclusive, even empowering.

So what does good office politics look like?

So if we drop the cynicism for a second, here’s what healthy office politics can involve:

None of this is about deception. It’s about understanding that every organisation has both formal and informal systems — and succeeding means knowing how to operate in both.

As Postma puts it, politics is just the range of behind-the-scenes moves people make to get things done. She also notes that if you’re not making those moves, someone else is… And they may not have your best interests in mind.

What can organisations do?

If politics is inescapable, the onus is on leaders to make it accessible and equitable. The Queen Mary/King’s College study outlined five things organisations can do to get the upside of office politics while limiting the downside:

  1. Talk about politics openly. Make informal practices visible and legit.
  2. Create real access. Give your whole team access to mentorship, sponsorship, and development for underrepresented staff.
  3. Reframe politics positively. Teach influence and relationships as professional skills.
  4. Leverage senior leaders. Get them to sponsor diverse talent and share their social capital.
  5. Share real stories of success. High the role of relationships and support.

This isn’t fluff. It’s how you build cultures where more people can thrive, not just those who already know the game.

Final thought

If you’ve ever thought “I hate office politics,” you’re not alone. But maybe it’s time to update that thinking.

Politics doesn’t have to be toxic. It doesn’t have to mean compromise. Done well, it’s about showing up, being seen and helping others rise with you. It’s about getting smart with how influence flow, and choosing to be part of it rather than sidelined by it.

Because if you don’t do politics… 

Well, you know the rest.

Want more?

Want to know more about how to build the right kind of culture in your workplace? Get in touch with our team of HR experts

 

A job interview isn’t just a formality. Even in 2025, it remains a critical step – maybe even the most critical step – in hiring the right person for your team. 

Done properly, a job interview will help ensure a candidate’s skills, personality and experience align with what your company is looking for. Done poorly, it will result in a costly, disappointing and disruptive hiring mistake. 

This guide walks you through the key principles of conducting an effective job interview, giving you what you need to create both a productive conversation for your company and a positive experience for candidates.

Preparing for the interview

A strong interview begins well before you sit down with a candidate. It starts when you sit down to plan why you’re interviewing in the first place.

Define what you’re looking for in an ideal hire. Take the time to review the job description and what you want from the person you hire. Then you can take a structured approach to the interview process that includes:

You usually only get a short time during the interview, so by preparing properly you’ll make sure you use this to maximum effect. 

Setting the tone

An interview should be a two-way conversation, not an interrogation. After all, candidates perform best when they feel comfortable. So creating a relaxed yet professional environment is key. 

Start with a warm introduction and a bit of small talk to break the ice.  Let the candidate know the interview structure—what topics will be covered and how long it is expected to last. This shouldn’t just ease their nerves; it should also set clear expectations for the discussion ahead.

Throughout the interview, make sure you remain engaged and attentive. Body language plays a role. Maintain eye contact, nod in agreement, and avoid distractions such as checking emails or glancing at your phone. 

Asking the right questions

Ultimately, the questions you ask will make or break any interview. The best ones reveal not just what a candidate has done, but how they think, problem-solve and approach challenges. 

You should always aim for a balance of:

Avoid generic or clichéd questions like “What’s your greatest weakness?” which tend to elicit rehearsed answers rather than genuine insights.

Active listening and note-taking

While you may be running the show, the reality is that a good interviewer listens far more than they speak. 

Avoid the temptation to focus on the next question instead of properly absorbing the candidate’s response. Instead,  listen actively to pick up on key details that might seem like throwaway lines. Take notes during the conversation—jot down specific examples the candidate provides, key strengths or any concerns you might have. This ensures you’ll have a reference point when comparing candidates later.

Be mindful of non-verbal cues as well. Confidence, enthusiasm and body language can offer valuable insights into how the candidate might fit within your team.

Common pitfalls to avoid when interviewing 

So often we sabotage our own efforts to interview by falling into a trap that could have been easily avoided. Even experienced interviewers can be guilty of these common mistakes:

The role of multiple interviewers

By taking a collaborative approach to interviewing you can improve your decision making. Just be careful not to overwhelm the candidate with too many people in the room. You might consider including:

This approach provides a well-rounded perspective and minimises bias in hiring decisions.

Look beyond experience: assess potential

It’s rare to find a candidate who ticks every single box on a job description. Instead of focusing solely on what a candidate has done, consider what they could do. Look for:

A candidate with potential can often outperform one with experience alone, especially in dynamic or rapidly evolving roles.

Sell the role and the company

Remember that interviews are a two-way street. Just as you’re assessing candidates, they’re assessing you. 

Strong candidates will often have multiple offers, so take time to highlight what makes your company an attractive place to work. Be honest about challenges in the role while also showcasing opportunities for growth, mentorship and career advancement.

Close the interview professionally

As the interview wraps up, give the candidate an opportunity to ask questions. Their inquiries can reveal their level of interest and how much research they’ve done on your company.

Before they leave, outline the next steps and provide a clear timeline for when they can expect feedback. This ensures a positive candidate experience, even for those who don’t get the job.

Post-interview evaluation

Once the interview concludes, take time to evaluate the candidate based on objective criteria, not just intuition. 

Discuss feedback with other interviewers, compare notes, and ensure all perspectives are considered.

If you decide against a candidate, provide timely communication. A well-handled rejection can leave a positive impression and encourage strong candidates to apply for future roles.

Final thoughts

Conducting a strong job interview isn’t just about finding the right candidate. It’s about ensuring a smooth and professional process that reflects well on your company. 

By preparing thoroughly, asking thoughtful questions and evaluating candidates fairly, you’ll improve hiring decisions and create a positive experience for everyone involved.

Want more?

Want to know how to run better interviews in your business? Get in touch with our team of HR experts. We work with clients across Australia and have HR Teams based in Sydney and Melbourne

Late last year, the federal government gave Australia’s privacy laws their biggest overhaul in decades, largely as a result of the need to update them in  the age of digitalisation of the workplace. 

If you’re a business owner, manager or HR professional, you need to be across the changes now, or face the possibility of legal or reputational risk.

An Overview of the Privacy Reforms

The Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024 changes the way personal information can be used, stored, accessed and handled. It applies to all Australian businesses.However, businesses with annual turnovers exceeding $3 million who must comply with more stringent privacy standards.

Key reforms relevant to HR professionals include:

We’ll look at each of these in more detail below.

Statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy

From 10 June 2025, the Act will create a new statutory tort (i.e. a legal wrong defined by legislation) of serious invasions of privacy. 

This new legal avenue allows individuals, including employees, to directly sue an organisation or individual who commits a significant privacy breach, including: 

Breaching these provisions could lead to significant financial pain, including the risk of class action lawsuits if the breach involves multiple employees. 

Transparency in automated decision making

More employers are beginning to use automated decision-making tools such as AI in HR-related functions such as recruitment, performance evaluation and administration. From 10 December 2026, businesses will be legally required to disclose which types of decisions they make through automated means and what types of personal information they use to make them.

After all, AI-based decision making can fall victim to several potential flaws, including: 

It’s important that automated processes support human decision making rather than entirely replacing it. So, every business should review and articulate how they’re using these technologies. They should also make sure employees understand how automated decisions impact them and provide the transparency needed to minimise potential bias and inaccuracy.

Simplified overseas data transfers

From 11 December 2024, the legislation introduced a ‘whitelist’ mechanism that simplified the overseas transfer of personal data. 

The whitelist streamlines international data sharing by identifying jurisdictions deemed to have privacy protections substantially similar to Australia’s.

While the official list has not yet been announced, you should make sure  international third-party providers handling employee data adhere to Australian Privacy Principles (APP). As a minimum this should involve: 

Enhanced regulatory powers and penalties

The amendments give the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) expanded enforcement powers. 

OAIC can now issue infringement or compliance notices directly to businesses. These allow it to mandate immediate corrective action or impose financial penalties. These include:

Practical HR Compliance Steps

To make sure your business is complying with the amendments, you should undertake a comprehensive review of your policies, procedures and plans. This includes: 

  1. Audit and review: Assess your privacy policies and data handling practices. Try to identify any compliance gaps and then fix them.
  2. Policy updates: Revise your privacy policies to reflect your new obligations, including the need to explicitly disclose any automated decisions.
  3. Training and education: Introduce privacy compliance training in your workplace to make sure employees and managers understand their obligations and the risks associated with not complying. 
  4. Enhance data security: Strengthen any data security protocols in your workplace through things like two-factor authentication and secure cloud-based storage. Restrict access to sensitive data.
  5. Breach response Plan: Develop or refine your organisation’s response strategies for potential data breaches so that you can respond to an incident swiftly.
  6. Third-party compliance: Verify international third-party vendors are complying with Australian standards. Update your contracts and service-level agreements to reflect these obligations.

And finally…

The Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024 reshapes the privacy compliance landscape for Australian organisations.  Businesses need to respond proactively, so that they embed the changes in their organisational practices as soon as possible. 

If you’d like to know what your business needs to do to comply with the updated laws, get in touch with our team of HR experts. 

As we move further into 2025, HR and workplace relations are continuing to rapidly evolve. 

We were fortunate enough to recently attend HR Daily’s HR Hot Spots 2025 webinar, which provided some great analysis of many of the latest developments in the world of people management. 

In this article, we look at some of the trends covered and give our own take on what they’re likely to mean for your organisation.

1. Artificial Intelligence in the workplace

Since ChatGPT was launched in late 2022, few issues have dominated the workplace more than the rise of AI. In just over two years, it has gone from a barely known to the most talked about topic among HR teams.

As we wrote recently, AI is already beginning to transform recruitment and workforce planning for some fast moving companies. This year, however, we expect AI to go mainstream, becoming firmly embedded in most HR departments. 

We’re particularly excited about AI’s potential when it comes to performance management and employee retention. Its ability to read data, identify and offer continuous feedback could change the way we manage teams, providing a more individualised, more motivating and more engaging workplace experience for everyone. 

2. Respect@Work: Positive duty on employers

In late 2022, the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) underwent some major changes. While many of these took effect in December 2023, some employers are still struggling to come to terms with what they mean. 

All businesses must now take proactive steps to prevent workplace harassment, discrimination, and hostile environments. This means implementing risk management frameworks, leadership training and clear reporting processes.

If your business isn’t across the changes, make sure you act fast – the amendments also gave the Australian Human Rights Commission new powers to monitor and assess compliance, as well as to seek court orders against non-compliant employers. 

3. Psychosocial hazards and workplace safety

In July 2022, Safe Work Australia’s Code of Practice on Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work took effect. Additional model regulations introduced in 2023 (excluding Victoria). 

This means most employers now have an obligation to identify and manage psychosocial hazards. 

Key Developments:

As an employer, make sure you’re conducting risk assessments, implementing control measures, and regularly reviewing your workplace culture to prevent potential psychosocial-related breaches of WHS law. 

If you don’t, you could face heavy fines, not to mention reputational damage and potential legal action.

4. The Right to Disconnect laws

The Right to Disconnect laws let employees refuse to respond to “unreasonable” out-of-hours contact from their employer or clients. Whether a contact is unreasonable depends on its urgency, as well as the employee’s role and their personal circumstances. (It’s generally more acceptable to contact a senior employee out of hours than a junior one).

Make sure you review your policies and set clear expectations around after-hours communication. If in doubt, seek advice. 

5. Flexible work arrangements: new rules and case law

The Fair Work Act was amended to give employees stronger rights when requesting flexible work arrangements. Several categories of employees, including anyone responsible for school aged children (or younger), as well as carers and employees over 55 can request to work flexibly, once they’ve worked for the same employer for 12 months.

An employer who refuses must provide detailed reasons and Fair Work Australia offers dispute resolution mechanisms where disputes exist. 

Recent cases, such as Gration v Bendigo Bank and Fogo v Boeing Aerostructures, highlight the expectations and limits of flexible working arrangements. In the former, the FWC found employment “was a two way street” and that an employer did not need to give an employee with carer’s responsibilities the opportunity to permanently work from home.

In the latter, the FWC found there was no need to provide an older employee with the opportunity to work from home two days a week so that he could ease into retirement while preserving his mental health. 

6. Wage theft and underpayment: A criminal offence

Since 1 January 2025, wage theft has been a criminal offence, with penalties including up to 10 years’ imprisonment or $7.8 million in fines. 

With so much at stake, employers must be 100% certain they’re complying with wage laws – not least because accidental underpayments won’t be tolerated as mere ‘mistakes.’ 

As ignorance is no defence, the Commonwealth government has helped small businesses out by publishing a Voluntary Compliance Code. However, if you’re ever in doubt about employee entitlement, always get professional advice. 

7. Damages for psychiatric injury: A wake-up call for employers

Increasingly, the courts are hearing claims for psychiatric injury arising from unfair treatment at work. 

In Elisha v Vision Australia the High Court of Australia upheld a Supreme Court finding that an employer had breached the employment contract when its flawed disciplinary process caused an employee severe mental health consequences. In doing so, it awarded the employee close to $1.5 million.

The circumstances of the case involved the employee’s actions on a work-related trip in which a hotel manager claimed he had become aggressive and intimidating. The employer sided with the hotel manager and dismissed the employee based partly on its own view that the worker had displayed similar behaviour at work. It did not offer him an opportunity to refute the claims.  

The High Court’s decision is a warning to all employers that workplace investigations need to be handled sensitively and properly and due process always needs to be followed. It also puts them on notice that the potential psychological harm from workplace mistreatment should always be taken into account.

8. Secure Jobs, Better Pay Review

A couple of years ago the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Act 2022 (Cth) introduced major changes to employment contracts, including limits on fixed-term contracts, pay secrecy bans and the potential for multi-employer bargaining. 

Now, a review of the reforms is underway, with a report to be handed down at the end of March and possible adjustments coming in mid-2025. 

We’ll keep you up to date with any amendments that come out of the review.

9. What else? Emerging trends to watch

Beyond the key hot spots, make sure you also keep an eye on:

Final thoughts

The workplace landscape in 2025 is more complex than ever, with heightened compliance requirements, new employee rights and increased regulatory scrutiny. 

To stay ahead of these developments, you’ll need to be proactive. 

That means now is the time to review policies, ensure you’re still compliant and prepare for what’s ahead.

Get in touch with out team of HR experts if you’d like to find out more. 

It has been almost two years since ensuring psychosocial safety was made a positive obligation for employers.  

The April 2023 amendments to the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 gave employers stronger legal obligations when it comes to managing psychosocial hazards at work. A year and a half later, in November 2024, a new Commonwealth Code of Practice (introduced from November 2024) further refined what employers needed to do to prevent harm from psychosocial hazards. 

So what have we actually learned over the past two years and what should your businesses be doing about psychosocial safety? We explore.

From guidance to enforcement

The 2024 Code of Practice set binding standards that all Commonwealth jurisdiction employers must follow when it comes to preventing both psychological and physical harm.

These standards centre around the hierarchy of controls, a step-by-step approach to eliminating or minimising risks, ranking controls from highest to lowest protection. Under this framework, organisations must proactively address risks rather than simply respond to incidents.

What are the key psychosocial hazards?

The Code identifies several psychosocial hazards which employers need to identify and guard against. Many of these aren’t new, including:

However, the Code also introduces three new hazards: 

The new additions recognise that, with the rise of the gig economy and technological changes, job insecurity is becoming more common in certain industries and people are working longer hours. They also recognise that workplace monitoring technology has the potential to be invasive – a factor that could also potentially impact workers’ mental health. 

Leadership, culture and consultation: what actually works?

While the obligations imposed by the Code go further than ever, if the past couple years have taught us anything it’s that regulation alone won’t improve workplace mental health. 

If you’re really looking to create a workplace that minimises the risk of psychosocial harm, here’s how within you should do it.  

1. Focus on the underlying causes of stress and psychological harm

Many employers treat mental health initiatives as afterthoughts or or box-ticking exercises without really focusing on the underlying factors that contribute to employee wellbeing. And, while Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), mental health awareness campaigns and wellness initiatives all have their place, they need to be part of a proactive approach to psychosocial risk management.

The workplaces leading the way when it comes to reducing and eliminating long-term psychosocial safety are:

This approach is built on the understanding that if an employer only intervenes after a problem arises, it’s often already too late. 

A preventative approach is the only way forward.

2. Hybrid work is a double-edged sword

The shift to hybrid and remote work has been hailed as a win for employees’ mental health. It reduces commuting, removes excessive workplace distractions and buys more time for activities outside of work. But the hybrid model has also introduced all new risks when it comes to psychosocial safety. Here are some of them.

To get over these hurdles, businesses need to take an active role in shaping and defining their own healthy hybrid work culture. 

For instance, set clear expectations around work hours and availability so employees don’t feel pressured to work beyond reasonable limits. Facilitate social connection through structured check-ins, virtual networking and even in-person collaboration, such as set days in the office. And, finally, make sure managers are equipped to support remote employees, so they can provide the same level of oversight and care as they would in a physical office setting.

3. Consultation and transparency are key

As the workplace changes it’s becoming clearer than ever that psychosocial hazards aren’t just theoretical risks. They’re everyday workplace realities affecting employees’ mental health, job performance and overall wellbeing. 

More than anything, eliminating psychosocial risks means being open and transparent with your employees and putting it at the forefront of everything you do. To get started you should:

What’s next? The road to long-term change

So, two years on from the start of the psychosocial safety amendments and we’ve seen some progress in how workplaces approach psychosocial safety. However, there’s still plenty of work to do. 

Here are our key takeaways from the past couple of years. 

More than anything, however, we’ve seen that those organisations who choose to treat psychosocial safety as part of their organisation’s fabric rather than just a legal requirement are giving themselves an advantage when it comes to workplace productivity, employee retention and overall workplace health.

Want more?

If you’d like to know about how to build a psychosocial safety into your business, get in touch.

The reference check has long been one of the staples of hiring.  For generations, part of the process of getting a job involved the employer picking up the phone, chatting with a former boss and (usually) hearing exactly what they expected: a polite and positive account of the candidate’s performance in a previous role. 

But times are changing; the humble reference check is coming under pressure. 

Many recruiters now say they’re a waste of time, not least because the (almost inevitable) rosy account of the previous employee’s performance ultimately provides little value.

At Catalina Consultants, however, we believe there’s still a place for the reference check, so long as it’s done right. In this article, we explain why.

The case against reference checks

Before we get to figuring out how to do a reference check well, it’s worth pausing to reflect on why they have suddenly become so unpopular.

Generally, we’ve noticed that criticism of reference checks comes down to four main things. 

1. They’re predictable and biased

When you call the referee, you know you’ll almost always receive glowing feedback: little wonder when the candidate gets to handpick who’ll speak on their behalf.   

If someone’s former boss didn’t have great things to say, they simply wouldn’t be listed as a reference. 

So, how much value does it really add to call someone who you know is only going to tell you exactly what you want to hear?

2. They rarely change hiring decisions

Many managers and recruiters will admit they’ve never, over their entire career, actually refused a candidate based on a bad reference. Most reference checks are just rubber-stamps rather than truly testing suitability.

That’s probably why a LinkedIn survey  found that more than 70% of recruiters saw reference checks as either pointless or a mere compliance formality. 

3. They slow down hiring

Increasingly, hiring speed is becoming a factor in the recruitment market. Candidates make job decisions quickly and that means they expect to hear back quickly too. 

Chasing down referees can add unnecessary friction to a process that already includes multiple interviews, skills assessments and sometimes even psychometric testing. 

So, if reference checks don’t add substantial value, why keep them at all?

4. They don’t address real hiring concerns

A final major criticism we hear is that reference checks often fail to answer the most important question, namely ‘will this candidate succeed in this role?’. 

After all, a manager or recruiter’s biggest challenge isn’t confirming that a candidate had a particular job—it’s making sure they have the right skills, attitude and outlook to thrive.

Why references still matter (if you do them right)

Despite the merit of some of these complaints, we think scrapping reference checks entirely is a big mistake. Done well, they can offer insights that go beyond a candidate’s CV or interview performance. 

The key, however, is rethinking how they’re used. Here are some of the best ways we’ve seen good companies take advantage of reference checks. 

1. Use them as a hiring tool, not a box-ticking exercise

Don’t ask the questions a referee expects to hear. Instead of just confirming employment dates and job titles, or asking what they did and whether they did it well, ask them meaningful questions. Here are some starters. 

By taking this approach, you can turn the reference check from a box-ticking administrative hurdle to a practical tool.

2. Move them to earlier in the hiring process

Traditionally, the reference check has been the very last thing in the hiring process: a final act just to make sure your soon-to-be employee’s script checks out.

Some companies are flipping the script though. They’re using reference checks before their final interviews to shape their questions and better assess the candidates. 

For example, if a referee says a candidate struggles with time management but excels in creative problem-solving, you may be able to come up with some questions based on this. For example, what are they doing to overcome their weaknesses, or how has their creativity helped their current employer?

3. Automate the process for speed and objectivity

Just because reference checks are old school, that doesn’t mean you have to go about them in an old school way… 

Digital reference platforms can collect structured feedback from multiple references making the process of checking references both faster and more data-driven. 

You’ll have the opportunity to gather reference data in a matter of hours instead of days, all while improving accuracy so long as you ask the right questions.

4. Use references to improve onboarding

Finally, reference checks shouldn’t just be about confirming hiring decisions. They should be a tool for setting up new hires for success. 

By gathering insights on how a candidate likes to work, how they respond to feedback, and what kind of support they need, you’ll be able to craft a tailored onboarding plan that lets your new employee hit the ground running. 

The future: Less “reference check,” more “candidate success check”

We agree that the traditional “Can you confirm Kate worked there?”-style reference call might be on its way out, but the need for deeper insights isn’t going anywhere. In fact, in today’s employment market, it’s becoming even more important. 

By embracing data-driven, structured and strategic reference checks you have the potential to turn the process into a secret weapon —not just in hiring, but in onboarding and retention.

So instead of asking whether the reference check is dead, the better question might be ‘are you doing them right?’.

 

Do reference checks wrong, and they’re a waste of time.

Do them right, and they’re your secret weapon.

Choose wisely.

Great HR professionals can make a real difference to any business. However, what we do can also sometimes get weighed down by manual, time-intensive tasks.  

From screening resumes to managing payroll, some tasks require a lot of unproductive time just to get to the bit where we can really add value. That’s where AI can help.

By automating repetitive tasks, analysing vast amounts of data and offering predictive insights, AI promises HR professionals the opportunity to focus on the more strategic and people-oriented parts of what we do as HR professionals.

So if your business is one of the growing number looking to incorporate AI into its HR practices, where do you start? 

Here’s our guide to how any business can streamline its HR processes with AI right now.

1. Recruitment and talent acquisition

Finding the right talent to drive the business forward has always been one of HR’s most important functions. It can also be labour-intensive and demanding. 

Finding suitable employees, interviewing them, negotiating and bringing the successful candidate onboard takes serious time and effort. AI can help reduce the workload and deliver better results by: 

2. Onboarding and training

A well-executed onboarding process can set employees up for success, making sure they understand the procedures and have the right skill set for the role. You can get AI involved in this too by:

For example, an AI learning platform could identify the gaps in a manager’s understanding of your leave policies or management techniques and then provide the training to fix them—all without manual input from HR.

3. Employee engagement and retention

When it comes to business success, retaining top talent is probably even more critical than acquiring it. AI can help you keep employees engaged and productive through:

An example is IBM’s WatsonX, which reportedly resolves thousands of employee queries daily, freeing up HR teams to focus on strategic initiatives.

4. Performance management and analytics

Few parts of HR give companies as many headaches as performance reviews. They can be subjective and time consuming, and – as a result – they can also be infrequent. 

AI allows companies to potentially take a more dynamic and data-driven approach to performance management by:

For example, AI dashboards can visualise business, team and individual performance, helping you identify areas for improvement and opportunities for growth.

5. Compliance and payroll

Payroll and compliance aren’t often considered the exciting end of HR, but they’re two of the most important HR-related functions of any business. They’re also often two areas where, if you get it right no one really notices, but get it wrong, and you expose yourself to potentially serious financial and legal risks. 

AI can help your business minimise these risks by:

The challenges of implementing AI in HR 

Despite all of these potential benefits, there are still some genuine challenges associated with adopting AI in HR. Chief among these is making sure all your employee data stays private and that your business complies with data protection laws. 

There are ethical considerations, too. AI is only as good as its data and training – and some AI has been criticised for being notably biased, specifially in regards to recruitment.

Finally, you’ll have to figure out how to balance automation with empathy. While AI may be efficient, it doesn’t have any genuine feelings or empathy. The human touch remains as important as ever in relating to employees, understanding them and reading between the lines.

That’s why the future of HR isn’t just about AI; it’s about how we can use AI to make better HR decisions. 

The businesses that get this right will give themselves a real advantage when it comes to attracting, retaining and getting the most out of their employees. 

Want more?

If you’d like to know about how your business can incorporate AI into its operations for better HR results, get in touch with our HR experts.

Sometimes, an employee can seem to quit their job out of nowhere. But, if you look closely, the writing is often on the wall that an employee is about to leave.

This article looks at the signals employees can give off just before they quit their jobs, and what you can do as an employer or manager to convince them to stay.

1. Their attitude changes

One of the first clues an employee might be thinking of quitting is that their attitude undergoes a noticeable shift. Employees who were once enthusiastic, engaged contributors, can suddenly become withdrawn or disinterested just before they leave.

That said, sometimes the change can be subtle, especially if the employee is hard to read. It may be that they’re less proactive, they start putting off meetings or avoiding tasks.

According to one McKinsey study, disengagement is a common precursor to resignation. Although disengagement doesn’t always mean an employee will resign. Perhaps disturbingly, the study found that 50% of all employees in large organisations were disengaged and 10% of these wanted to quit.

2. Productivity begins to drop

Disengagement is almost always accompanied by a drop in productivity.

When an employee is contemplating their next move, they usually stop putting in the same effort as before. Telltale signs can be things like missed deadlines, incomplete tasks and a general lack of focus.

That said, a drop in performance might not always signal disengagement—it could also point to burnout, personal challenges or issues within the team. Again, by communicating openly and checking in with employees you should be able to get a better understanding of where the issues may lie.

3. They start taking more days off

A rise in absenteeism is another common sign someone is about to walk. Employees planning their exit might be even using this time away from your workplace to attend job interviews or to deal with the logistics of transitioning to a new role.

According to one Gallup study, disengaged employees take 37% more sick days than their engaged counterparts. While there can obviously be very legitimate reasons for taking time off, it’s often a good idea to have an informal check to make sure everything is okay.

4. They start complaining and nitpicking

When employees become dissatisfied or want to leave, they can also become more vocal about what’s bothering them.

That means complaints about company policies, management or workloads might increase. Some employees might also start nitpicking small issues that they would have overlooked in the past. This could be a sign that they’re mentally weighing up their reasons for leaving.

It’s important to listen to these grievances carefully. While they may indicate that someone is planning to quit, they could actually reveal broader issues within the team or workplace.

5. They stop communicating altogether

On the flip side, if an employee has genuinely checked out, they’re just as likely to go quiet as air their frustrations. If someone who typically offers ideas, feedback or concerns suddenly stops speaking up, it could be a sign they’ve disengaged.

When employees stop providing feedback—positive or negative—it often means they’re no longer invested in the organisation’s success: they’re simply waiting for the right moment to leave.

6. Social media changes

Finally, an employee’s social media activity can sometimes provide clues too. Employees planning to quit may start updating their LinkedIn profiles, connecting with recruiters or even interacting with your competitors.

Changes to job title, profile picture or status updates can be subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) signs they’re seeking new opportunities.

While it’s essential you respect your employees’ privacy, observing these changes can help you anticipate turnover.

 

What to do if you think an employee will leave soon

If you suspect an employee is about to leave, it’s time to evaluate the situation and decide on the best course of action.

Here are our tips for what to do if an employee looks like quitting.

Ask whether you should let the employee leave?

Before taking any action, consider whether you want the employee to stay. Staff retention is often something employers pay enormous attention to, given hiring and training replacements can be costly and time-consuming. However, some level of staff turnover is actually healthy and, if someone no longer wants work for you, forcing them to stay can hurt the whole team’s morale and productivity.

Is it worth trying to keep an employee who’s checked out?

Not every disengaged employee is beyond saving. Sometimes, external factors like personal stress or temporary dissatisfaction can make a good employee seem less committed.

A frank conversation can help uncover the root cause and determine if their concerns can be addressed.

On the other hand, if the employee has mentally moved on and their performance is declining, it might be better to let them go. It’s up to you as  manager to weigh up the impact their disengagement might have on the rest of the team, and then decide the best course of action.

What to do when you notice an employee wants to leave

When you notice signs of disengagement, open a dialogue. Ask the employee how they’re feeling about their role and whether there’s anything you can do to support them.

Be prepared to listen—you might uncover problems you weren’t aware of or find ways to improve their experience.

If the employee confirms they’re considering leaving, discuss ways to make the transition smoother for both parties. That might involve helping them exit gracefully or finding a way to re-engage them.

While some turnover is inevitable, understanding the warning signs can help you reduce its impact and retain top talent when it matters most.

In the end, the goal is to create an environment where employees feel valued and supported.

Want more information on staff retention?

If you’d like to know about how to build a great staff retention program in your business, get in touch with our team of expert HR consultants.

Wages soared in the wake of the COVID pandemic, driven by a tight labour market and inflationary pressures. This was particularly true between 2021 and 2022, when unemployment fell to historically low levels and businesses faced significant skills shortages. However, at the end of last year, the RBA released data showing that the rate of wage growth had finally peaked.

But this doesn’t mean labour costs are necessarily falling. Rising superannuation contributions and lingering inflation pressures mean businesses still face cost challenges. We explore what this means for your business in 2025 and beyond.

1. Australia’s post-pandemic wage surge ends

Wage growth surged in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, driven by an exceptionally tight labour market, in which unemployment fell as low as 3.4%.

With skills in short supply businesses scrambled to attract and retain workers, leading to rapid pay increases. By late 2022, however, this post-pandemic surge had peaked as the labour market eased and inflationary pressures began to stabilise.

The RBA says the peak in wage growth first became noticeable in individual contracts, which cover around 40% of all Australian employees. It detected the first signs here in late 2022, as the effect of government COVID subsidies dissipated and economic conditions began to normalise.

Growth in individual contract rates of pay was followed by a slowdown in pay increases under enterprise agreements, which cover roughly 35% of the workforce. These tend to lock in pay deals over a three year period.

The same slowdown then impacted Awards, which cover 10% of the workforce, and under which pay rates are set by the Fair Work Commission.

2.   Why you might still face rising labour costs

But just because wage growth has peaked, businesses aren’t out of the woods yet.

Non-wage labour costs, particularly superannuation increases, as well as lingering inflationary pressures, continue to push up overall labour expenses. For example, even though nominal wage growth has slowed, businesses are seeing higher real costs due to mandated superannuation increases and rising operational expenses driven by persistent inflation.

The RBA breaks these indirect costs down into three categories.

Superannuation guarantee increases

The superannuation guarantee contribution rose to 11.5% this year; next year it will rise to 12%. That means employers are still up for additional costs when it comes to employing staff even though employees don’t necessarily see extra pay in their pockets.

Broader labour cost measures matter

Labour costs go beyond wages alone. The RBA also tracks unit labour costs, which account for super, redundancy payments and changes in workforce composition.

These broader measures show that real labour costs are rising faster than wages, adding pressure to businesses – again, this is largely the result of the increase to the SGC.

Inflationary pressures remain

Peaked wage growth doesn’t mean immediate relief from inflation. The RBA says “sticky” components of wage growth, such as lagging enterprise agreements and award-linked rises, combined with non-wage costs like super, will mean real labour costs come under inflationary pressure for some time yet.

What this means for your business

Even though wage growth has peaked, rising non-wage costs mean you should still need to keep wages front of mind. That means coming up with ways to manage labour costs and maintain competitiveness. Here’s what we suggest.

Labour cost management

1. Think total compensation, not just wages.

It’s easy to get caught in the trap of equating labour costs with wages. But even though wages are the main component, labour costs go well beyond someone’s paypacket.

When you’re assessing the cost of an employee, always take into account the extras, such as super, bonuses, payroll tax, workers compensation and any benefits.

Remember, also, that it’s not always about pay. Non-wage benefits, such as flexible work options, professional development opportunities, employee wellness programs, and clear career progression pathways, have become increasingly attractive to employees and can help boost retention without adding significant cost.

Employees choose their employers for a number of reasons, including workplace culture, the opportunity for career advancement, work/life balance, the level of support they receive and the satisfaction they gain from their work. Think holistically about your team members and focus on these, just as much as the numbers.

2. Negotiate enterprise agreements carefully.

Inflation is still a factor, even if it is not quite as rampant as it was a little while ago. So, if you’re entering into new agreements with your staff, look for ways to balance competitive pay with long-term cost control.

Again, you should try to avoid front-loading pay rises unless they’re absolutely necessary – as you could find yourself paying well above the odds down the track.

Productivity focus

1. Invest in upskilling.

By focusing on boosting workforce skills through skills training, you can help increase productivity, which could go some way to offsetting rising unit labour costs.

2. Leverage technology and automation.

Explore opportunities for automation and streamline your processes to improve output per employee.

Strategic workforce planning

1. Monitor award-reliant roles.

In sectors like hospitality, retail, and healthcare, where many agreements are linked to annual wage review outcomes, keep an eye on potential flow-on effects from award increases.

2. Retain talent in individual arrangements.

If you’re relying on individual contracts, focus on non-wage benefits and career growth opportunities to retain key staff without overcommitting to wage hikes.

Opportunities amid the challenges

Remember, even though total labour costs may continue to rise, slowing wage growth will present a few key opportunities for many businesses.

1. Long-term wage stability

With wage growth peaking, you’ll now have a bit more certainty in planning medium-term labour costs. After all, even though the SGC is rising – you already know how much it will be by (i.e. another .5% at the end of the financial year). Wages growth, which tends to be influenced by the market more broadly, is less predictable. This can help with budgeting, forecasting, and structuring future agreements.

2. A cooling labour market

Lower wages growth is a sign of a cooling labour market. As the labour market eases, talent attraction and retention may become less costly compared to the post-pandemic hiring surge. That means you may ultimately find it easier to secure skilled employees without needing to offer above-market wages.

3. Retaining top talent with non-wage benefits

With rising non-wage costs like superannuation putting pressure on budgets, you should be able to focus instead on non-wage incentives to attract and retain talent. Flexible work options, professional development, and clear career progression pathways can be effective ways to stand out without escalating wage bills.

You can read about some of the ways you can reward employees without a pay rise here.

Want more?

The dynamics of the labour market have changed. Staying ahead in your business means taking account of the new realities and using them to your advantage.

If you’d like to know about how to get wages and employee benefits right in your workplace, get in touch.

 

2025 promises to be the year in which several transformative HR trends will reshape both Australia’s workforce and workplaces. We explore four that your organisation needs to know about.

1. AI-driven HR

AI is revolutionising the way many sectors work, but – to date – HR has been slower to adopt these advancements than functions such as marketing or finance.

While 34% of marketing departments use generative AI regularly, according to one study, only 12% of HR departments have followed suit. However, AI’s ability to enhance HR efficiency and decision-making makes it a potential game changer for the future of human resources.

For instance, AI can streamline hiring by automating job ad creation, candidate screening and cultural fit analysis. Meanwhile, tools such as Employment Hero’s ‘Swag’ can already predict hiring needs and match candidates to roles.

AI also has the potential to transform performance management by aggregating information from multiple sources, and analysing it to deliver data-driven reviews.

Some organisations are already using chatbots (e.g. Telstra’s ‘Darcy’) to provide instant HR support, while people analytics tools identify trends such as attrition risks and help drive targeted training programs. These applications take care of a lot of the routine HR, freeing up HR professionals to focus on where they can really add value.

At the same time, AI adoption in HR isn’t without risks. Algorithms can be biased (as Amazon found out) and safeguards need to be included. So, reliable data and transparent practices are essential.

Still, for all the potential pitfalls, McKinsey estimates that generative AI could reduce administrative work in HR by up to 70%. And 2025 will be the year a lot more companies begin their AI journey.

At Catalina we are taking a deep dive into the ways we can transform our processes using AI so that we can provide our clients with greater efficiency and better data.

2. Tapping into the skills of an older workforce

For many Australians, the concept of retiring at 65 is rapidly becoming outdated. With people living longer, staying healthier, and remaining productive well into later life, older workers represent an increasingly valuable (and significant) segment of the workforce.

In fact, the proportion of Australians aged 55 and older in the workforce more than doubled in the 20 years from 1991 to 2021, from 9% 19%. This was driven in part by more women re-entering the workforce after having children, as well as people delaying retirement.

The signs are that this trend will accelerate over the next decade. After all, by 2030, Australia will have more people aged over 65 than under 18, according to McCrindle.

To tap into this resource effectively, businesses will increasingly need to adopt age-inclusive strategies.

For instance, CEPAR (a cross-university thinktank) highlights the need for organisations to adopt approaches such as the 3i Framework: Include workers across all career stages, Individualise responses to their unique needs, and Integrate mature-age employees into organisational structures.

To do this, it recommends developing workplace policies such as flexible work arrangements, health programs and lifelong learning opportunities.

Again, at Catalina we are looking for ways in which our clients can remove age-related barriers so that our clients can take advantage of this growing demographic.

3. Integrating HR and recruitment

As we move into 2025, the lines between HR and recruitment are blurring. Traditional recruitment models are giving way to integrated approaches, where HR and recruitment work hand in hand to drive long-term success. Catalina Consultants’ Talent Advisory service exemplifies this shift, helping businesses make more strategic employment decisions.

Catalina launched its Talent Advisory service in response to client struggles with filling roles efficiently. By bridging HR and recruitment, we’ve created a process where recruitment supports broader business strategies and better aligns to the HR function. We collaborate with clients to analyse goals, identify talent needs, and develop plans to ensure the right people, with the right skills are in place when needed and ensuring seamless transitions into the workplace for the candidates who are successful.

This integration offers a strategic, cost-effective alternative to traditional recruitment. Instead, recruiters are brought in where their expertise adds maximum value, while HR manages cultural fit and onboarding, ensuring talent acquisition aligns with retention efforts.

4. DEI 2.0

In today’s social and political climate, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts are under more scrutiny than ever. While DEI initiatives have expanded rapidly across workplaces, many HR leaders are facing frustration and pushback from employees.

Data from a 2022 US-based Gartner report highlights these challenges:

These statistics reveal that, while DEI programs are essential, they also need to evolve.

In 2025, we’ll increasingly see companies take a “whole person” approach that moves beyond demographic box-checking. This will involve properly recognising employees’ multifaceted identities—an employee from a minority background might also identify as LGBTQ and be a caregiver, while a white male employee could have a disability and face visa issues. Instead of labels, empathy and belonging must take centre stage.

Organisations embracing this shift will focus on tailored support for employees, addressing their unique challenges and needs. By investing in these programs, businesses can say to employees, “We see you, we support you, and you belong here.” In doing so, they’ll help create inclusive cultures that thrive in 2025 and beyond.

And in a period where the new psychosocial laws are likely to be tested through the court system, it will be more important than ever that businesses recognise the responsibility they have to provide a safe and inclusive workplace for their people.

Want more?

These are four key trends we believe will shape Australia’s workplaces over the next year and beyond.

If you’d like to know what your company can do to respond to – and capitalise on – them, get in touch.

 

If you’re looking to build an effective talent pipeline in 2025, January could be key. Here are five ways your business can make the most of the coming summer months to set it up for success in 2025.

1. Plan early and strategically

Finding a new job is one of the most common New Year’s resolutions people have. In fact, it comes in third behind going on a holiday and being more environmentally aware.

Even those who aren’t consciously making resolutions, often begin to float the idea or test the water when they’re on holidays and away from work.

But at the same time as people are looking for a move, few employers are in the market and actively looking to recruit.  By getting in at the start of the year, you can get a jump on rivals and beat the Autumn rush for talent.

Actionable tips

Identify key hiring needs for 2025 now.  Assess your upcoming projects, pinpoint critical roles and prioritise hiring for roles that you’d like  to have filled before autumn.

Be flexible. Given that it is summer, come up with some realistic timelines that take into account the season’s disruptions like team absences or candidate availability issues.

Create Contingency Plans. Appoint backup interviewers or decision-makers in case primary team members are unavailable. Keep the process moving without bottlenecks.

2. Think casual (then permanent)

Summer can provide a unique window to connect with fresh talent pools, who aren’t available throughout the rest of the year. That could be university students on their extended break, teachers with extra availability or graduates looking to enter the workforce.

These groups can make a great contribution over the summer months and some might even stay on after that, giving you a competitive edge in sourcing candidates who are ready to contribute immediately.

Actionable tips

3. Streamline the hiring process

Summer recruitment is all about striking while the iron is hot. Wait too long, and you may give other businesses the chance to compete for talent that could be yours. Look for ways to simplify and speed up your process to secure top talent before competitors enter the fray.

Actionable tips

4. Leverage employee recognition and engagement

Retaining talent over summer is just as important as finding it – especially as this is the time of year people make decisions to move on (see 1 above).  A positive and engaging workplace helps attract candidates and keeps your team motivated during summer, so that they don’t become someone else’s talent.

Actionable tips

5. Build long-term relationships with seasonal hires

Hiring for summer doesn’t have to be short-term. Seasonal employees can become future assets if managed well, reducing recruitment costs in the long run.

Actionable Tips:

In short…

Summer may be a time for holidays, but it isn’t a time to sit still when it comes to hiring. With the right processes in place, you can set your team up for success at this time of year, even if you’re not around.

Want more?

If you’d like to know what your company can take advantage of the summer months when it comes to recruitment, get in touch.

 

The Christmas holiday period is usually the one time of year many employees get the time they need to relax, decompress and recalibrate for the year ahead. However, it doesn’t always end up that way. For many, the festive season can become a period of heightened stress and emotion, with family obligations, increased financial pressures and other factors.

This can be made much worse if an employee keeps checking in with their workplace. After all, no one can keep working all the time. Trying to do so, is likely to lead to poor mental health, poor productivity and, ultimately, burnout.

So, if you’re an employer or manager, what can you do to make sure your employees use the upcoming break properly and return to the workplace in 2025 recharged and energised? Read on to find out.

Benefits of taking a break from work

Everyone needs some time away from the office. Studies show taking time off and setting boundaries around work communication has powerful benefits for wellbeing and productivity, including:

Why most holidays don’t serve their ultimate purpose

Despite the many benefits workplace breaks bring, as many as 71% of Australians say they return to the office after a holiday without feeling refreshed. And the main cause for this? The blurring of work/life boundaries.

At a time when we should be switching off and letting our mind go to non-work matters, a lot of people still find themselves drawn back to the workplace.

In fact, as many as 40% of Australia employees continue checking their work emails, even when they’re on leave. A staggering 63% use their break to catch up on work they didn’t finish during the year.

Self-inflicted or cultural?

Often, of course, this holiday work is of an employee’s own choosing. We all know team members who can’t drop work even while they’re away from it. We might even be like that ourselves.

But frequently the extra work comes about as a result of workplace culture – or the feeling that we can’t stop working, even when we’re away from it.

But if your business has a culture where people keep working when they’re supposed to be taking a break, it’s probably doing you more harm than good.

That’s because it’s likely to be making staff less happy – a major contributing factor to burnout, and ultimately staff retention.

You need to close down properly (if you can)

One way to make sure staff do fully disconnect is to close the workplace down over Christmas.

Now, we know that not all businesses have that luxury (in retail and hospitality, for instance, it can be the busiest time of year).

But if you do have the opportunity to close down for a while, take it. Having a week or two where people know that there will be nothing happening and there is nothing whatsoever to check in for, could be the one chance people get to really clear their mind.

Besides, during the period between Christmas Day and New Years Day there are already three public holidays and two days of weekend. If you suspend your operations over that period, employees won’t need to eat into much of their annual leave to take a break.

For the record, Catalina Consultants will be closing down at 1pm on Christmas Eve and opening again at 8:30 on Wednesday 8 January 2025.

Don’t expect employees to check in

Next up, you need to allow employees to actually take a break.  That means, when they’re away from the office – whether that’s during close down or just while they’re on a regular break – please, leave them alone.

Don’t expect them to answer emails. Don’t check in with them. Give them some time to themselves.

The reality is – assuming you’re not performing life-saving surgery – there are very few workplace tasks that won’t be able to wait until they return from their break. And, if it really is that important to the functioning of your business, you should probably have someone else who can perform it anyway. (If you don’t you, may have a ‘key person’ issue, suggesting bigger problems within your organisation.)

Encourage people to take leave

One of the main downsides of holidays is when people don’t take them at all – or only take the minimum they have too.

Some workplaces have a culture of letting their employees build up masses of leave which never gets taken; others don’t really keep tabs on how much leave staff are accumulating. If yours is like this, it could be doing you more harm than good – both when it comes to workplace morale and the need to pay unexpected employee entitlements when someone leaves.

So if you haven’t already, you should be encouraging people to take time away from the office. That’s especially true if, at this time of year, you’re likely to see a downturn in work.

Check in post-break

Finally, making sure your employees take full advantage of time away from the office shouldn’t end when they go on leave.

When people come back to the workplace after this festive season, make sure you check in with them to ask how they feel after their breaks.

These informal conversations can help identify any lingering stressors or issues and provide an opportunity to re-align on goals and expectations for the year ahead.

To debrief effectively, you should:

A well-conducted check-in shows employees you value their wellbeing, not just during the break, but every day. This simple step can strengthen workplace trust, foster open communication, and help employees feel more motivated and supported heading into 2025.

Other than that…

Remember, taking regular breaks is vital to employees staying engaged, energised and productive. So make sure it’s not just your employees who get some rest, but that you do too.

Get in touch today to start building a healthier workplace culture.

It’s been a year since we successfully launched our Talent Advisory. As we move into 2025 we reveal how our clients are using the service.

Why Catalina Consultants established a Talent Advisory service

We established our talent advisory service last year because so many of our clients were telling us of the difficulty they had in filling roles. 

It was a natural step to take our outsourced human resources form from focusing on managing, retaining and incentivising staff but also on finding them. We were already helping businesses align their HR strategy with their business objectives. We wanted to be able to help them align their hiring policies with them too. 

We didn’t necessarily remove the need for recruiters altogether, but we did want to make the recruitment process more cost-effective and strategic. The idea was that, where recruiters were needed, they would come in at a stage where they could use their skills to really add value – that they were a part of the hiring puzzle, but by no means the only part. 

We thought there was a gap to be filled, and that our experience put us in the perfect place to fill it. 

One year on, and the demand for the Talent Advisory’s services tells us our instincts were right. 

How Talent Advisory works

Catalina Consultant’s talent advisory moves beyond traditional recruitment to offer an integrated approach to identifying, hiring and onboarding staff where recruitment and HR work hand in hand.

Because our Talent Advisory team is so closely aligned to our HR team we don’t just focus on filling positions. Instead, we work with businesses to analyse their strategy and objectives, and then work backwards to make sure they have the right people in place – equipped with the right skills – to turn it into reality. 

Working so closely with HR, this means our talent advisory takes a more long-term view. For instance, we might notice some hiring gaps that will need to be filled only when certain milestones are reached. However, we can begin working on pinpointing the people to fill them now. 

And when people are recruited, the handover to HR is smooth and seamless, because we work  one team.

How clients have been using talent advisory

One way clients are using the talent advisory is in their forward planning.

Say, for instance, you run a professional services firm and your ambition is to eventually open an office in a new city in 12 months time. Once you’ve identified the areas you want to specialise in and your likely clients, you’ll also need to work out the personnel you’ll need to serve them. Should you do that by moving existing staff to the new office, or by hiring experienced locals? If it’s both, what should the make up of that new office be?

Catalina Consultants’ Talent Advisory can help you analyse the staff and skills you’ll need, and help you weigh up the pros and cons of building up in-house vs hiring local staff already operating in the market. 

If you go down the latter path, we can also pinpoint talent in the city you intend to move into, and even begin confidential discussions. 

At the same time, if you choose the former, our HR team can put the training in place to help your existing technical staff gain the skills they need to manage and grow another office. 

Alternatively, we can help you do both.  

Culture eats talent  

Another way clients have been using Talent Advisory in its first year is to search and find the right people regardless of whether they’re looking to hire or not. After all, in many sectors, finding someone who has the right technical skills and also the right cultural fit remains a serious issue. 

Some organisations have taken the view that, if someone is the right fit for their organisation, they’re willing to sign them up, regardless of whether or not they have a role. 

As one employer said to us: “When a great candidate comes up we would like to interview them because you can always find openings.”

Other employers have asked us to identify, interview and sound out people when they don’t have anything available, so that – when something does come up – the company is already on their radar and they’re ready to go. That way there is no protracted interview and recruitment process, and the business doesn’t skip a beat.

One year on, Catalina Talent Advisory is proving to be the perfect synergy for our core business. Clients love the seamless connection between HR and recruitment as well as the singular focus we take when filling a role. 

We look forward to another year of growth and disruption in this space.

If you’d like to know more about how we can help your organisation, get in touch.

Since December 2022, employers have had a positive duty to take reasonable, proactive measures to eliminate unlawful conduct in the workplace, including sexual harassment, sex-based harassment, discrimination, hostile environments and victimisation.

That includes taking proactive measures to assess the likelihood of the behaviour occurring and then also taking active steps to prevent it. So how do you balance a fun-filled function with your obligations to provide a safe workplace for all.

The truth is these two things are not mutually exclusive! Here are five steps we think you need to take when it comes to hosting a Christmas party in the age of positive duty.

1. Start as you intend to continue

Having a workplace function policy is important, but it isn’t enough on its own. You need to be involved in making sure the real risks are identified and the rules are followed right from the start. That means doing your own due diligence on where the risks are likely to occur for any event, and what these are. For instance, alcohol consumption, venue selection (see below) and even your workplace culture will all play a part in the risk level.

If your workplace has a social committee, they shouldn’t be doing their own thing without oversight. Make sure they know their obligations and take these into account in the planning process. Also, make the committee aware that the final say is the business’s, not theirs – and so is the responsibility if something goes wrong!

2. Choose your venue wisely

Much of the risk in an end-of-year function comes down to the venue. Where do you intend to hold it? What are the risks posed by that venue? Is it open, well lit and central? How will people get to and from there? Will you provide a bus, arrange for taxis or Ubers or some other form of transport?

Make sure you do a venue walkthrough before committing, and confirm their policy on responsible service of alcohol – you don’t want to have them contributing to the potential for something to go wrong.

Finally, before you begin sending out invites, have a definite start and finish time, and make sure this is communicated to the venue as well as the attendees.

3. Be careful with the theme

It might seem harmless enough, but the theme for your end of year party can have a lot to do with the mood. Make it too risqué, and you may be inviting trouble – some employees may even see it as a licence to behave, dress or act a certain way.

Similarly, avoid any controversial or borderline offensive themes, like potentially racist, sexist or discriminating themes. You can still have fun without overstepping what’s actually reasonable.

4. Appoint people to oversee the event

I know, we’re all adults, we don’t need someone checking on us through the night to make sure we’re acting responsibly… at least we shouldn’t. But the reality is, when alcohol and festivities are involved it’s very easy for things to go wrong very quickly.

To make sure you stay compliant on the night, appoint a few people to be in charge. They should be checking in with people, checking in with any bar or function staff to make sure everything is running smoothly, and generally keeping an eye on the event to provide oversight.

Remember also, if you are in a management position, you cannot abdicate your positive duty to others.

A prudent and preventative approach is to send communication before the function reminding people of the function details, of start and end times, and a gentle reminder about your workplace policies relating to appropriate behaviour at social functions. It just may make someone stop and think twice before doing something wrong.

5. Think after the event

Most harassment claims don’t actually occur at the event but after it, when the night draws on and people become more intoxicated. But, as an employer who hosted the event leading up to any incident, you may be liable even for something that happens afterwards.

Communicate to people when the line gets drawn between your event ending and any “private functions” beginning.

Also, if you’re going to do this walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk. Your managers have a responsibility to play here, too. If a senior person or business owner turns up to a private event and something happens then that’s potentially on you. So do everything you can to stay professional.

If any reports of harassment or other bad behaviour emerge, investigate them straight away. It doesn’t matter that you’re almost on holidays – you have a duty.

Have fun

Just because you have obligations for positive duty doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. A lot will have happened over the course of this year and it’s important for your team to celebrate its successes and leave 2024 on a high note.

So make sure you turn up to your function and encourage employees to enjoy themselves. But remember, the office function is still the workplace!

 

Paid parental leave has been a right in Australia since 2011, but it remains a hot topic in the country’s workplaces and a way for the best employers to differentiate themselves from their competitors. 

We explore the trends in paid parental leave today, and what all employers need to know as we move into 2025.

1. A lot of Australian parents get at least some form of parental leave or payment

The Commonwealth government pays eligible employed Australians up to 22 weeks at the national minimum wage when they become parents, through birth or adoption. This will rise to 26 weeks by 2026. It’s worth noting that not everyone gets access to the government scheme. They must meet the following criteria:

Those employees that don’t meet the criteria, may be entitled to receive a baby bonus. This isn’t tied to employment, but just to becoming a new parent. 

To be eligible for the baby bonus, you need to be receiving Family Tax Benefit A, and neither you or your partner must have claimed under the federal Paid Parental Leave scheme.   

2. Two-thirds of employers now offer paid parental leave

While the Commonwealth government may provide a minimum, most employers now offer their own paid parental leave entitlements, according to recent data from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency.

The agency found three out of every five employers now offer some form of paid parental leave. Of these, six percent offered more than 18 weeks. However, the most common length of paid primary carer’s leave was between seven and 12 weeks.  (23% of employers).

That said, there was still a gap between large and small employers. For organisations with more than 250 staff, 90% offered paid parental leave. However, for organisations with fewer than 250 staff, just 54% did.

There was also a disparity between typically “male” and “female” industries, with only 50% of companies in male-dominated sectors offering paid parental leave, while 75% in female-dominated sectors did.

3. Equality in parental leave is now common

That said, while there may still be a paid parental leave gender gap when it comes to sectors. For those that do offer paid parental leave, they increasingly offer the same for both parents, not just one.  

For instance, companies including Deloitte, PwC and Medibank have all introduced policies offering paid parental leave for all employees – moving away entirely from the concept of having just one “primary carer”.

This is part of a trend that recognises the growing importance of having both parents involved in a child’s early years – and one that is likely to filter through to smaller employees over time.

4. It’s getting longer (and more flexible)

Another trend in paid parental leave is that we’re getting more of it. As we noted at the start of the article, the government’s minimum scheme is expanding to 26 weeks by 2026. Many leading employers have started following suit, with some offering 26 weeks full pay or 52 weeks at half pay.

There’s also growing flexibility in how leave can be taken, with options to extend unpaid leave periods, as well as to take it in two hits, to allow a partner to use their leave too.

Companies are increasingly offering additional paid leave for:

The combination of employer and government schemes often allows parents to access longer overall leave periods, too, so that a parent can remain with the child for at least the first year of their lives, and even beyond. 

5. The break in savings is over

One factor that often impacts families where a parent is out of the workforce is a reduction in superannuation. That’s beginning to change on two fronts.

First, an increasing number of employers now offer super payments on top of parental leave. Second, from 1 July 2025 the government’s scheme will also provide super payments on top of the parental leave payment. 

Other benefits some employers offer to minimise the long-term impact of time off include:

6. Parental leave can be a key differentiator in attracting good talent

In an increasingly competitive job market, parental leave policies have become a crucial factor in recruiting and retaining the best talent.

Increasingly, candidates are actively comparing parental leave benefits when job hunting or when headhunted – especially millennials and Gen Z workers. In fact, a Deloitte survey found as many as 77% of employees said the amount of paid leave offered influenced their choice of employer. 

The same Deloitte survey also found 50% of employees would prefer more parental leave over a pay rise, indicating its value in employee retention.

Just as importantly,  comprehensive parental leave policies reflect a company’s commitment to employee well-being and inclusivity. Such benefits are seen as markers of a supportive company culture, enhancing employer branding.

For this reason, companies with good parental leave policies report:

Want more?

In 2025, paid parental leave will no longer be a nice to have, but an essential tool in attracting and retaining the best staff. 

If you’d like to find out more about building an effective and flexible paid parental leave policy in your workplace, get in touch with our team of expert HR consultants. 

Catalina Consultants is a Sydney-based outsourced HR team that will help your organisation and its people reach their potential. 

Is your recruitment helping or hindering your business growth?

Here’s our step-by-step guide to improving your company’s recruitment process so that you accelerate hiring, make better choices, and set your business up for success.

1. Lay the Groundwork

“Failing to plan is planning to fail.” While it may sound cliché, it’s true—especially for hiring. To refine your process, you need to know exactly what you’re aiming for.

Start by assessing the quality of recent hires. This will not only show if your current process is working but will also sharpen your vision of what “quality” really looks like in your team.

Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to complete the following three practical steps.

a. Define ideal candidate profiles

Now that you know what quality looks like, work out what it means for each role. This goes beyond skills and experience; it’s also about the soft skills and values that align with your company culture.

Talk to team leaders and current team members to identify the traits that drive success in each role. From there, you can craft clear profiles for each position, so that when one opens, you’re ready to go.

b. Audit your current process

Look back at recent hires and ask yourself: where did the process lag? Were there stages where candidates dropped out, or decisions took too long?

Pinpoint these bottlenecks and identify areas where you can make improvements—like shorter interview stages or automated pre-screening. Even minor tweaks can make a big difference.

c. Set clear hiring goals and timelines

Now it’s time to set specific goals for each hiring phase, from shortlisting candidates to final interviews.

For example, aim to complete first-round interviews within a set timeframe. Having a timeline gives your team a clear roadmap and allows you to keep the hiring process on track, even if the holiday season gets hectic.

2. Cut the clutter in your hiring process

Now that you’ve laid the foundations, it’s time to simplify. By removing unnecessary steps, you can speed up decision-making and give yourself the very best chance of finding and securing top-quality candidates.

a. Reduce interview rounds

We all know the stories of the investment banks that go through seven rounds of interviews before finally deciding on a candidate. But does it really lead to better hiring decisions?

For most businesses, a long, drawn-out interview process is actually a negative because it leads to “interview fatigue” and deters top candidates (many of whom are likely to have had an offer from a rival before the interview process wraps up).

So, review your interview stages and ask if each one is essential. Can you combine initial phone screens with a first interview? Or, if multiple team members are involved, would a panel save time without losing perspective.

Every business needs to make its own call on where the balance between thoroughness and decisiveness lies. Where that is, will likely depend on the role you’re filling, the state of the employment market, the type of work you do, and how urgently you need someone.

At Catalina Consultants, we generally hold a brief ‘hygiene call’ before hosting two interview rounds and carrying out some psychometric testing.

b. Automate routine hiring tasks

HR technology has come a long way – even over the past couple of years.

With the recent developments in AI and automation, it’s now relatively easy to ‘set and forget’ repetitive tasks like pre-screening, interview scheduling, and background checks.

By doing so, you could potentially cut days off your hiring timeline by handling these details quickly and accurately, leaving you to focus on what matters most—evaluating top candidates.

You can also outsource HR tasks that require a little more effort.

c. Use standardised interview questions

Creating a set of standardised questions for each role not only saves time but also lets you effectively “compare apples with apples”. More importantly, it lets you tie the questions to the definition of “quality” you’ve come up with in Step One above.

With a well-prepared series of interview questions, you can help cut down on repetitive preparation work and streamline candidate evaluations. That usually makes it easier to compare responses and select the right fit.

d. Implement a “Fast Feedback” system

Finally, you can keep the momentum going by establishing a system for quick feedback.

Make a plan to set aside five minutes after each interview to jot down impressions and next steps while the details are fresh in your mind. Better still, do this with a shared platform where those involved in hiring can access feedback immediately, so decisions move forward faster.

3. Enhance the quality of your hiring

Now that you’ve laid a solid foundation and cut out unnecessary steps, it’s time to refine your hiring process to ensure you’re consistently bringing in top talent.

a. Involve key stakeholders

To improve the quality of decisions, think about how you can bring in key team members early in the process. Their insights can sharpen the candidate selection, helping you refine your thinking and highlight any red flags.

This collaborative approach doesn’t mean more meetings; it can be as simple as a brief pre-interview consultation or shared feedback sessions to align on priorities and reduce misalignment. Once you’ve agreed on a format, make these a standard part of the hiring process.

b. Focus on culture

A great hire isn’t just skilled; they’re a good cultural fit. So work out what makes your culture tick. (Regular employee surveys can be fundamental to this.)

You can then add to your interview questions, or even create some hypothetical scenarios to ask, that will reveal how candidates handle challenges or collaborate with teammates.

When candidates align with your company’s values and work style, they’re more likely to succeed long-term, reducing turnover and ultimately saving time on rehiring.

c. Consider strategic HR outsourcing

Bringing in an outsourced talent advisory can help you navigate the challenge of sourcing top talent without adding strain to your in-house team.

For instance, our Talent Advisory services goes beyond transactional recruiting to offer a fixed-fee, tailored approach that aligns hiring with your broader HR strategy. This way, you’re not only filling roles but also building a team that supports your long-term goals.

d. Back it up with data

Now that you have a streamlined hiring process, set up metrics to evaluate how it performs. This can include such things as retention rates, time-to-productivity (i.e. how long it takes a new employee to become a productive team member), or hiring satisfaction scores. These data points will reveal patterns and areas for improvement, helping you make tweaks for future hires.

Quality data can also give you more confidence in the hiring process, as it provides a measurable way to assess whether your streamlined approach is working.

4. Improve efficiency

With your groundwork in place, clutter cleared, and quality standards set, it’s time to fine-tune efficiency. Here’s how to make sure everything is working towards the same end goal.

a. Set clear KPIs for the hiring team

To make sure everyone stays committed to efficiency, define specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for your hiring team now too. These could include time-to-hire, offer acceptance rate, or candidate satisfaction scores.

By tracking KPIs, your team can identify areas for improvement and consistently refine the hiring process.

b. Conduct regular check-ins on progress

Schedule regular (say fortnightly) check-ins to evaluate where each candidate is in the hiring funnel.

These meetings can be brief but serve to identify any hold-ups or decisions that need accelerating. Staying on top of each stage helps avoid last-minute bottlenecks and keeps the timeline on track.

You should also use these to discuss the data you’ve been collecting on recent hires. If you find that certain qualifications, skills, or interview answers correlate with high performance, use those insights to prioritise candidates who fit the profile in future hires.

c. Foster a collaborative feedback loop

Efficiency shouldn’t end with the offer. Make sure feedback flows freely and is documented in real time, even after employees get hired – using your shared platform, if possible.

Coordinate with your HR and onboarding teams to ensure new hires have a smooth transition. A clear onboarding process helps new employees settle in quickly, reducing time-to-productivity and strengthening your long-term hiring strategy.

You can read about how to onboard employees more effectively here.

Want more?

Getting your hiring right can take some work, but it doesn’t have to take a long time.

If you’d like to find out more about how to improve the hiring process in your organisation, get in touch.

Catalina Consultants is a Sydney-based outsourced HR team that will help your organisation and its people reach their potential.

Offering employee benefits once meant simply providing carer’s leave and a salary package. However, today’s employees want something more—something that shows their employer cares about their wellbeing and personal growth, and understands their need for a life outside of work.

As a result, Australia’s employers are getting creative when it comes to offering staff perks and incentives.

Here’s our guide to what some of the most innovative employers are doing in FY 2025 to keep their staff happy.

1. Wellbeing: The new essential benefit

Offering wellbeing support – such as employee assistance programs and access to counselling services – was once usually a perk associated with working at a big corporate or professional services firm. Now, it really has become a base level requirement for employers, regardless of their size or sector.

But in FY2025, employers are taking wellbeing support further, making it a proactive part of office life, rather than a reactive one.

This has especially taken on importance since the COVID pandemic took hold, and remote working became more prevalent. After all, while it might be great for work/life balance, working from home has the potential to bring a raft of other potential mental and physical health concerns. These include the mental health effects of isolation, lack of boundaries between work and personal life, and the physical toll of a sedentary lifestyle without proper ergonomic steps or regular breaks. With Psychosocial Safety now firmly on every employer’s agenda this is no surprise.

Employers are now recognising that supporting employees’ wellbeing requires addressing these issues head-on. The best ones we’ve seen aren’t just offering ways of coping with stress but are also doing things such as:

2. Work-Life balance initiatives

One of the most important factors in keeping many employees satisfied is allowing them to have a life outside of work.

So, while remote working may come with its drawbacks (as mentioned above), it can also be a vital tool in helping employees gain some control over their lives. Many employers are now choosing to do this by having fixed days staff need to be in the office, and days they can work from home.

Others are choosing an ‘office first’ approach, in which the default is the office, but employees can work from home when they’re not needed.

Another option we’ve seen some employers and employees agree to is a “compressed work week”, where instead of performing, say 38 hours over five days, employees can perform it over four. That way, they can have an extra day off each week while still working the same hours.

3. Unlimited or generous holiday policies

In keeping with the theme that time away from the desk is good for mental health, we’re also seeing an increasing number of employers opt for “trust-based” leave policies, such as:

4. Other leave policies

Outside of annual leave, we’re also seeing many employers begin to introduce new types of compassionate or personal leave, many of which recognise the diversity of  modern workplaces. These include:

Each of these can make employees feel more valued by helping support them in their life outside of work.

5. Professional growth and development

One of the key reasons staff leave their employer is that they feel their professional growth is being stifled. We’ve seen some of the best employers address this head-on with initiatives like these:

6. Lifestyle and wellness

As mentioned, lifestyle and wellness are taking on even greater importance as more employees work from home. We’ve seen some employers recognise this by providing off site staff with their own ergonomic assessments (as well as in-house ones for the office too).

We’re also seeing more employers opt for onsite or subsidised fitness facilities. Yoga or Pilates classes, mindfulness and stretching are all becoming more standard across better organisations.

Some are even taking this further and providing special stipends that employees must spend exclusively on exercise or fitness-related activities.

But it’s not just physical wellness that employers are focusing on. Some have introduced financial wellness programs, including free or subsidised financial planning and advisory services or superannuation education and support.

7. Community support

Most employees aren’t only in it for themselves. They also want to know they’re contributing to the greater good, so the best employers in FY 2025 also offer generous community service programs.

Very often, this includes things like:

Measuring the effectiveness of employee benefit programs

How do you tell if an employee benefit scheme is working? It’s a challenge most employers also face. After all, there’s no point spending money unless it also provides results.

Although it’s worth an article in its own right, here are five ways you should be measuring whether your initiatives work or not:

Want more?

In short, there are so many things you can do as an employer to provide your staff with the benefits that will make them engaged and productive, and help you stand out.

If you’d like to find out more about building an effective employee benefits program in your workplace, get in touch.

Catalina Consultants is a Sydney-based outsourced HR team, that will help your organisation and its people reach their potential.

Few things matter more to the success of any business than the quality of its leadership. But developing effective leaders doesn’t happen by chance.

Leadership development is a continuous, hands-on process that plays out across all levels of the organisation, on both a strategic and practical level.

With that in mind, we explore what you should be doing to develop the leaders who will propel your business forward.

1. Identifying “linchpin” roles

Not every role in the organisation requires a leader in the traditional sense. Instead, some roles are about simply getting the job done; others are about how the business fundamentally operates and will grow into the future. HBR calls these “linchpin roles” and notes that these are: “…typically difficult to fill, they are rarely individual-contributor positions, and they usually reside in established areas of the business and those critical for the future.”

According to HBR, these are also the positions that you need to devote most of your time and energy to because you can’t afford to have B-grade players within them.

2. Identifying the leadership pipeline

Once you’ve identified linchpin positions, developing leadership is also about identifying a pipeline of talent that can eventually take over those roles, or even step in to perform should people leave.

This means leadership training shouldn’t be targeted only at the current leaders, but at developing the next generation coming through. In other words, middle management (and even below) counts just as much as senior management.

That said, these days, identifying the leadership pipeline needn’t happen only within your organisation. You can also look for leaders in rival firms and other organisations – for instance, our talent advisory can help you pinpoint the right people for linchpin positions when they do come up.

Although you won’t be able to play an active role in developing these people, you can at least begin developing a relationship with them early on so that they’re ready to come across when you need them.

3. Identifying and targeting skill gaps

Once you know who you want to bring on, leadership training should primarily be about equipping people with the skills to perform the roles you want them to carry out. But that doesn’t necessarily mean sending them off for training (although it’s likely to be part of the solution).

Studies show that on the job training and assignments can be the most effective way to instil the skills your team members will need. Here are some ways we’ve seen the best companies bring on their leaders:

“Stretch” assignments

This involves using discrete projects or tasks to stretch a person’s – or even a team’s – skills and abilities. Get them to step out of their comfort zone and try something they haven’t before. Just make sure you have the guardrails in place in case things go a little off-piste.

By doing this, you won’t just be helping future leaders develop their skill sets, you’ll also make their work more interesting and even enjoyable. That’s not just important for developing leaders, it’s also vital for staff retention. After all, one Korn Ferry study found a third of professionals leave their jobs on the basis they’re bored and need a new challenge.

Rotating people between teams and roles

The best leaders see the big picture: they look out for the business as a whole and not just for their team or themselves. One of the best ways to give a future leader this perspective is to let them see exactly what it’s like to work in a different department, role or location.

You – and they – may even find their skills are better suited to that other role, or that they enjoy the work more. So, by doing this, you may find a leader for another team, too.

Rotating and giving people broader experience lets them see different perspectives, understand sometimes competing priorities and get a sense of what makes others tick. It can also even encourage innovation because it provides fresh eyes across teams, and introduces new points of view and ways of solving problems.

Encouraging ideas and responsibility

One of the main impediments to developing talent can be a rigid hierarchy. If the ideas and opinions come from the top – and only the senior people ever get to oversee them – it makes it harder for people to step up into a leadership role.

The better approach is to encourage everyone to bring their ideas and opinions to the table. (Within reason, of course.) If someone has a good idea for how to improve processes, if they have a view on how things could be done differently or if they have an idea for a new product or service, let them play a part in making it happen.

By giving team members the opportunity to take ownership of their ideas, you’re allowing them to practise decision-making, project management, and communication – all crucial leadership skills.

This approach can also boost employee engagement and motivation, as people feel more valued and invested in the company’s success.

To implement this effectively, consider creating formal channels for idea submission and evaluation.

4. Taking leadership development to the next level

Finally, while a lot of skills can be acquired on the job, coaching and mentoring still play a vital role in leadership development.

Many of the best organisations we see have mentorship programs where senior leaders guide and support emerging leaders as they develop and execute their ideas. However, these programs can range from formal one-on-one mentoring relationships to group coaching sessions.

The key is to create an environment where knowledge transfer occurs naturally and emerging leaders feel supported in their growth.

But effective leadership development doesn’t stop there. If you really want to develop effective leaders within your business, you might also consider:

Remember, leadership development is an ongoing process, not a one-time event.

So, regularly assess your programs, seek feedback, and be prepared to adapt your approach as your organisation’s needs evolve.

By implementing a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach to leadership development, you’ll not only cultivate a strong pipeline of future leaders but also create a more agile, innovative, and resilient organisation ready to face the challenges of tomorrow.

Want more?

Catalina Consultants is a Sydney-based outsourced HR team, offering leadership development services that will help your organisation and its people reach their potential.

If you’d like to learn more, get in touch.

We may be entering a period of economic uncertainty. However, in many sectors, the war for talent remains as fierce as ever, according to Catalina Consultants Principal – Talent Advisory – Anita Shemon.
We sat down with Anita to ask her how employers were helping overcome the challenges of attracting and retaining top talent, and what role Catalina Consultants’ Talent Advisory can play in helping employers.

First of all, can you explain what a talent advisory is and how it’s different from traditional recruiting?

Traditionally, recruiting has focused on filling roles. This means it can sometimes be transactional: the objective is to find someone, and once they’ve been found the contract is over.

A talent advisory has much more of an in-house feel. and takes a more strategic and holistic approach. It’s about being part of the business so that recruitment is aligned with HR. We don’t disappear after placing someone; we’re there for the entire journey, helping both the company and the candidate succeed as we hand over to the HR team.

At Catalina we provide an outsourced service, working with our clients to understand their business operations and everything they do. In this sense, we blur the line between being in-house and external. 

The employment landscape looks a bit different from how it did a couple of years ago, with employers seemingly in a stronger position to attract and keep good employees. How have recent economic changes impacted the war for talent?

While it’s true that the economy has deteriorated and there is less pressure in the employment market, this isn’t uniform. In certain sectors – such as finance and legal the demands have certainly eased but remain steady.

Economic uncertainty does affect how candidates move in the market, but the focus has shifted toward finding the best cultural fit, not just filling gaps. In areas like tech, spending has slowed and many businesses are now positioning themselves to compete for top talent when the market rebounds.

Also, even though it may be easier to find talent, attracting the right talent remains as important as ever. In fact, if anything it’s even more important that you have good employees doing a good job when conditions are less certain than it is during boom times.

You mentioned cultural fit and long-term strategy. How important are these factors in today’s market?

They’re extremely important. What we’ve learned is that it’s not just about hiring someone who can do the job—it’s about hiring someone who will thrive within the company’s environment and contribute to its culture. 

In fact, understanding exactly who will grow and evolve within a role is one of the areas in which Catalina’s Talent Advisory adds real value because of our alignment to the HR strategies and processes.

What kind of challenges are employers facing in attracting top talent, and how does Catalina’s Talent Advisory really help them overcome these?

Despite economic conditions, the main challenge is still navigating a competitive market. But, the flipside is that economic conditions also mean this needs to be achieved as cost-effectively. 

At the senior level especially, we’re seeing global talent pools shrinking. That’s partly a legacy of COVID, when most people stayed where they were or even left Australia to return overseas. Based on this, it’s crucial to find creative solutions. 

Catalina’s Talent Advisory provides a tailored, fixed-fee model, which allows businesses to avoid the high costs of traditional recruitment while ensuring they still get the best talent. 

Additionally, our deep industry knowledge means we’re able to identify potential candidates who might not be actively looking but are a perfect fit. We can cultivate them, and let them know about an employer so that they’re ready to move when there’s an opening.

In short, it’s this long-term, holistic view that takes account of a business’s strategic direction that separates us from many traditional recruiters. 

Want more?

Catalina Consultants is a Sydney-based outsourced HR team, offering consulting services.

If you’d like to learn more about our Talent Advisory Services get in touch.

A solid HR strategy is one of the important ways to make sure your human resources function drives your business forward in Financial Year 2024/2025. We look at how you can develop an effective one in a changing business environment. 

What is an HR Strategy and why do you need one?

A human resources strategy is a comprehensive plan designed to manage and develop your human resources in line with your overall business goals. It serves as a roadmap for HR functions such as talent, development, performance and employee engagement. 

Like any great business strategy, an effective HR strategy should be bespoke. It also shouldn’t be set in stone, but should address immediate workforce needs and also anticipate future challenges. 

Most importantly, it should be flexible enough to adapt to both the micro and macro economic environment in which you’re operating.

In 2024, the economic conditions look very different from a couple of years ago. Costs are being cut, budgets reined in and – and in many sectors at least – there often simply isn’t as much work available as there once was. 

With that in mind, we take a look at the characteristics the best HR strategies will share in Financial Year 2024/2025.

1. Data-Driven: Making informed decisions through analytics 

In 2024, an effective HR strategy will be built on a foundation of data and analytics. 

After all, there are more tools available than ever before (and at much lower cost) to help any business track metrics such as employee engagement, turnover rates, and productivity.

By actively looking to measure and monitor these metrics, you’ll be able to get valuable insights into your workforce dynamics. You’ll have the chance to identify trends, make informed decisions and address issues before they become significant problems.

That’s why the best HR strategies will be data-driven and based on fact rather than feelings or assumptions about where to focus energy. 

Action: Ensure your HR team is providing you with the lead and lag data indicators so that you can make the right decisions for your workforce.

2. Be flexible to meet changing conditions

Over the past few years the economy has been entirely unpredictable. The COVID-19 pandemic proved a boon for many sectors while ruining others. Since then, high inflation and interest rates have had an equally uneven impact on different industries.

The labour market has also been hard to forecast, with labour shortages and a war for talent recently giving way to a much looser job market, where employers have more clout.

The best businesses adapt to changed conditions, adjusting their workforce needs and even business objectives in line with what’s happening more broadly.

This means an effective HR strategy also needs to be flexible to pivot when circumstances change. 

In other words, you should be regularly reviewing and adjusting your HR strategy to make sure it stays relevant and effective, whether that involves adopting new technologies, redefining roles, or even implementing new workforce models like hybrid or remote work.

Action: Build in a review mechanism so that you are regularly revisiting the HR strategy developed – we recommend doing this on a quarterly basis.

3. Align your HR strategy with your core values

An HR strategy doesn’t operate in isolation but is influenced by the realities of how your business operates. So, if you have a bad workplace culture, even the best-looking and most detailed HR strategies are unlikely to succeed. 

That’s why your HR strategy should always embody your organisation’s ethos. It should align with the values you want to flow through your organisation to guide everything about the way employees are recruited, managed, and developed. 

In doing so, you’ll help foster a cohesive and motivated workforce that isn’t just capable but also committed to the company’s mission and vision.

Action: If you haven’t revisited your core values recently, maybe now’s the time to do so, to ensure they are alive and well!

4. Focus on your people

At the heart of any successful HR strategy is a focus on the people who make the organisation what it is. 

Prioritising employee well-being and development is essential for maintaining a healthy, engaged, and productive workforce, and more than ever with psychosocial obligations this should be front and centre of your strategy.

Your HR strategy should take into account the factors that help do this. This might include employee wellbeing programs, opportunities for continuous learning, and steps to build a supportive and inclusive work environment. It may even be questioning the whole basis for how you make money!

Action: Understand your inherent risks and build a plan to proactively manage these risks through a well-being lens.

5. Develop your leaders

Your HR strategy should also look to the future and take into account how your company will be led.  Let’s face it, people don’t just wake up one day and become leaders overnight – we need to develop them.

Effective leadership development is about more than just training programs—it’s about creating an environment where potential leaders can emerge and thrive.

That’s why your HR strategy should explore leadership training programs that focus on skills like emotional intelligence as much as strategic planning.

You could also look to promote mentorship programs that pair emerging leaders with experienced executives.

The best companies will also integrate leadership into their performance management systems to identify and develop high-potential employees early.

6. Outsource your HR strategy

Putting together a comprehensive and effective HR strategy isn’t easy. It takes time, understanding and knowing. That’s why working with an independent HR consulting firm can be a game changer. 

By outsourcing your HR strategy, you’ll get access to dedicated specialists who understand the latest compliance requirements, industry trends, and best practices. They’ll provide tailored advice and support that you might not have the resources to develop in-house.

Outsourced HR services can also provide a cost-effective alternative, letting you focus on initiatives that drive business growth. This can be particularly valuable if your company is in a phase of scaling-up or restructuring.

By partnering with Catalina Consultants, you can ensure your HR strategy is aligned with your business goals. 

We can also act as your dedicated HR team, providing everything from virtual HR services to on-site support, ensuring you have the right people and processes in place to achieve your long-term goals.

Action: Call us!

Want more?

Catalina Consultants is a Sydney-based outsourced HR team, offering consulting services.

If you’d like to learn more about how to transform your organisation’s HR strategy get in touch. 

Are exit interviews really worth the time and effort? Or are they just a waste of time and resources? We discuss the pros and cons of carrying them out in your workplace, and look at the alternatives.

What is an exit interview?

An exit interview is a structured conversation between an employer and a departing employee. It’s designed to gather feedback on the employee’s experience, reasons for leaving, and insights on potential improvements.

Exit interviews are usually conducted by a representative from HR, who’ll ask the employee questions on things like job satisfaction, management, and workplace culture.

What are the benefits of exit interviews?

For employers, we think there are four main reasons to consider holding exit interviews.

1. Understand why employees are leaving

Because employees tend to be less guarded during exit interviews, they can help you uncover management issues that may be causing people to leave. For instance, you might get insights into perceived poor leadership, a lack of support or ineffective communication.

Exit interviews can highlight how employees truly feel about the atmosphere, inclusivity, and morale. (You’ll also potentially have the chance to find out whether your workplace culture may not be all that you’d hoped it was.)

Finally, if an employee is leaving because of lack of career growth, it may help you better develop your own leadership or professional development programs.

2. Improve retention

Speaking of which, exit interviews aren’t just about understanding past behaviour, they’re also future-oriented. For insurance, if you find multiple employees leave citing the same problem—like lack of recognition or burnout— it should give you the opportunity to come up with solutions, such as looking at your employee recognition program or work-life balance initiatives.

If poor management is pushing staff out the door, you might consider investing more heavily in leadership development programs to improve managerial skills and foster better relationships between staff and supervisors.

In essence, exit interviews could help you identify potential cracks in the system that, if left unchecked, could lead to high turnover and lower job satisfaction across the board.

3. Learn about workplace dynamics

Often, exit interviews provide a rare and candid view into the internal workings of the organisation. You might learn about unresolved conflicts or issues like poor collaboration, cliques, or unhealthy competition. You might even find out about ineffective managers who’ve been able to fly under the radar.

In short, by getting an insight into the unspoken rules, daily work atmosphere, or morale, you can identify where the company culture is potentially toxic, stagnant, or a mismatch for employees.

4. Benchmark Against Competitors

When employees leave for better opportunities, they often have valuable insights into what makes other companies more appealing. If an employee is willing to share information with you, an exit interview might even give you the chance to compare salaries and benefits, as well as evaluating other features of your workplace against your competitors.

The downside of exit interviews

So, if exit interviews offer all this intelligence, why are they not always fashionable?

First, a lot of organisations don’t do them properly – usually because they do nothing with the data they receive. They don’t act on the feedback or use it to inform their future decision making, but just place it on the employee file (which will soon be closed anyway) and forget about it forever.

Then, there is the reliability question. Even though a good exit interview can be a gold mine of quality information, often employees will just give you what you want to hear – sugar coating their answers to make it quick and painless. Their data therefore effectively becomes useless.

Finally, by their very nature, exit interviews focus on past experiences. Many businesses stop at this, and analyse what has happened rather than looking at ways to improve in the future.

How to run an effective exit interview

Many of these challenges can be overcome by making the right decisions and putting the right processes in place. So if you want to get the most out of exit interviews, here’s what we think you should do.

1. Ensure everything said remains confidential. Even though the employee may be leaving you, they’re far less likely to provide their full and frank opinion if they think their comments could back to others. After all, most people don’t want to burn bridges if they can help it. So tell the employee how the information from the interview will be used, and make sure they know the cone of silence is down.

2. Choose the right interviewer. Employees will usually be less frank with someone they know. So a neutral party or third-party interviewer can lead to more honest and valuable insights. Consider who can best play this role – even if its a manager from another department altogether.

3. Ask the right questions. Ask the departing employee about specific reasons for leaving, experiences with management, and suggestions for improvement. You could even let them know at least some of the questions in advance so that they come prepared. Focus on fact-based, non-emotional feedback to avoid confrontational or bitter exchanges.

Alternatives to exit interviews

If you’re still unconvinced or on the fence about performance interviews, the best alternative is an effective employee feedback system. That way you should be able to catch any issues well before an employee decides to leave.

In fact, good employee feedback is the fuel that helps any organisation build a better culture.

So, if you’d like any help building a comprehensive employee feedback system, or in implementing effective exit interviews, get in touch.

With cost of living and economic pressures taking their toll on many businesses, we’ve been noticing a growing number of redundancies taking place in 2024. 

If your business finds itself in the position where it needs to make certain roles redundant, there are important rules and regulations you need to comply with – some of which have recently changed due to recent case law and updates to legislation.

Here are some recent(ish) developments every business needs to know about redundancy in 2024.

1. Courts rule redundancy should be a last resort 

Redundancies are only legal when they’re ‘genuine’. That means you can’t generally claim an employee’s role is redundant but sack them for another reason, such as poor performance.

In Helensburgh Coal v Bartley (2024), the full court of the Federal Court found that terminating someone’s employment due to redundancy should only be used as a last resort. 

That’s because a dismissal could only be a ‘genuine redundancy’ when all other options were first considered, including: 

It’s also worth considering here, Turnbull v Symantec (Australia) Pty Ltd, a case decided a decade ago in the context of a worker returning from parental leave. While this case related to the parental leave provisions of the Fair Work Act, it was found an employer even needed to consider redeployment with a related entity based in Singapore before terminating a worker’s employment after her role was made redundant.

2. No “small business entity” exemption for insolvent businesses

Small businesses (i.e. those employing fewer than 15 people) are generally exempt from having to make redundancy payments under the National Employment Standards.

Previously, this was exploited by some larger businesses, who would gradually shed staff in the lead up to a larger round of redundancies so that they fell under the 15 employee threshold. 

The Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Act 2023 changed the way the small business redundancy exemption applies in the context of insolvency.

Now, employers must still make redundancy payments even when they’re bankrupt or in liquidation, if they only became a small business employer by dismissing staff in the six months previously. 

Employers should also remember that some employees are likely to have redundancy entitlements under Awards or Agreements. These continue to apply regardless of the Small Business Exemption under the NES. 

3. Duty to consult must be genuine too

Speaking of which, it’s always worth remembering that Awards and Agreements often contain a ‘duty to consult’ over redundancies. These clauses usually make it incumbent on the employer to consult with any impacted employees “as soon as practicable” within the decision-making process. 

In one 2020 case, Freebairn v Dandiee, an employee was purportedly made redundant in the wake of the COVID pandemic. At the redundancy meeting, the worker’s supervisor told her she would be “better off” claiming JobSeeker payments, and asked if she had any questions or comments. She was then told her role was redundant.

The FWC found this didn’t meet the award’s consultation provisions, and that – if genuine discussion had taken place – it was likely the worker would have reduced her hours to two or three days a week. This also would have let her stay until JobKeeper payment began.

The FWC then ordered the employer to pay the difference between what she would have earned if she had stayed on and what it had already paid.

4. Increases to redundancy entitlements

Finally, the NES provisions on redundancy pay are just a minimum. If there are any contract, Award or Agreement provisions that contemplate redundancy, their provisions also need to apply.

These entitlements can vary and some may have recently been increased so it’s crucial to check the specific instruments that apply to your employees.

You should also keep in mind that the FWC and courts can sometimes award employees more than the statutory minimums, particularly in cases where employers have failed to follow proper procedures or have acted unfairly.

Again, that’s another reason to keep up with any changes to redundancy laws and to apply them fairly and transparently. 

In short…

Get in touch to find out how we can help your organisation.

In financial year 2025, recruitment is more sophisticated, nuanced and technologically advanced than ever before. It’s also more effective. We explore the seven trends employers need to know about.

1. Skills over degrees

There was a time when employers and recruiters prioritised qualifications over almost anything else. Even entry level jobs seemed to require degrees. Needed a marketing assistant, they had to have finished a marketing degree (preferably with honours).

The labour shortages of the past few years have led more employers to connect the dots and understand that skills matter most. And, while sometimes they may have been acquired working in the same field, sometimes they may not have.

As a result the best companies and recruiters in FY25 can see through the marks, and connect the dots on how skills and experience gained in one role can translate into the next.

2. A broader talent pool

With remote and hybrid work becoming the norm since COVID-19, employers many looking to recruit for a position have a broader talent pool than ever before. That is, of course, so long as they’re prepared to be flexible in their working arrangements (and the
nature of their work allows it).

We see this as a win/win relationship between employers and employees. By offering flexible work, organisations get access to talent they may not otherwise be able to tap into. For employees, increased autonomy usually leads to greater job satisfaction.

3. Increased use of AI and automation

Generative AI may only be relatively new still (ChatGPT came out in November 2022), but it’s already making headway into the world of recruitment. AI-driven tools are being used to automate tasks such as resume screening, interview scheduling, and even to create personalised job descriptions.

This trend is reducing recruitment costs, speeding up the hiring process, and improving the accuracy of the candidates employers are selecting.

While currently many of these tools, such as Paradox and Humanly, are focused on volume hires, it’s likely that we’ll see new AI emerge to complement the role of recruiters in attracting more specialist and skilled labour too. The result should hopefully be better, faster recruitment, a stronger workplace culture and better employees.

4. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) to remain centrestage

DEI has been a major concern in recruitment over the past few years, and for good reason. Studies show that diverse workplaces carry genuine advantages over more homogenous ones. According to a 2015 survey of Harvard Business School alumni, 76% of senior executives believed “a more diverse workforce improves the organization’s financial performance.”

In FY25, companies are moving beyond simply acknowledging the importance of DEI. They are implementing concrete measures to build more inclusive workplaces. This includes revising job descriptions to eliminate biased language, expanding talent pools
to include underrepresented groups, and providing DEI training for hiring managers. This isn’t simply about meeting quotas, it’s about creating environments where diverse voices are heard and valued, leading to better decision-making and innovation.

5. Renewed focus on mental health and employee wellbeing

The importance of mental health and wellbeing has been gaining prominence in many workplaces. Now many employers are also seeing the value in using comprehensive mental health and wellbeing policies as recruitment tools.

Companies that demonstrate a genuine commitment to supporting their employees’ work-life balance and overall wellbeing often find it easier to attract the best talent. That’s one of the reasons, you’ll find these policies featured prominently on all the major
corporates’ recruitment pages.

6. Emphasis on soft skills

Just as recruitment is no longer all about academics, it’s also no longer just about hard skills either. In FY25, most employers recognise just how important ‘soft skills’ are – even when it comes to the most technical and sophisticated work.

The ability to communicate effectively, adapt to changing circumstances, and work well in a team are just as critical as knowledge and experience. After all, the specifics can be learned – relating to people is much harder to teach.

The best companies are increasingly investing in behavioural interviews, personality tests, and situational judgement tests to evaluate just how well a potential employee might fulfil a role.

7. Employer branding and employee experience

Increasingly, recruitment isn’t just about going out to candidates, it’s about making candidates want to come to you. Strong employer branding is essential.

This means making sure the company’s culture, values, and mission are on full display in outward facing communications (such as social media). It also means showcasing what makes your organisation a great place to work.

More than ever, today’s job seekers are doing their homework; they’re looking at company reviews, employee testimonials, and even how companies respond to social issues before deciding where to apply.

In short…

In FY25, it’s clear that the recruitment landscape is rapidly evolving faster than ever. From the increasing importance of soft skills and mental health to the rise of AI and the continued focus on DEI, staying ahead of these trends is crucial for any organisation
looking to attract and retain top talent.

It’s this pace of change that partly led us to develop our own Talent Advisory.

We stay on top of the trends and best practices across industries and around the globe. Whether you’re looking for a full-service talent advisory partner or support in specific areas like talent strategy, interview training, or personality profiling, Catalina Consultants can help you turn your business’s recruitment into a competitive advantage.

Get in touch to find out how we can help your organisation.

The way we organise teams in 2024 looks very different from a decade ago. As a result, the way we manage the performance of those teams – and the individuals within them – needs to adapt too.
We look at the key elements of today’s business and HR landscape and analyse how they impact performance management for your organisation.

1. Understand we’re in a different economic environment

It has been an interesting ride for the economy over the past few years. In 2020, when the pandemic first hit, several sectors – especially face-to-face retail and hospitality – were severely impacted. However, others, such as professional services, tech and financial services, didn’t seem to miss a beat.

In fact, what followed was a boom for these industries, where revenue grew (often aided by government-funded subsidies), wages rapidly climbed and a war for talent began to rage.

Many employers took the view that they needed to do what they could to retain talent. For some, this meant allowing employees more latitude when it came to how and when their work was completed. For others, it meant letting a lot of things slide…

In 2024, the economic conditions look very different from a couple of years ago. Costs are being cut, budgets reined in and there often simply isn’t as much work available as there once was.

Against this backdrop, power has shifted from employee to employer. But does that mean a return to pre-pandemic management styles? Not necessarily.

2. Figure out how you’ll incorporate flexible working

While economic conditions may have changed, many of the trends that the pandemic accelerated seem here to stay. Perhaps none of these was more profound than the shift to remote working. Although this happened first out of necessity – with lockdowns and social distancing compelling people to stay out of the office – it has now become standard for people to work from home, at least some of the time. And this has profound repercussions for the way we need to manage staff for high performance.

Each business owner and manager really needs to analyse which model suits their business and its culture best. Some may decide this means a full return to the office; others may decide it means allowing employees to never come into the office at all. Most are likely to find, however, that it has already led to a combination of the two, where employees have some onsite days and some days where they can choose to work from home.

3. Get structure right

Managing performance with remote employees introduces new challenges, as many businesses have found over the past few years. However, I’ve almost universally found that many of these can be overcome through structure.

That means scheduling regular one-on-one, team and even organisation-wide catchups, and making these a non-negotiable, no matter where employees are working from.

That doesn’t necessarily mean having all employees attend the office – a lot can be done via Zoom or Teams – but it does mean checking in and monitoring productivity for all staff. That said, I’d always encourage managers to have any difficult conversations face-to-face where possible.

4. Focus on results

While structure is vital, one thing that has really changed over the past few years is a shift in focus from how and where work gets done to the results. For the best workplaces, productivity and output have replaced long hours and presenteeism as the
measure of success.

This means performance management in 2024 is not about time spent at a desk, but at the quality of work that’s being produced.

So rather than emphasising working hours, set clear, measurable goals and hold employees accountable for delivering results, regardless of their work environment.

When you do, establish clear performance metrics that align with your business objectives. Communicate these expectations transparently to your team and make these the focus of everything you do.

5. Think coaching and mentoring, not review

As long ago as 2018, we asked whether performance reviews were dead or just evolving. I think we can now say for sure that the traditional performance review has had its day.

Instead of the traditional annual performance review – which was essentially a big reveal to an employee on how they were tracking – the best businesses in 2024 have built constant feedback into everything they do. This means the focus has shifted away from once-off meetings to ongoing coaching and mentoring, where employees are empowered to make mistakes, take risks and ask constant questions.

The result is that employees and employers are more open and honest, but also more closely aligned. There is no need to use the review as a mechanism for taking corrective action, because small issues are dealt with in a collaborative environment as and when they happen.

6. Show employees you care with feedback

More than ever, employees who leave their jobs do so because they feel undervalued. To avoid this happening, employers shouldn’t just manage employee performance – they should also make sure they’re getting things right from their end too.

The best way to do this is through constant feedback on the company and the team. This should be formal – through regular employee questionnaires – and informal, through an ‘open door’ management policy.

You should also be quick to pass on any feedback to employees or management to make sure any small issues don’t become big ones.

7. Linking performance with pay

In 2024, effective performance management also means rethinking how you reward and incentivize your employees. After all, while employees value factors such as culture and autonomy, for most people money still motivates.

With this in mind, the more you can link your employees’ pay with the productivity and performance, the more likely you are to have engaged employees. This should generally include setting personal, team and even company performance objectives and linking bonuses, equity programs or profit sharing to them.

In short, the more your employees’ objectives align with the organisation’s, the less likely you are to face performance management issues.

That said, you’ll need to work out how to do this while still fostering a collaborative and harmonious culture that values all contributions.

In short…

Performance management in 2024 looks a lot different than it did a decade ago. Instead of focusing on performance reviews, it involves a holistic, nuanced and less authoritarian approach to managing staff.

Want more?

If you’d like to learn more about how to transform your organisation’s approach to performance management get in touch.

Catalina Consultants is proud to announce that we’ve been officially certified as a Great Place to Work – a testament to the collaborative and supportive culture we’ve built
together.

We take a look at why we pursued this certification and what it means for our employees and clients. You can also listen to me being interviewed about the process here.

What is ‘Great Place to Work’ Certification? 

Great Place to Work is the Global Authority on Workplace Culture. Its certification program is designed to identify and recognise companies that create exceptional employee experiences. 

To achieve this recognition, we underwent a rigorous two-step process:

To become certified, we needed to achieve an overall score of 65%. We didn’t just achieve this – we far surpassed it, achieving 95% overall, and even hitting 100% in some categories.

For us, this showed we were genuinely creating something special at our workplace, and highlighted how engaged and satisfied our team members were. 

Why did we get certified?

We thought there were a few compelling reasons to become Great Place to Work certified.  

Attracting top talent. In an age of labour shortages, we believed certified would be a great way to prove to potential recruits this was a place they would enjoy working at. It showed them this would be somewhere they’d have the opportunity to grow their careers, and would be the kind of workplace they wanted to turn up to each day.

Leading by example. As HR consultants, we wanted to ‘put our money where our mouths were’ when it came to our clients. We often advise businesses on how they can build a good workplace culture, and we thought it was vital that we show we’re doing the same. Certification would be official recognition that we have the same elements in place that we’re asking others to implement in their organisations. 

Client benefits. Beyond this, we believed there were some advantages for our clients in becoming certified too. After all, if we were using it as a way to attract the best staff, which means we can also provide the highest quality of work. It also means clients can be confident they’re working with a happy team that values workplace culture. 

Should your business try to get Great Place to Work certification?

Our view is: absolutely. 

In many ways, going through the certification process is a comprehensive health check for your organisational culture: one that allows you to pinpoint strengths but identify areas for growth. 

Beyond this, certification can be a powerful tool for talent acquisition – helping you stand out in a market where competition for quality candidates is high. 

But if you’re considering doing it, we think you should also be prepared for negative feedback. Treat this as a learning opportunity. After all, the point of certification isn’t only to give you outside validation on what you’re doing well, but also to highlight areas you can improve on. 

So make sure all employees feel valued and heard through the certification process, and use any negative insights to create a more engaging and productive workplace.

Remember, the goal isn’t perfection but rather a commitment to continuous improvement. Ultimately, it’s about creating a workplace where employees feel valued, supported, and inspired to contribute their best. 

Want more?

Listen to me being interviewed about becoming a Great Place to Work.

You can also read more about how to avoid the most common mistakes around workplace culture.

Alternatively, visit the Great Place to Work website, or if you have any questions about getting certified, feel free to speak with one of the Catalina Consultant team members today.

A new financial year always means new changes to Human Resources.

We explore seven key HR changes likely to impact your workplace.

1. Tax cuts

The amount of PAYG you need to deduct from employees’ pay has just fallen. That’s because, on 1 July 2024, the government’s Phase 2 tax cuts came into effect.

The changes include:

The tax cuts will put up to $4,529 into every employees’ paypacket – something that will come as a welcome relief to many, given the rising cost of living.

Employers will need to make sure they’re taking the correct amount out of employees’ pay.

2. Super changes (again)

At the same time as you take less tax out of employees’ pay, you’ll need to contribute more super on their behalf. That’s because the Superannuation Guarantee Contribution (SGC) went up again at the start of this financial year – this time to 11.5%.

The SGC rate has risen rapidly in recent years, going up 0.5% in 2022, 2023 and 2024. Next year, it will go up one final time before it settles at 12% in FY2026, which is ultimately where the government wants it to be.

Other changes to super include:

3. A new minimum wage

From 1 July 2024, the National Minimum Wage increased to $24.10 an hour, or $915.90 based on a 38 hour week. This base rate applies to all employees not covered by an Award or Enterprise Agreement.

The base rate is also used to calculate special rates based on type of employment, age (i.e. employees under 21) and work capacity.  These include:

Wage typeWho applies toAmount or rate
Casual loadingCasual employees25% on top of the National Minimum Wage
Special National Minimum Wage 1Adult employees with a disability that does not affect their productivity.Same as National Minimum Wage
Special National Minimum Wage 2Employees:

–       with a disability impacting the level of productivity needed for their class of work

–       who meet the impairment criteria for a Disability Support Pension.

A percentage of the National Minimum Wage based on capacity
Special National Minimum Wage 3Employees under 21A percentage of the National Minimum Wage based on age
Special National Minimum Wage 4ApprenticesA rate based on clause 15 of the Miscellaneous Award 2020
Special National Minimum Wage 5TraineesA rate based on Schedule E of the Miscellaneous Award 2020

4. Unfair dismissal threshold raised again

High-income earners don’t have access to our federal unfair dismissal laws and can’t bring a claim in the Fair Work Commission.

The cap for what constitutes a high-income earner has been raised again, this time from $167,500 to $175,000. However, an employee who exceeds this threshold can still access the Fair Work Act’s general protection provisions.

5. The right to disconnect becomes law

From 26 August 2024, all non-small business employers will be bound by new provisions allowing employees to disconnect from work outside their usual work hours. The same provisions come into effect for small-business employers the same time next year. These changes were part of the government’s Closing Loopholes legislation.

You can read more about the right to disconnect here.

6. Changes to the Government’s Paid Parental Leave payments

On 1 July 2024, Parental Leave Pay for eligible birth and non-birth parents increases from 100 days (20 weeks) to 110 days (22 weeks). For more information about the Paid Parental Leave Scheme changes, go to the Services Australia website.

7. Closing Loopholes provisions

Finally, several other provisions from the federal government’s Closing Loopholes legislation also come into effect this financial year.

As of 1 July, all Modern Awards must include terms governing delegates’ rights to enter a workplace for alleged underpayment. Similar provisions will be needed in new workplace determinations and enterprise agreements.

On 26 August, new provisions regarding the definitions of employee and casual also become law, as well as provisions that govern independent contractors’ ‘unfair contracts’ disputes.

Again, breaching these provisions can lead to serious exposure and loss of reputation, so, if you’re ever in doubt, make sure you get advice.

Are you FY25 ready?

As FY25 begins, there are plenty of HR-related changes that businesses need to be on top of.

If you have any questions regarding the changes or are keen to find out how they could impact you or your business, speak with one of the Catalina Consultant team members today.

Over the past five years, our workplaces have probably changed more rapidly than at any time in history. But how will the office of the future look? We explore.

Remote working: back to the future?

The push for flexible working has been going on for a while now—as far back as the 1960s, German companies began allowing employees to work flexible hours to beat commuter traffic. However, flexibility really only became the norm for most workplaces during the pandemic, when lockdowns and social distancing forced people out of their offices and into their homes.

Now that most white-collar workers have had a taste for work out of the office, they want more. An ACTU survey found that 81% of Australians wanted to work from home all or most of the time – so long as they had adequate support.

Overall, around 37% of Australians now work from home. This represents a massive change from pre-COVID times when only 12% of people reported working from home most days, and another 10% worked from home at least one day a week.

While some employers are ‘clawing back’ people’s flexible working time, many others see it as a tool to attract and retain the best employees. So, the more of an ‘employees’ market’ it is, the more likely we are to see remote working as standard.

Some employers, especially those in professions and highly technical work, have even started using remote working as a tool for overcoming labour shortages. By allowing people to work from anywhere, they can access skills not readily available in their local area.

The borderless, and at least partly remote office, is already here for many companies – especially some of the larger ones. We think it’s a trend that will impact more organisations in the coming years, especially smaller ones, as they look globally to compete for talent. 

 

Freelancing to become the norm?

Another real change we’ve seen over the past decade has been a massive rise in contracting and freelancing – so much so that, according to one report, freelancers now make up more than a third of the Australian workforce. 

This isn’t just ‘gig economy’ workers that rely on delivery apps and low-paid work. We’re increasingly seeing highly skilled workers going freelance, selling their services to a range of organisations rather than just one employer. 

When combined with the rise in outsourcing, this has pushed a lot of work that was once done in-house by generalists into the hands of experts who work on a contract rather than a salary basis.

We believe that this is very much the way of the future, with organisations increasingly looking to focus on their core competencies. At the same time, they will move other functions out of house.

 

The rise and rise of generative AI

It’s impossible to talk about the future of the workplace without also talking about AI.

ChatGPT—the first widely used large language model (LLM) built on generative AI—only became public in November 2022. By the start of 2024, it had more than 180 million users and 1.6 billion website visits.

Studies have also revealed that more than 57% of American workers have tried ChatGPT, and 16% use it regularly for work. 

But we’re still very much in the infancy of the generative AI revolution, and it’s likely it will have a massive impact on the future of work.

Already, we’re seeing some of the world’s biggest companies implementing AI in their operations. Companies like Google and Amazon use it to power their customer service interactions. J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs have deployed AI throughout their organisations, including to help with fraud detection and investment strategies. 

As the technology takes off and gains acceptance, it’s likely that some jobs will disappear. Yahoo! listed 16 occupations it believes will be replaced by AI, including translation, entry-level writing and proofreading, data entry, legal research, and even accounting. However, it also noted that we’re likely to see new ones emerge and that existing ones are likely to change.

Yahoo! also notes a Goldman Sachs report that found any job losses tend to be offset by newly created jobs. For instance, when the internet displaced hundreds of thousands of jobs in fields such as postal work, print, video stores, and travel, it created hundreds of thousands of new jobs in things like web design, digital marketing, app development, and data science.

Another factor to consider is that AI is likely to change how we do our jobs. For many of us, it may be able to significantly reduce the amount of time spent on administrative and routine tasks. That could, in turn, free us up to spend more time on high-value strategic work.

 

What this means for us… 

We’ve already seen the workplace undergo remarkable changes over the past five or so years. In the next half-decade, we believe it will change just as rapidly.

These trends mean our workplaces are likely to become more global, with in-house teams pairing up with specialised freelancers, contractors, outsourced service providers, and AI.

As a result, the workplace of 2029 will be so different from the one of 2019 – and even of 2024 – that parts of it will be almost unrecognisable.

Our job as HR professionals, managers, and business leaders is to stay on top of the trends and figure out how to use them to our advantage rather than being left behind. 

If you’d like to know more, get in touch. 

 

After years of focus on workplace wellbeing, it’s official. We’re now happier than ever at work. But has our joy come at the expense of productivity?

 

Studies reveal a happiness boom

In 2022, overall job satisfaction in the United States reached 62.3%, according to the Conference Board’s Job Satisfaction Survey. That’s the highest level of job satisfaction since the survey began in 1987. 

The survey’s authors attributed this increase to a tight labour market and a rise in flexible work arrangements. They also found that, beyond competitive pay, the rise in job satisfaction was being driven by factors including improved organisational culture, better work/life balance, reduced workloads and more appropriate performance review processes.

Interestingly, employees with hybrid work arrangements reported the highest job satisfaction compared to fully remote or fully on-premises workers. Hybrid workers were particularly satisfied with pay, benefits, and access to training opportunities.

Unfortunately, women reported significantly lower satisfaction compared to men across almost all job satisfaction components – 60.1% of women agreed they were satisfied with their work, compared with 64.0% of men. Although, it was still the highest level of job satisfaction recorded for women, too.  

Here in Australia, the Commonwealth Treasury’s study into employee satisfaction reported similar results. 

It found that, nationally, job satisfaction has been rising rapidly since 2017. However, Treasury’s survey also revealed that, in Australia, women and men scored relatively evenly when it came to how satisfied they were with their jobs.

 

But what about productivity?

Conventional thinking suggests that a happy worker is also a productive worker. 

An Oxford University study backed this up by finding happy workers were 13% more productive than their counterparts. 

But, over the last few years, we’ve been seeing productivity growth stall at the same time as job satisfaction goes through the roof.   

While this seems to be a worldwide phenomenon, Treasury reveals that, in Australia, productivity growth has been falling rapidly since 2016 – although there was a slight pause in decline at the start of the pandemic during FY 2019/2020 and FY 2020/2021. 

Financial year 2021-2022 saw the lowest productivity gains per Australian worker this millennium – with productivity lifting just 1.2%, compared to a consistent annual boost of 1.6%-1.8% between 2000 and 2015.

 

Are the two related?

So has increased job satisfaction contributed to our flagging productivity? Some experts believe it may have – at least in the short term.

Hybrid and remote work models have contributed to higher job satisfaction, but they can also come with challenges in maintaining consistent productivity levels. That’s especially true, as employees and organisations adapt to new ways of working.

But this should hopefully be one development that resolves itself over time, as employees and employers manage remote working properly and better understand each other’s expectations. 

Besides, worker happiness is almost certainly not the main factor behind decreasing productivity. Instead, research has shown that several factors are likely at play. 

First, in the early part of this millennium, we actually went through a productivity boom after years of declines. 

Some believed this was the result of a recession-like environment where people feared losing their jobs unless they worked hard. When good times returned, they slacked off – and then – after the GFC hit, they began working hard again.

Some proponents of this way of thinking also noted that it has been an employee’s market over the past five or so years – the same time as productivity has fallen. Now, however, with unemployment on the rise, we may see productivity growth return. 

But there are other theories, unrelated to how employees perceive their jobs or whether they work from home. 

One is that productivity boosts chrome as the result of technological change, and these take some time to wash through. They also require complementary investments – such as in data collection, training and infrastructure – to realise their full productivity potential. (This phenomenon is referred to as the “productivity J-curve”).

That means that productivity increases several years after a technology becomes standard.

The early part of this millennium is likely to have seen huge productivity gains as a result of the rise of the internet, email and the first wave of online work. However, over time (especially by 2016), the boost effect of these technologies declined. 

If AI becomes the next real wave of technical disruption, will we be likely to see another surge of productivity down the track? 

Finally, and perhaps even more importantly, some – including the OECD – argue that traditional economic metrics may not accurately capture the productivity contributions of digital goods and services, where most of our gains have come from lately. 

They also argued that intangible assets like corporate culture and business processes are often under-measured.

So, it may be that it’s the figures that are flagging, and not our productivity after all.

 

In short…

The boom in employee happiness may have something to do with lower productivity growth. However, there are many other factors at play too.

Our view is that keeping employees happy through measures such as remote working, flexibility and well-thought and cost-effective wellbeing initiatives, are much more likely to benefit a business than detract from it. 

After all, our experience is that happy employees usually mean a more engaged and vibrant workplace, with higher levels of staff retention and better quality output.

If you’d like to know more about how to achieve this in your workplace, get in touch. 

“If you want something done right, do it yourself”. It’s the mantra of many seemingly high-performing people – and from the outside, it can seem to be true. 

Think of the successful professionals or managers you know who always instil confidence when they take the reins. They’re the ones who are always a steady of pair of hands, the ones who’ll put in the time and effort to do a good job, the ones who you want working on your side.

But research shows that while this approach might be good in the early stages of a business or enterprise, after a point, it begins to hold it back. It prevents organisations from scaling and promotes ‘key person’ risk. It also often sows the seeds of dissatisfaction among staff and eventually leads to the burnout of the non-delegator. 

After all, there are only so many hours in the day, so without delegation, being successful will also mean sacrificing free time, weekends, and sleep.  

What’s more, when you delegate, you free yourself up to focus on high-value strategic activities and foster a positive work culture where people feel empowered to do a good job.

As author John C Maxwell puts it in Developing the Leaders Around You: 

“If you want to do a few small things right, do them yourself. If you want to do great things and make a big impact, learn to delegate.”

So, if you’re struggling with delegation, here are our tips for letting go.

Delegate to the right person

A recent article in HBR suggested that when they’re choosing to delegate a task, most leaders immediately think of “who can do it” and assign it accordingly. 

That’s the wrong approach. 

If you want to build capability in your organisation and create a culture of high performance, you should be asking yourself, “Who’ll get the most out of it”? In other words, who’s likely to be most energised, acquire the most skills, and grow the most from performing the task? 

That’s the person to choose, not the one who could do it in their sleep.

Define the task clearly

A lot of delegation falls down because we can’t be bothered to think the task through properly. What needs to be done, and in what timeframe? Where do the limits lie? What’s outside of scope? What does success look like? Too often, this gets overlooked. By working this out at the start and communicating it clearly, you’re far more likely to get a successful result.

In fact, at this point, I suggest putting together a brief for the task—in just the same way you’d brief an external agency or contractor. That way, you have a single source of truth that you can both go back to and make sure you’re both – quite literally – on the same page.

Give proper deadlines

There’s a tendency within most organisations to want everything yesterday. And, if someone is trying to impress with their performance, there’s also often a tendency to commit to delivering yesterday, too. So, while we’re on the topic of setting parameters, you also need to think of realistic timeframes and deadlines for delivery. You don’t want your delegation to take a load off your desk only to weigh down someone else’s

Provide the right resources

If you’re setting up someone for success, you need to give them the resources and support they need to do the job well. If you want them to use particular data or research, specify this upfront. Similarly, if you don’t want them using particular information or specifically don’t want something done a certain way, include this in your brief.

Check in regularly

There’s nothing worse in a project than a big ‘reveal’ that goes wrong. 

All of that wasted time and energy that someone has put in, only to miss the mark entirely. 

Check in regularly to ensure everything is on track, both time-wise and quality-wise. Agree upfront when that will be, and if you find things going a little off piste, meet even more regularly. Make “no surprises” your mantra.

Trust them

That said, delegation is also about trust. You have to trust in the person’s ability to deliver a good job, so don’t nitpick or micromanage when it’s not warranted. By giving them a sense of ownership and autonomy, they’re more likely to be engaged and productive.

Celebrate success (and follow up)

If the person you’ve delegated does a great job, let them know – even acknowledge them more widely if you need to. This can be great for motivation and cohesion. Also, have a proper debrief session. Talk about what went well and what you think could be improved next time. Most importantly, ask them how they found the experience and what they learned.

In short…

I know it can be hard to let go, but delegation is a vital skill – one that will make your life easier and set you up for business success. 

If you’d like to know more about how to set up your business’s systems and processes to delegate work more effectively, contact us. 

Flexible work has been a topic for some time but in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became a necessity for many workplaces.

Many employees found they enjoyed these arrangements, especially when it could afford them a better work/life balance. Some employers found it useful, too, with some studies finding productivity actually lifted when people were working from home.

But not all employers want their employees working flexibly, all the time. And often that’s for good reason too. There can be real benefits to being in the office on a regular basis, such as human connection, the opportunity for more collaboration and even the chance to work in a proper optimised workspace without distractions. 

With that in mind, we thought it was time to look at recent legislative changes and case law to see what employers need to do when it comes to flexible working in 2024. 

What the legislation says

The right to flexible working is enshrined in section 65 of the Fair Work Act 2009. Under these laws, most employees can request flexible working arrangements if they’ve worked for an employer for 12 months and they’re:

What must employers do when an employee makes a request for flexible work?

If an employee makes a request for flexible work, an employer needs to respond in writing within 21 days, stating whether the request has been approved or denied. However, it can only been able to refuse a request on reasonable business grounds, including:

From June 2023, employers have also been obliged to:

What the case law says

If an employer fails to meet these obligations, the employee has the right to appeal to the Fair Work Commission. Recently, a couple of cases have shed light on an employer’s right to refuse flexible working. 

Case one: Refusal to reduce shifts

In Ambulance Victoria v Natasha Fyfe [2023] FWCFB 104, the Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission was asked to consider Ambulance Victoria’s refusal to grant a mother of three the right to work a reduced shift.

The employee, a paramedic, had been asked to work shifts from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. However, she requested a 9 p.m. start because her husband was still at work and nobody was available to look after her children (all of whom were under five years old).

The request was made in accordance with the provisions of her Enterprise Agreement, which mirrored section 65 of the FW Act. However, Ambulance Victoria refused her request.

When the case first went before the FWC, it found in favour of the employee. It noted that the employer hadn’t held any discussions with the employee and that community needs would still be met, even though Ambulance Victoria claimed that other employees would be affected. 

The FWC concluded that Ambulance Victoria’s refusal hadn’t been made on reasonable business grounds.

Ambulance Victoria appealed to the full bench of the FWC. However, the full bench again found in favour of the employee. 

The full bench ruled that the employer hadn’t given weight or proper consideration to the employee’s personal arrangements. It noted that Ambulance Victoria should have taken into account that she had three children under five who needed to be looked after. It also noted that Ambulance Victoria had failed to analyse how the request would impact the organisation financially.

That said, the Full Bench observed that the employer was not required to genuinely reach an agreement because this wasn’t included in the wording of the Enterprise Agreement, and s 65 hadn’t been altered at the time of the refusal (i.e., it was pre-June 2023).

Case two: Forcing a worker to return to the office

In another recent case, which was decided under the unfair dismissal laws, the FWC awarded compensation to an employee who was sacked when she refused to return to the office after a long period of remote work.

The employee claimed she had been working from home full-time since 2013 to juggle her employment, home-schooling her children, and family care. In 2023, the employer asked her to return to the office.  

When she didn’t comply, the employer sacked her—ostensibly for performance-related issues. However, the FWC found no evidence to support the idea that her work was unsatisfactory. It also noted that the employer had conflated work performance with remote working. In doing so, it risked the possibility of discriminating against the employee.

Unfortunately, by the time of the hearing, the employer had gone into liquidation. Because it could not rehire the worker, it ordered it to pay the employee $5,000. 

What these decisions mean for employers

Flexible working is now a right for many Australian workers – and one that employers need to take seriously. That means addressing each request genuinely and on a case-by-case basis.

While many employers would like their staff to return to the office permanently, compelling them to do so can be risky. It’s vital to get it right or risk a discrimination or unfair dismissal claim.

If you’d like to find out more about how this applies to your workplace, get in touch. 

Earlier this year, the ‘right to disconnect’ gained significant attention (a lot of it negative) after it was passed as part of the Closing Loopholes Act (No 2) 2024. 

The right to disconnect will become a reality for many Australian employers and employees when it’s incorporated into Modern Awards in August this year. However, it won’t apply to small businesses and their employees until August 2025.   

Some of the more sensationalist media outlets claimed that enshrining the right to disconnect into our laws was unfair to business and would reward employees who weren’t committed to their jobs. In fact, one outlet went so far as to say that the right to disconnect was a symbol of Australia’s national decline.

But is the right to disconnect really that bad for business? And how will it restrict what you can do as an employer or manager? 

We explore the realities of the right to disconnect.

What are the right-to-disconnect laws, and what do they really say?

The right to disconnect is a concept that says employees’ work shouldn’t unreasonably encroach on their leisure time through unnecessary out-of-hours employer communications and requests. 

The idea has gained traction throughout Europe and other parts of the world, with jurisdictions including France, Italy, Ontario, and Argentina already having passed laws upholding the right to disconnect.

In Australia’s case, the government has enshrined the right to disconnect into law by introducing two separate employee rights in the Fair Work Act 2009. These are:

‘Reasonableness’ the key factor 

As the wording of these provisions makes clear, an employee can only refuse to interact with their employer or customers/clients outside of work hours when it’s reasonable to do so. 

Fortunately, the new laws then go on to mention what needs to be taken into account when determining whether contact is reasonable or unreasonable. In particular, they say that the following needs to be considered:

The new laws say that disputes over the right to disconnect should first be resolved at the workplace.

If that fails, either party can apply to the FWC for the matter to be resolved. The FWC has the authority to make orders it considers appropriate, including stopping an employer from making contact or compelling an employee to respond. It can also make orders for mediation or conciliation.

What the right to disconnect means in practice

The right to disconnect doesn’t prevent all employers from contacting all employees outside of working hours. Employees can only refuse to monitor communications—such as their phone or email—when it’s reasonable to do so.

More importantly, whether or not an employee can refuse depends on what they and their employer do. For instance, it’s probably not unreasonable for an employer to contact an executive or professional with considerable responsibility or technical knowledge outside of working hours when they’re genuinely needed. It may be more unreasonable to contact someone low-level or generalist whose skills aren’t quite as necessary.

It’s also likely that it more be more reasonable to contact someone outside of working hours where their role requires a high level of customer service and interaction. 

Want more?

The right to disconnect laws won’t mean all employees can refuse to answer email and phone when it’s time-sensitive and critical to business operations. However, they are likely to prevent employers from continually contacting staff for trivial or non-urgent work outside of work hours. 

At the very least, employers should consider how these new laws might apply and, where doubt exists, seek advice. 

If you’d like to learn more about how the laws specifically apply to your workforce, get in touch. 

Gen Z employees now make up a significant part of most workplaces. In fact, in some sectors and businesses, they’re now the dominant workforce.

But, as many employers and managers from different generations will tell you, Gen Z isn’t always like the generations that have gone before them.  Gen Z’ers often have different values, bring different perspectives and want very different things from their careers.

So, if you’re struggling to understand or get the most out of your Gen Z employees, here’s our advice for helping motivate them.

The factors affecting Gen Z and their careers

Born in the period between 1995 and 2010, Gen Z is more racially and ethnically diverse, more tolerant and more educated than any generation that has gone before it.

They’re also the first generation to be true ‘digital natives’. Many weren’t born into – and most wouldn’t remember – a world without social media and smartphones. 

The backdrop to their lives has been different from previous generations too. Issues like climate change, growing income disparities and the ‘Me Too’ movement have defined the political and practical landscape. Economically, they’ve grown up in an environment where even their parents no longer have jobs for life.

Many would have also entered the workforce during COVID – a time of uncertainty, but also a time when new trends such as remote working and flexibility, digitisation and autonomation became ubiquitous. 

In short, Gen Z has experienced a journey into their working lives that has looked very different from those who have gone before them.

What Gen Z workers want from their careers

The factors we’ve mentioned have often shaped Gen Z’s relationship with employment. 

Studies have found that, unlike older people, many don’t see their work as a central part of their identities. They tend to work to live and don’t live to work.

As a result, work/life balance is a serious priority for many Gen Zers. Yet, the potential to take time away from the office is hampered by the fact that salaries for entry-level jobs have not been going up at the same rate as they have for those at the top.

Gen Zers also often value autonomy and flexibility and want to know they’re making a difference. They’re also much more inclined to take a role that’s in line with their values rather than being motivated purely by financial considerations. 

Employers should keep these factors in mind when managing Gen Z employees. 

And here’s how we believe your workplace should be doing just that

1. Give them purpose

Gen Zers need to know that their work matters, so you should always explain how their role fits into the organisation and what value they’re bringing. Let them into the bigger picture and show them how their contribution helps the business achieve its goals.

HBR suggests you could even really make Gen Zers feel their work matters by asking them to share their “unique skills, capabilities and growth areas” with the team. Then, get each employee for their view on how they could best contribute and develop.

HBR also recommends “creating a dialogue about how each person contributes to the team and its overall impact”. That way, they’ll get a clearer picture of how and why they matter.

2. Give them clarity

HBR reported that Gen Zers like to know what ‘good’ looks like in a role and what they can do to overdeliver. 

“If your company has a matrixed organisation, for example, explain how relationship-building, influencing, and team collaboration impact overall performance, as success is not just results but also how the work is done and the impact on others,” it noted.

HBR also observed that transparency around pay is more important to Gen Zers than to previous generations, and they’re likely to share information about pay with each other. 

So control the narrative. Get in before them, and do this yourself where you can by being open about pay and rewards.

3. Give them space

Autonomy, flexibility, the chance to experiment and the opportunity to be creative matter more to Gen Zers than to previous generations. Micromanaging and strict oversight can be counterproductive. 

Instead, provide clear guidelines and expectations but allow Gen Zers the freedom to achieve these in their own way. This approach not only boosts their engagement but also taps into their propensity for innovation. 

The pandemic was the defining feature of the start of many Gen Zer’s careers. While this obviously brought stress, it also meant many Gen Zers experienced remote working right from the get-go. 

As a result, many are accustomed to being able to work when they feel most productive, whether that’s early in the morning or late at night. Offering flexible schedules or work options can go a long way in keeping them motivated.

You could also consider providing opportunities for them to lead projects or initiatives. This not only gives Gen Zer workers a sense of empowerment but demonstrates trust in their capabilities – something that’s crucial for job satisfaction and retention.

4. Give them feedback

Finally, you need to give Gen Z constructive feedback. But, for this generation more than any other, there’s a right and wrong way of doing it. 

As The Washington Post recently noted, Gen Z can take criticism so long as it’s “timely, collaborative, empathetic and balanced”.

More than, anything, though, feedback for Gen Z has to be given in real time. You shouldn’t wait until a performance appraisal. Instead, give feedback as it arises. 

“[I]f f you wait weeks or months to address an issue, fix their mistakes without a conversation or focus only on what went wrong, they just might leave to find a workplace that connects with them better,” it noted.

The Washington Post argues that this is because, as the generation that grew up with the Internet, Google, YouTube and social media, Gen Zers are used to instant answers. 

Just be sure to provide context and explain things in a compassionate and non-patronising way. Few things are likely to turn off Gen Z more than being unfairly (or what they perceive as unfairly) admonished in the workplace. 

In short…

Getting the most out of Gen Z employees may mean adjusting the way you manage, but, get it right, and you’ll be in a good position to capitalise on the skills, ingenuity and creativity of this unique generation.

Want more?

If you’d like to learn more about how to get the most out of your Gen Z employees, get in touch. 

When it comes to hiring new staff, today’s employers want more than the transactional. They want to partner with someone who understands their business and actively finds talent with the right cultural fit, not just the best skills. These were the key findings of the Catalina Consultants Talent & Recruitment Survey 2024. 

We asked clients to complete this survey as part of the launch of our new offering, Catalina Talent Advisory. And, the good news for recruiters is that almost all employers reported positive experiences with recruiters, especially when it came to saving time. 

Many, however, also believed there was a compelling role for a Talent Advisory that went beyond simply filling roles. They are looking for an offering that provided an ongoing, holistic partnership, that provocatively searched for talent and kept a pipeline of candidates ready even before a vacancy arose.

With that in mind, here are some of the survey’s key findings.

 

Attracting quality candidates remains an issue

Our survey found that one of employers’ main concerns was attracting talent when the economy was generally strong and unemployment was low. Many felt that, while not quite as bad as a year or two ago, current labour market conditions remained strongly in favour of employees. As a result, it was difficult to compete for quality candidates.

One employer noted that the “time taken for posting job ads and scrolling through resumes for appropriate talent,” was onerous, and that the “[local] talent pool… was limited for quality candidates.” 

“It is rare we locate staff with prior [industry] experience,” they observed.

Because of this imbalance between employers and candidates, many of the respondents were actively relying on recruiters to attract candidates rather than running recruitment from inhouse.  

 

There are both advantages and disadvantages of the traditional recruiter model

Most of those using recruiters were able to highlight benefits they brought to their organisation. . 

Some wrote that the recruiters they worked with understood their business and were therefore in a position to send quality candidates. 

“We have a good working relationship with three recruiters who have a good understanding of our business and the type of candidate we seek,” one employer said.

Many also argued that using a recruiter saved time, especially when in-house resources were limited. This was especially true when it came to the initial stages of recruiting.

“It just saves us significant time in the recruitment process,” one employer noted.

Most employers, however, did not view everything about their relationship with recruiters favourably. Many argued that the cost of engaging a recruiter could outweigh any perceived benefit. Several also took the view that recruiters were not delivering better candidates than they could find themselves. 

“Sometimes they throw us a curve ball and provide over-qualified, very expensive candidates,” one respondent observed. 

Another complained that: “The process [was] expensive and the candidates in some instances [were] not true to their label.”

Some employers also argued that, even when recruiters presented quality candidates, signing them on could prove a challenge.

“Good candidates coming through a recruiter generally have more than one job offer and a lot of the time it becomes a bidding war,” said one employer.

 

Culture the real key

Several employers argued that the real key to using an external recruiter was engaging one that not only understood the requirements of the role, but also the culture of their organisation. 

It really is understanding the team that the individuals would be joining, it’s all about culture and the right team fit for us,” one employer submitted. [It’s] that old saying, ‘technical can be taught – fit and personality cannot’.”

Another employer argued that the business’s “core values and culture” should be embedded in the recruitment process. 

 

There is a strong case for a talent advisory

When employers were asked what they would like to see as part of a talent advisory, several commented that they wanted a genuine partnership that transcended the traditional employer/recruiter partnership. 

This would be ‘less transactional’ and more holistic, according to some, with an emphasis on proactively scouting and cultivating talent they knew would be a great fit for their organisation.

“A search for talent, rather than just filling a hole,” is how one respondent put it. Another said they would prefer someone who was: “[b]eing proactive, [working to] understand what we need and continually looking for it.”

“When a great candidate comes up we would like to interview them because you can always find openings,” they said.

Others liked the idea of having someone who looked beyond simply candidates, to identify strategic partnerships more generally. “It would be good to know potential businesses that are looking to sell, or partner with [us],” one explained.

More than one employer hoped that a talent advisory could provide overarching rigour to their recruitment processes, hoping they would offer: “[p]rofile testing, salary benchmarking and candidate suitability on a more technical and scientific basis”. 

Others thought it would be useful to have another set of eyes to review and vet candidates before the interview stage, even if recruiters were still involved in the recruitment process.

“Once we have [quality candidates] in the door, we can often get them across the line,” one noted.

 

In short…

Most employers agreed that recruiters could bring many benefits to the business, especially when it came to saving time. However, they also considered that there were several shortcomings, especially when it came to providing candidates who were a good cultural fit.

By launching our Talent Advisory, Catalina Consultants aims to bridge this gap, bringing a holistic and forward-looking approach to attracting staff that aims to give effect to an organisation’s business goals.

 

Want more?

If you’d like to know more about how our Talent Advisory can help your business, get in touch.

Savvy organisations are increasingly using talent advisory as a complement to traditional recruitment. We look at what it involves, how businesses benefit, and why Catalina Consultants recently launched its own talent advisory service. 

What is talent advisory?

Talent advisory is a service that goes beyond traditional recruitment, offering a more comprehensive and integrated approach to identifying, hiring and training staff. 

It focuses on aligning an organisation’s talent strategies with its business objectives. In doing so, talent advisory takes into account market trends, competitor analysis and workforce planning to build out human resource capabilities in a holistic and focused way.  

Talent advisory services can include such things as leadership development, succession planning, employee engagement strategies and more. In this sense, they move beyond transactional hirings to offer a more strategic and long-term approach to acquiring and developing talent.

Why talent advisory is needed now

Talent advisory services can help organisations achieve their business objectives regardless of the market cycle. However, we’ve noticed an increased need for them over the past few years. 

As most employers will tell you, since the COVID pandemic, the dynamics in Australia’s labour market has been tilted in favour of employees. For many businesses, finding new employees has become a real issue. Trying to attract them for a realistic salary has become more difficult still. 

A talent advisory service can help employers proactively identify and target potential talent that will propel their business forward.

In fact, some organisations take the view that, if the employee is right for their organisation, they’re willing to find a role for them to fulfil, just to make sure they can attract them. One employer put it to us that: “When a great candidate comes up we would like to interview them because you can always find openings.”

Filling a gap between recruitment and business goals

A talent advisory service also constantly scans the environment, looking for intelligence on what’s happening in the marketplace and keeping the business across the employment trends that are happening. It also should know which employees are where, what work they perform and how they’re regarded by their clients or customers and peers.

This is important by the time employers need to fill a role, it usually needs to be done quickly and cost-effectively so that the business doesn’t skip a beat. Often that means having a seamless handover period with a departing employee, or at least making sure that any hole in capacity doesn’t last too long.

Employers often complain that a lot of time can be wasted on interviewing and vetting incompatible candidates, or candidates who are being put forward to multiple employers, including direct competitors. 

One of the major differences between talent advisory and recruitment, is that a pipeline of talent is constantly being built and replenished. Candidates are sourced and cultivated on an ongoing basis, so they’re often ready to come onboard – without being ‘shopped’ to several businesses. 

Why Catalina Consultants established a talent advisory

For more than a decade, we’ve been helping some of Australia’s best businesses deliver more when it comes to human resources. We listen intently to what our clients want, and always look for ways to refine and improve our services to help their businesses.

Increasingly, many are finding it difficult to fill roles. Many are worried about the cost and inefficiencies associated with traditional recruitment. Some also feel they can do much better when it comes to getting the right people.

We wanted to be able to offer a service that offered talent advice in much the same way that we offer human resources advice already. We certainly don’t see ourselves as directly replacing an existing recruitment relationship, but we did want to make the recruitment process more cost-effective and strategic. The idea is that, where recruiters are needed, they will come in at a stage where they can use their skills to really add value.

In short…

The talent advisory service offering is an exciting new chapter for our business, and one that we know will generate great results for our clients.

If you’d like to know more about how it can help your organisation, get in touch. 

Employees have gained the ‘right to disconnect’ and casual and gig workers look to have won new protections, under changes that will be introduced by the Closing Loopholes Bill (No 2).

The Bill, which passed through the Senate on 8 February, also provides a new legislative definition for ‘employee’, and gives unions the right to enter a workplace within 24 hours where they reasonably believe a worker is being underpaid.

While the Bill will return to the House of Representatives for approval, it seems likely to become law given Labor’s majority.

With that in mind, we look at some of the key changes Closing Loopholes 2 will bring to your workplace.

1. The right to disconnect

Perhaps the most headline-worthy reform the Bill will introduce is the ‘right to disconnect’, which will be enshrined in the Fair Work Act’s General Protections provisions. This new rule allows employees to refuse to respond to – or even monitor their email and phone calls – outside of working hours, unless it’s unreasonable to do so. They can also ignore attempts from a client or customer to get in touch.

Whether or not an employer’s attempts to contact an employee outside of hours is reasonable or unreasonable will depend on several factors, including:

While the Bill says that any breach should first be dealt with at the workplace level, the right to disconnect’s status as a General Protection means that an employee could potentially bring an adverse action claim in the Fair Work Commission. They can also bring a claim asking for a ‘stop’ order against an employer contravening this right.

2. New definition of ‘employee’

One of the biggest issues in employment law over the past decade has been determining a worker’s true status – including whether someone is truly an employee or contractor. The Closing Loopholes Bill No 2 looks to overcome this by introducing new definitions of employee and employer into the Fair Work Act.

The definitions say that the “real substance, practical reality and true nature of the relationship” must now be considered – putting to rest recent High Court decisions that gave primacy to the employment contract.

That said, contractors who earn over a ‘high income’ threshold ($167,500) can opt out of the test. Conversely, contractors who earn under the same threshold will be able to bring an unfair contracts claim in the FWC, something that currently must be done formally in court.

3. Casual workers

A new definition of ‘casual worker’ will also be included, under which an employee will only be deemed casual if they’re entitled to a casual loading and the employer makes no ‘firm advance commitment’ to continuing, indefinite work.

Again, the Bill says that whether or not an employer makes a ‘firm advance commitment’ can only be answered by examining the practical reality, real substance and true nature of the relationship.

The Bill also introduces new ‘casual conversion’ provisions, which will place the onus on employees to request becoming a permanent member of staff. Once the employee has hit certain milestones, including working for six (or sometimes 12) months, an employer can refuse only in particular circumstances, including on ‘fair and reasonable operational grounds’.

4. Intractable bargaining

In 2022, the government introduced changes that gave the FWC the authority to make an ‘intractable bargaining declaration’. This effectively gave unions a mechanism for winning pay rises without having to reach an agreement with an employer.

The Bill effectively changes these provisions so that any arbitrated outcome can’t be less favourable to an employee or union covered by an existing workplace agreement.

5. Underpaying workers

Another area the Bill covers is worker underpayment – something that was already centre stage in the original Closing Loopholes Bill, which introduced a new crime for wage theft.

Under Closing Loopholes 2, the penalties for wage theft will be increased to a maximum of 10 years prison and a $7.825 million fine.

The Bill will also allow unions to apply to the FWC for exemption from the usual 24 hours’ notice to enter a workplace, if they reasonably suspect a member of their organisation is being underpaid.

6. Gig workers

Finally, the Bill introduces new minimum entitlements around pay and conditions for workers in Australia’s expanding gig economy. Perhaps the most interesting of these is the right for workers on a digital platform to apply to the FWC where they have been ‘deactivated’ or removed from an app.

These changes are being introduced to protect what the government believes are some of the most vulnerable workers in today’s economy.

 

In short…

While the Closing Loopholes Bill No 1 introduced sweeping new protections for Australia’s employees, Bill No 2 goes further still. Employers should make sure they’re across any changes and they don’t inadvertently fall foul of them.

Want more?

If you’d like to know more about how the changing trends in HR impact your business, get in touch.

Unconscious bias is a genuine and pervasive issue throughout our workplaces and one that can impact anyone, regardless of their age or gender or the type of work they do. But how much of an issue is it in your workplace? And what can you do about it?

What is unconscious bias?

Before we get too far into discussing how to eliminate unconscious bias, it’s worth exploring what it actually is. 

Unconscious bias refers to the stereotypes or attitudes that impact our decision-making without us even knowing it. 

That said, not all unconscious bias is the same. Generally speaking, it falls into three categories.

 1. Affinity Bias: The comfort of familiar faces

In life, we tend to gravitate towards people who share our interests, background, or even sense of humour. This is affinity bias. 

When it comes to workplaces, affinity bias takes the form of rewarding those who are just like us – whether that’s by promoting them above others or giving them the job in the first place. 

2. Confirmation Bias: The ‘cherry-picking’ trap

Many of us tend to like taking in information that aligns with our worldviews. For instance, we tend to read and watch news that’s consistent with our beliefs rather than that which challenges them. That’s confirmation bias. 

In a business setting, confirmation bias can mean overlooking critical feedback or data simply because it doesn’t fit our narrative because we want to believe something is true.

3. The halo and horn effects: Seeing the world in good and evil

Say someone aces their first project and makes us look good. Suddenly, they can do no wrong in our eyes. Their halo shines brightly, often blinding us to their potential flaws. Conversely, the ‘horn effect’ happens when someone makes one mistake, and suddenly, they’re forever marked. 

These biases are like lenses that distort our view, and in the workplace, they can lead to unfair appraisals or decisions. 

How much of a problem is unconscious bias?

Unconscious bias is a massive issue in many workplaces. If you need convincing, consider this – a striking 89% of recruiters and hiring managers admit to making judgments about applicants within the first 15 minutes of an interview, often influenced by their unconscious biases.

In fact, one US study found that unconscious bias takes effect even before the recruitment process. It revealed that CVs with ‘white-sounding’ names had a higher callback rate of 9.65%, compared to 6.45% for those with ‘black-sounding’ names, indicating some level of unconscious bias towards race.

Another study found that women, particularly in STEM fields, were 45% more likely to be excluded due to bias during the hiring process.

But unconscious bias doesn’t just impact recruitment. It also impacts the likelihood of promotion and bonuses, with research showing that those who share similar backgrounds or characteristics with their supervisors are often more likely to receive promotions and higher bonuses. 

Another study also found there was a ‘motherhood bias’ whereby women with responsibility for children were seen as less competent than their male counterparts who were otherwise undifferentiated. 

Why is unconscious bias an issue?

Unconscious bias can impact everything within an organisation, from talent acquisition to workplace culture. 

Research and expert insights reveal that these biases can lead to overlooking a wide range of talents and perspectives, as decisions are often influenced more by personal comfort and familiarity than by objective assessment of skills and capabilities.

For instance, a Deloitte survey discovered that 39% of employees experience unconscious bias at least once a month in their workplace and that 68% of these biases were reported to have a negative impact on productivity. This shows how deeply ingrained biases can hinder effective decision-making and collaboration, ultimately affecting the company’s bottom line.

The correlation between diversity and financial performance is also well-established. The most gender-diverse companies were found to be 20% more likely than the least diverse to have above-average financial performance. 

So, when biases in hiring, assessing, or promoting employees are left unchecked, they can significantly limit an organisation’s potential 

In addition to these practical impacts, employees who feel subject to bias may experience feelings of exclusion or undervaluation. This can lead to decreased employee satisfaction and engagement, creating a ‘revolving door’ of talent and a stifling of new voices and ideas.

How to avoid unconscious bias in your workplace

Overall, unconscious bias is not just a moral issue but a business necessity that requires active engagement and strategies for mitigation. Here are our six tips for achieving just that. 

1. Awareness and education

Start with training. Educate your team about what unconscious looks like and how it manifests in the workplace. Explain the impact it can have on team and business performance, as well as how to overcome it. 

2. Implement fairer processes

Use structured interviews and standardised performance evaluations to minimise subjective judgments. You could even consider implementing ‘blind’ recruitment processes to focus on candidates’ skills and qualifications without being influenced by their names or backgrounds.

Increasingly, we’re seeing AI being used to attempt to eliminate unconscious bias. For instance, a lot of larger corporations are using apps such as Sapia to take bias out of the hiring process. 

3. Promote diversity and inclusion

By adding diversity to your hiring panels, you can bring different perspectives to recruitment decisions. You could also encourage mentoring programs that focus on pairing employees from different backgrounds and levels rather than on putting together like-minded people. 

4. Encouraging open dialogue

Create channels for regular feedback where employees can discuss their experiences openly. Also, try to make sure all voices are heard in meetings and discussions, not just the loudest voice in the room. 

5. Monitoring and accountability

Conduct regular audits of your HR processes to identify and address any biases in hiring, promotions, or evaluations, and act on what you find. This could include setting up accountability measures where decision-makers are required to justify their choices based on objective criteria.

6. Get leadership buy-in

Make sure the commitment to addressing unconscious bias comes from the top by having leaders actively participate in training and discussions. Also, review your company policies to ensure they support diversity and inclusion and implement changes where necessary.

Want more?

Unconscious bias doesn’t just hold back people; it also holds back organisations. 

If you’d like to know more about identifying and eliminating unconscious biases in your workplace, get in touch.

Deakin University recently worked with other universities and the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) to survey the State of the Human Resources Profession. It found the HR sector has changed in many ways. We explore seven of the most interesting ones.

1. From a male- to female-dominated industry

Over the past five decades, the gender composition of the HR sector has changed out of sight. In 1976, less than 10% of HR practitioners were women. By 1997,  the number of women in the profession had grown to 50%. By 2022, when the survey was taken, the original figure had almost entirely reversed. Today, an incredible 84% of people working in HR roles are women. 

2. High turnover in HR positions

Recently, there’s been a significant turnover in HR positions, with almost half of people surveyed saying they had been in their current role for less than two years. 

The survey found this trend may have been influenced by the pressures experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, HR professionals’ roles expanded significantly to include understanding and communicating government regulations and restrictions, managing transitions to remote work, and assuming roles as wellbeing and risk managers.

3. Transition to an advisory role

The HR profession is increasingly moving towards an advisory or consulting role, with line managers now responsible for many traditional HR responsibilities. In other words, HR professionals are carrying out fewer administrative and operational functions and are becoming strategic partners and advisors.

Today, only a small percentage of HR teams assume full responsibility for HR management, with the majority reporting a devolution of these responsibilities to line managers. 

The survey found this shift indicates a broader trend in HR functionality, and has increased the need for HR professionals to develop and refine skills in areas like consultancy, strategic thinking, and influence. 

As HR takes on an advisory role, it could lead to a stronger influence on shaping organisational culture and development initiatives. However, it also posed challenges, especially when it comes to ensuring line managers are equipped with the necessary HR skills and knowledge. 

4. Growth in HR teams

Over half of the survey respondents reported growth in their HR teams over the past five years. The complexity and breadth of what HR does have expanded, particularly due to the pandemic. And this has necessitated a larger and more skilled workforce. 

For instance, HR departments were at the forefront of navigating the challenges brought by the pandemic, including remote work transitions, health and safety protocols, and employee wellbeing.

As this happens, more HR practitioners require specialised skills in areas such as digital transformation, data analytics, employee experience design, and mental health expertise.

5. Shift to ‘people’ based team names

A significant trend observed in the survey was the renaming of HR teams with a focus on ‘people’, such as ‘People and Culture’. This was more than just a change in semantics; it reflected a shift in the HR focus to people-related supports such as employee wellbeing.

The new nomenclature also suggests that HR is increasingly seen as a key player in driving business strategy, particularly through talent management, organisational development, and fostering a positive work environment.

6. New priorities in recruitment, retention, and turnover

After COVID, a top priority within HR has become addressing the skills crisis and also the challenge in attracting and retaining workers. The lack of available workers, particularly due to reduced overseas workforce entry during the pandemic, has been a significant concern for sectors including hospitality, retail and tourism.

With remote work becoming more normalised, the survey noted that companies are now competing in a global talent market. This opened up opportunities but also challenges in attracting and retaining top talent. 

There was also a new focus on retention, with many employers focusing on improving their Employee Value Proposition (EVP) by offering competitive salaries, flexible working conditions, career development opportunities, and a positive workplace culture.

7. A focus on mental health and employee wellbeing 

Finally, in recent years, the importance of mental health and employee wellbeing has been amplified. Organisations are now looking to attract and retain employees by actively prioritising their health and wellbeing. 

As this happens, HR has been at the forefront of implementing wellbeing programs, while also advising companies on how to facilitate open conversations. HR has also taken the lead on flexible working arrangements – a serious priority for many workers in the post-pandemic world.

In short…

The survey found that Australia’s HR profession has undergone a significant transformation in recent years, with the pandemic particularly shaping both organisational and HR priorities. 

Recruitment, retention, and turnover have become more challenging and the growing focus on mental health and employee wellbeing reflects a broader societal recognition of the importance of these factors in the workplace.

These changes point to a future where HR is not just about managing personnel but about shaping organisational culture and strategy, underlining the critical role of HR in both business success and employee satisfaction.

Want more?

If you’d like to know more about how the changing trends in HR impact your business, get in touch. 

Over the past few years, the rights of casual employees have been hotly contested in our courts, tribunals and parliaments. 

A recent Fair Work Commission decision has added to the debate after ruling that a long-term regular casual was not unfairly dismissed when he was taken off the roster. However, it also suggested that the employer should, in fairness, pay him anyway.

The circumstances behind the case

Laurent Friederich v LCDF Trading Pty Ltd t/as La Casa del Formaggio [2023] FWC 2963 involved an unfair dismissal claim that was brought by a machine operator against a South Australian cheese manufacturer.

The worker had been a casual employee since 2009 (although he had a stint away from the employer between 2012 and 2015). From then on, he worked a regular 37.5-hour week that involved five overnight shifts starting on Sunday evening and finishing on Friday morning.

When the worker began, almost all employees were casuals. However, in 2020, the employer set about converting most staff to permanents. The worker was offered the opportunity to become permanent, but turned it down because he would lose his 25% casual loading, as well any flexibility about taking leave.  

In 2022, the employer decided to relocate from Glynde in inner Adelaide to Edinburgh in Adelaide’s far north – a journey of over half an hour. The new factory didn’t require as many staff to work shifts, and the employer made around 10 workers redundant. The employer did not roster the worker at the new plant. When work at the Glynde factory dried up, they told him there was no longer any steady work available and took him off the roster, which wouldn’t be updated for six weeks.

Believing he was entitled to long service leave, the worker resigned. However, because he was a casual, he was not offered any form of compensation in the form of redundancy or termination pay. 

Was the worker unfairly dismissed?

The worker brought an unfair dismissal claim in the Fair Work Commission. He argued that he had a reasonable expectation of ongoing employment on the same basis he always had. He also submitted that he was forced to resign because he would otherwise face at least six weeks without work.   

The worker submitted that he had effectively been made redundant, but the employer had failed to consult him or apply the provisions of his Award. 

Meanwhile, the employer argued that it had still not determined the extent of shifts required at the new site and that, as a casual, the worker had no entitlement to ongoing work. Nor was he entitled to redundancy or termination pay.

What the Commission found 

The Commission noted that the inherent nature of casual employment was that working hours could not be guaranteed. It also observed that, while the worker had been given long-term hours that mimicked full-time employment, he was still casual. In fact, he had made a rational decision to forego the security of full-time employment to access the higher income available from casual loading.

This meant the employer had no legal obligation to guarantee his hours, so it had not repudiated the employment contract by leaving him off the roster. 

The Commission said that, while this action may have had a profound effect on the worker’s earnings, it was not illegal.

That said, the Commission noted that the employer’s treatment of the worker was ‘opportunistic’, ‘thoughtless’ and ‘disrespectful’, especially given his length of service. While it concluded that it had no jurisdiction to hear the claim, it encouraged the employer to make an ex-gratia payment to the worker and to make it the equivalent of what he would have received if he were permanently employed and made redundant.

“This, I consider, would conclude this litigation and what had been a mutually beneficial relationship for eight years on a respectful and respectable basis,” the Commission said.  

What the case means for employers

The case is relevant for so many employers working in sectors that rely on casual staff, from hospitality to manufacturing and from mining to retail. 

It highlights that the Commission is prepared to take the stated relationship into account rather than weighing up factors such as length of service and working hours. In doing so, it will rule in favour of a casual rather than permanent employment relationship, even where an employee has prolonged and regular work patterns.

But it also shows that there can be a juxtaposition between the law and what’s considered ‘reasonable’ or ‘right’. On this occasion, it essentially found that, even though the employer was technically correct, it hadn’t really “done the right thing”.

Want more?

If you need clarity around your obligations when it comes to casual employees, get in touch.

Many businesses are allowing employees to work remotely, at least sometimes. But how often should you be making your employees come into the office – if at all? 

The reality is that the perfect answer will vary sector by sector and business-by-business. With that in mind, this guide looks at how to work out how often you should let employees work remotely and how often you should make sure they come into the workplace.

 

Be guided by your own needs

The starting point for working out how often people should come into the office should always be why you need them in the office in the first place. 

Sometimes, that will be dictated by the nature of the work itself. Obviously, frontline retail or hospitality workers need to be physically present. But for other sectors, it can be a bit more nuanced. 

That said, there will often be collaborative tasks that are best performed in person. Being together can also be great, even necessary, for team bonding. Then, of course, there are client meetings or inter-company meetings, where face-to-face contact gives people a better feel for reading the room through body language and other nuances.

In fact, MIT’s Human Dynamic Labs invested heavily in exploring this very topic. It found that the most valuable communication was unequivocally done in-person. It also found that up to 35% of variation in team performance came down to how often team members spoke face to face. 

That’s something you should keep in mind when working out how often to bring employees into the workplace.

Employee satisfaction is important too

On the other hand, all of the research shows that happy employees are also productive employees. So, weighing against MIT’s findings is the fact that most employees enjoy working at least some of the time from home. 

McKinsey research showed 65% of employees would choose to always work from home if it were possible. It also found that employees offered the opportunity to work flexibly almost always took up the opportunity. Those who didn’t tended to be older or on lower incomes. 

But even many of those who wanted to work from home full-time often reported there were obstacles in the way of becoming fully productive. 

 

Choose the model that suits you 

With that in mind, hybrid work – where an employee is at home sometimes and in the office others – seems to be the logical solution for many workplaces. And last month, we wrote about the three types of hybrid working: the fixed model, flexible model and the office-first model. These differ in the following ways:

To some extent, the model you choose will also dictate how many days a week you insist your employees come into the office.

 

How your business can answer the question 

As this shows, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of how often employees should be in the office. The ideal balance varies based on the type of work you do and the type of office you run. 

A good starting point is always to spend some time working out which critical tasks require in-person collaboration and which can be carried out just as effectively from outside the workplace. Then, factor in the creativity and value that come from face-to-face interactions.

For instance, if you find that 40% of your workplace tasks are best performed face to face, you may find that three days a week lets you get these done but also allows for some informal interaction. Alternatively, if you want a less rigid structure, you could decide to ask employees to be in the office for two set days and then decide whether they want to come in at other times. 

Given how rapidly workplaces are transforming, more than anything, it’s adaptability that’s key. So, embrace change, listen to your employees, and stay open to finding the balance that fosters both productivity and job satisfaction. 

After all, in the end, it’s not just about how often your employees are in the office—it’s about creating an environment where they can thrive, no matter where they work.

 

Want more?

If you’d like to know more about implementing an office-first approach in your workplace, get in touch. 

Can an employer legally ask an employee to take a pay cut? It’s a question I get asked by employers all the time. That’s not usually because they want to be mean or claw back money from their staff; it’s often down to a matter of survival. In many sectors, business currently isn’t what it was a year ago, and some companies simply can’t continue to pay out the same wage levels they have been.

With that in mind, this article looks at the legalities of whether or not you can ask an employee to work for less pay. 

 

The baseline: An employer can’t cut pay without an employee’s consent

At a basic level, it’s illegal for employers in Australia to unilaterally cut an employee’s pay without their consent. In other words, you can ask, but they don’t have to accept – and there’s not much you can do about it.  

Generally, you’ll always need the employee to agree. And you’ll need them to do this in writing. Otherwise, you’ll be breaking your contract with the employee and face the prospect of an unfair dismissal or redundancy claim – something that could prove far costlier than keeping the employee on at their current pay rate.

With that in mind, here’s how you should go about it, if need to cut your wages bill. 

 

Don’t cut below the minimum rates

You always need to be mindful of an employee’s minimum pay. As a starting point every Australian employee is entitled to the National Minimum Wage (currently $23.23 an hour – the highest rate in the world). Beyond that, however, you also need to make sure you’re complying with the minimum conditions of any Award or agreement applying to your staff. 

Go below these rates and you’re likely to face serious legal issues, including the prospect of heavy fines. 

 

What about bonuses?

Bonuses are often a different matter. That’s because they usually come down to meeting key performance indicators. It’s always sensible to draft bonus agreements so that an element of it, is tied to the performance of the business or business unit, as well as the individual. That way, if times are genuinely tight and you haven’t met your business objectives, you’re not liable to pay out. 

 

Reduce hours rather than pay

One way that could keep everyone happy is to reduce hours rather than pay. For instance, when the COVID pandemic first struck, it was quite common for employers to ask employees to work a three or four day week. Some employees actually preferred this arrangement, and remain on the same conditions today.

But, again, as with pay cuts, reducing the working hours of permanent employees, wouldn’t usually have been possible without their consent. If an employee had said, no – there was little an employer could do except dismiss them for operational reasons (and potentially face the cost of redundancy pay).

Many employees, however, decided to accept a four day working week, or reduced hours, rather than be without a job. 

 

Can you cut a casual worker’s pay? 

Casual workers have their minimum wages set in exactly the same way as permanent staff – i.e. through the National Minimum Standards, as well as Awards and Agreements. They also enjoy the same protections around pay rates. That said, the nature of their employment means they’re paid by the hour, rather than via a salary.

A genuine casual employee has no reasonable expectation of ongoing, regular work. That means you can usually vary their hours without their consent – something many employers will do when times are tough. The exception, however, is long-term casual employees. That’s someone who has been working the same pattern of hours over the past year or more. 

 

Be upfront with employees

Whatever action you want to take, it’s always important that you communicate your situation to your staff to get your employees’ consent. In fact, many Awards and Agreements have formal consultation provisions that you’ll need to follow whenever you’re attempting to change an employees working conditions – sometimes even if it’s as much as changing their roster of hours. 

Our experience is that most employees want what’s best in the long-term. If your business is suffering and you legitimately can’t keep paying the same rates, many employees will agree to having their employment conditions modified. The key, however, is to be upfront. Explain what is happening and why you need to take action. And work with the employees themselves to come up with a solution. You may be surprised by what you can achieve.

 

Want more?

If you’d like to know more about implementing an office-first approach in your workplace, get in touch.

AI is starting to carry out many HR tasks traditionally performed by humans – and it’s likely to add many more to the list over the next few years. 

We explore whether your organisation should take the ‘human’ out of human resources and opt for AI instead.

How can you use AI in Human Resources?

There are many obvious areas where AI can make a real difference to human resources – and, in many cases, already is. This is especially true of those parts of the HR process that require continual repetitive tasks and processes.

For instance, Clara offers to be a virtual assistant, handling all your scheduling. Applications like Jemini promise to take care of payroll processing. Even accounting software such as Xero uses AI to time track, roster and interpret Awards and Agreements, making sure employees receive their entitlements and employers meet all their obligations. 

In these functions, AI can help take the pain out of work, recognising patterns and performing functions that automate what are generally mundane tasks. In turn, this frees HR professionals to focus on more strategic, human-centric aspects of their roles.

But there are some not-so-obvious ways AI could potentially begin to help in the human resources space, too.

So, do we need humans in HR at all?

With AI now capable – or likely to soon be capable – of so much, it’s tempting to ask whether we need humans in human resources anymore at all. But, for the moment, here are a few areas where I think people can still outperform the robots.

 

Humans v AI: not an all-or-nothing choice

While the discussion around AI in HR often falls into a binary narrative, it’s not necessarily an ‘either/or’ choice. Instead, it’s more likely that the future of HR for most organisations involves a mixture of humans and machines. 

AI is likely to be used to handle data-driven and repetitive tasks, freeing humans up to focus on the more strategic, interpersonal and complex side of HR. Rather than substituting humans altogether, it can provide valuable and often hidden insights that allow a human resources professional to interpret them in light of the organisation’s broader goals and ambitions. It can also handle most of the run-of-the-mill and low-level inquiries that take up a large part of many HR professional’s days.   

As the role of AI changes, so will the role of HR. Those organisations that carefully assess and invest in AI to complement human-based services are the ones most likely to succeed. 

 

Want more?

If you’d like to know more about how AI can complement and support your HR function, get in touch. 

We’re living longer than ever before. In fact, the number of Australians over the age of 85 has more than doubled in the past 20 years.  But could our long lives have real implications for the future of work? 

We explore what Australia’s growing longevity could mean for the future of work.

 

How much longer are we living?

When Australia first introduced a national age pension in 1908, it paid a living allowance to many (but not all) people after they’d reached the age of 65 and stopped working.* It was, of course, means-tested, but to be eligible, you also had to meet race requirements and be ‘of good character’. 

At the time the pension was introduced, the life expectancy for Australian women was short of 56, and for men, it was less than 51. In other words, most people didn’t even come close to living to pension age.

Fast forward to today, and although the pension age has been lifted to 67, most of us make it well beyond this.  Today in Australia, life expectancy is over 81 for men and over 85 for women – close to 30 years longer than when retirement age became enshrined in Australian law. 

The number of people who make it way beyond this is growing faster still. Between 2000 and 2020, the number of Australians over 85 grew by 110%.  And this is going to become more extreme very quickly: a baby girl born today has a 40% chance of reaching 100. 

Let that sink in for a minute…

 

Should we be working longer just because we’re living longer?

As life expectancy increases dramatically, many argue we should be working longer too. 

One main reason for this is economic: how can we expect to fund longer retirements without making the working-age population pay? Many also point to the many benefits that working brings when it comes to both mental and physical health. The mental stimulation, social engagement and sense of purpose that come from paid and meaningful employment have all been proven to contribute to both happiness and healthiness and that, in turn, contribute to, well, an even longer life still.

On the flip side, those who argue we shouldn’t be working longer often tend to say that, in the coming years, increased automation and the rise of AI will mean less human labour will be required to produce the same output. 

There’s also a reasonable argument that a long retirement and fewer working hours could mean people begin to enjoy a better quality of life.

 

Let’s assume, for the moment, we may be working longer…

Despite the pension age being 67 (and the preservation age for super being 60), we’re still retiring at an average of around 55 for women and 59 for men. If we assume a symmetrical distribution for that average, that means for every man who retires at 65, there’s one who retires at 53. And for every woman who retires at 65, there’s one who retires at 45.

But, if this changes, and we need to accommodate a growing number of older workers, what kind of changes are we likely to have to make? 

 

The future is flexible: gig, remote and part-time work

As more people begin to work past traditional retirement age, we’re likely to see non-traditional work models surge.  

For instance, flexible working may have already taken off during the pandemic, but if we’re to accommodate an ageing workforce, we’ll probably have to become more flexible still. 

More and more workers are likely to want to carry out at least some of their work remotely. Others will want to work reduced hours, dropping from the traditional five-day week to four or three.

We’re also likely to see the gig economy become important for older workers, with project-based work and short-term engagements – particularly in the most skilled occupations – becoming the norm.

As this happens, we could well see a real rise in productivity as we move more towards project or results-based rather than time-based work. The increased autonomy associated with flexible working could also mean people stay happier and therefore more productive until much later in life.  

 

Workplace redesign: making space for every age

Not all work will be carried out from home, however. And there are genuine advantages to having people in the office – at least some of the time.

However, a multigenerational workforce will mean a multigenerational workplace. And achieving this won’t just be limited to installing better lighting and ergonomic chairs.

Instead, expect flex spaces to become the norm. Having the freedom to switch between various work settings has been proven to reduce physical and mental fatigue. This is especially beneficial for older workers who may find the traditional nine-to-five desk setup draining. Quiet rooms can serve as temporary relief spaces for those who might need a break from the standard office hustle.

Older employees are also more likely to have specific health requirements. This could lead to a new emphasis on creating a healthy workplace, with features such as standing desks and high-quality air filters becoming more common. Larger organisations could well begin to offer in-office health services. (Some already do.)

 

Lifelong learning to become the new norm

We’re already past the days of learning a trade or profession and sticking with it for life. But if the workforce gets older, ongoing education is likely to take on even greater importance. In fact, older workers are likely to have to upskill and reskill and learn new skills continually as technology changes.

Much of this is likely to take place online, and we could see a real uplift in the digital workplace educational sector.  Ongoing education could take on greater importance in the employment contract, potentially becoming a condition of work for many of us across the board.

On the flip side, having older workers in the workplace will also mean more potential mentors and role models in the workplace. So younger workers are likely to be learning just as much too.

 

Automation and AI

Technology such as automation and AI are also likely to play a vital role in helping us work longer and more productively. In physical sectors, such as manufacturing, it could take some of the strain, allowing us to stay employed for longer. It could also help make the working day more efficient, suggesting ways to cut down on unnecessary movement (for instance, in the context of a warehouse or delivery vehicle), thereby helping reduce fatigue.

In a more white-collar setting, AI and automation can potentially reduce the need for repetitive work, allowing older workers to focus their efforts on where they bring the most value – to the high-value brain work.

 

Workplace policies

Finally, an older workplace is also likely to mean a new emphasis on anti-agism policies, both at a legislative and organisational level.

This may include age-sensitivity training sessions aimed at combatting age-related stereotypes to encourage a more inclusive environment. We’re also likely to see greater emphasis on work/life balance – something crucial for older workers. This could mean fewer working days or curtailed hours for everyone, not just older workers.

 

Want more?

The fact we’re living longer is likely to mean many of us will choose to work longer too. And that’s likely to shake up the workplace in some interesting ways. 

If you’d like to know more about the impact this is likely to have on your workplace, get in touch. 

 

* In 1910, the pension age for women was reduced to 60 on the grounds that, despite living longer than men, they tended to be “incapacitated for regular work at an earlier age”. 

Hybrid work isn’t just a trend—it’s becoming the new norm. But offices still matter, especially when it comes to collaboration. 

One European study, the Okta Hybrid Work Report 2023, found that despite going hybrid, many companies aren’t cutting back on their office space. Instead, they’re redesigning it to make it capitalise on the benefits that can come from being together.

In an age where people expect productivity to matter more than presenteeism, they’re also adopting an ‘office first’ approach to hybrid working that gives employees some degree of flexibility but also captures the many benefits that can come from working with colleagues face-to-face  

With that in mind, we look at whether ‘office first’ should become the new normal for Australia’s workplaces, including yours.  

Three types of hybrid work models

The Okra report found that hybrid working now generally broke down into three models.

Fixed Model

In this model, remote working follows predictable patterns. Employees have set days where they work from the office and also days where they work from home. For instance, many employees work every Monday and Tuesday at the office desk and remotely the rest of the week. This schedule doesn’t change; it’s fixed. 

This model is great for planning but can also be a bit restrictive for those employees who favour variety and flexibility. It’s a model that’s favoured by organisations with more traditional views on work-life balance, including many of Australia’s large corporates. 

Flexible Model

In this less prescriptive setup, employees get to pick where they work each day, depending on what they feel suits them best. Got a day of deep work? Stay home. Need to collaborate? Head to the office. This model suits people who like to control their own schedule, but it demands a high level of self-management and requires very high levels of trust.

It’s often favoured in highly skilled professional settings, where productivity can be easily measured through methods such as billable hours. 

Office-First Model

Under this model, employees are expected to be in the office most of the time, but they can still choose to work from home for a portion of their time, maybe a day or two each week. It’s not as prescriptive as the fixed model, though – if an employee doesn’t have to be at the office on a set day to do collaborative work, they can choose to be at home. 

The goal of the office-first approach is often to keep teams aligned and maintain company culture. If management says it’s a day for everyone to be in the office, employees need to be there.

 

The case for Office First

In the post-pandemic world, the report found that it’s the office-first model that was gaining the most traction among Europe’s employers. That’s because it tends to make collaboration easier and more spontaneous. 

If an employee is stuck on a project, they don’t always have to schedule a video call or wait for an email reply. They can instead simply walk over to a colleague’s desk for quick help. This face-to-face interaction can not only solve problems faster but also foster a sense of community and team cohesion. Having everyone in the same space reinforces company culture, something that can get diluted when people are scattered remotely.

The report found that another advantage was that mentoring and career development often thrive in the office environment in a way that’s just not possible online. In-person interactions give employees a chance to observe how their leaders manage challenges or even just run a meeting. These subtle, everyday learnings can be hard to pick up in a remote setting. 

For those new to a field or looking to climb the ladder, being physically present can offer invaluable lessons and networking opportunities.

 

The broader organisational impact of choosing a hybrid work model

The report noted that in European organisations, choosing the right work model is often a collective, board-level decision involving multiple stakeholders, not just a matter for HR.  

This C-suite collaboration makes it essential for various departments to align their objectives and challenges and to reach some agreement on what is going to work best in the interests of the whole organisation.

In doing so, many take the view that employee wellbeing comes first. And this doesn’t necessarily mean allowing employees to work remotely whenever they feel like it. Instead, the emphasis on collaboration that comes from an office-first approach can significantly enhance team dynamics and overall productivity. This, in turn, offers a well-rounded employee experience that prioritises both wellbeing and work outcomes.

 

How to decide if office-first is right for you

Every workplace now has to choose which model suits the kind of work they do. For some, such as manufacturing, hospitality or retail, the nature of the work means that face-to-face has to happen. For others, though, it’s more subtle. 

Before jumping on the office-first bandwagon, we recommend considering several factors and how they impact your business.

By weighing these factors, you’ll get a clearer picture of whether an office-first model benefits you.

 

Implementing an Office-First approach

If people are used to having the freedom to choose, they might find some resistance to moving to office first. If that’s the case, here are our tips for transitioning effectively. 

Announcement: Clearly communicate the shift to an office-first model and the rationale behind it.

Transition Period: Offer a grace period for the team to adjust to the new setup.

Office Layout: Redesign the office space to maximise the benefits of in-person collaboration. Show everyone why being in the office matters so much. 

Flexibility Clauses: Despite being office-first, consider built-in flexibility for special circumstances.

Review: Periodically assess the effectiveness of the new model. Make tweaks as needed.

Implementing office-first isn’t just a policy change. It’s a cultural shift that demands clear communication and a thoughtful approach. By considering the nuances and involving your team in the decision-making process, you can make the shift as seamless as possible.

 

Want more?

If you’d like to know more about implementing an office-first approach in your workplace, get in touch. 

The ‘Closing Loopholes’ Bill could be about to change Australia’s workplace laws in the most significant way since the Fair Work Act was introduced. 

If the Bill passes through both houses, the Albanese government will be able to implement its workplace relations agenda, changing everything from the rights of casual workers to the laws around industrial manslaughter and from minimum employment conditions through to the definition of employment itself.

We explore how the Closing Loopholes Bill will impact your organisation if it becomes law.

 

What is the Closing Loopholes Bill?

The Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023 aims to introduce some of Labor’s workplace relations-based pre-election promises, as well as some of the outcomes agreed at last year’s Jobs and Skills Summit. 

While the Bill may not be law yet, it will likely pass through parliament in some form after February next year, after a Senate Committee Report. (Although independent Senator David Pocock, whose vote is likely to be needed, supports splitting the Bill). 

That means all organisations should start preparing now. Here are some of the key provisions you need to know about. 

 

A re-written (and more onerous) definition of casual workers

Over the past couple of years, several high-profile court cases attempted to define what constitutes a casual employee. Then, in early 2021, the Morrison government stepped in, legislating that the written contract – rather than the patterns of behaviour – should be paramount.

The Albanese government wants to change this – by introducing a new test that considers the totality of the relationship between employer and employee. The idea behind this is to end what the government calls “the permanent casual” to look at “what’s really going on”. If passed, the test will require employers to continually assess their workforce and the nature of the way they engage employees to make sure they are genuine casuals.

This could impose a real burden on employers in sectors that rely heavily on a casual workforce, such as retail and hospitality.

 

A new definition of employment itself?

Another area the government is targeting is the distinction between employer/employee and principal/contractor. Again, this has been a long-litigated and contentious area of employment law.

Under the government’s proposed definition, we’ll see a return to a test based on many factors, effectively expanding the definition of who counts as an employee. This also reverses recent High Court authority, including WorkPac Pty Ltd v Rossato [2021] HCA 23 and Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union v Personnel Contracting Pty Ltd [2022] HCA 1, both of which adopted a narrow definition of who was an employee.

Tied in with this are new ‘same job, same pay’ provisions. These give the Fair Work Commission authority to make orders preventing employers from undercutting the wage provisions of enterprise agreements by using labour-hire workers.

If passed, the new provisions could also impact several sectors, especially those that rely heavily on contractors.

 

Stronger penalties for underpayment

New ‘wage theft’ provisions in the Closing Loopholes Bill will make deliberately underpaying employees a criminal offence. 

The Fair Work Ombudsman will handle any initial investigation and has the power to make ‘snap’ entries. If they find something amiss, the Commonwealth DPP can take legal action based on information from the Australian Federal Police. Prosecutions can start up to six years after the alleged offence, and the penalties are severe – up to 10 years in jail for individuals and fines that could go as high as $7.8 million for companies.

But there is a safety net. The FWO is offering a “cooperation agreement” for businesses that self-report wage theft. This agreement serves as a ‘safe harbour,’ protecting you from further prosecution. 

So, while the Bill brings more accountability and stringent rules, it also provides an avenue for rectification for those businesses and individuals that find they have breached the Act.

 

Greater protections for gig economy workers

The FWC will also be able to set fair minimum standards for ‘employee-like’ workers, such as those working through ride-sharing and food delivery apps. They’ll also be able to hear claims concerning unfair deactivation or termination from a service.

This further regulates one of the most controversial and vulnerable workplace sectors and one that is growing more important to the overall economy. 

 

New rights for union workplace delegates

There are new rules around workplace delegates’ rights and protections, including in employer disputes. Workplace delegates will be allowed ‘reasonable access’ to workplace facilities, as well as to communicate with current and potential union members about industrial matters. 

A general protection will also apply to workplace delegates. This includes preventing employers from unreasonably refusing to deal with them. Employers are also prevented from obstructing workplace delegates or misleading them.

Workplace delegates also receive paid time off for training in their role, unless they’re employed by a small business.

 

Tougher anti-discrimination laws

Stronger protections will apply to workers who face discrimination as a result of family or domestic violence. This aims to bring the Fair Work Act into line with federal anti-discrimination legislation.

 

Industrial manslaughter

Industrial manslaughter laws already exist at the State level. The Closing Loopholes Bill will introduce a federal industrial manslaughter office that could land an individual 25 years in jail. Meanwhile, companies could face fines of up to $18 million if they’re found to be reckless or grossly negligent. 

 

In short…

These are just some of the changes that the Closing Loopholes Bill aims to introduce. If enacted, it will bring about new responsibilities for most employers and change the definition of many workplace tests.

That’s why it’s vital you stay on top of the legislation, especially if you have a high number of contractors or casual staff. 

If you’d like to know more about the impact this is likely to have on your workplace, get in touch. 

New legislation allowing employees access to 10 days of Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave (FSVL) applies for large business from today, 1 February 2023. What does this mean for employers?

Firstly, what’s changed?

What is FDV?

Violent, threatening or other abusive behaviour by an employee’s close relative, a current or former intimate partner, or a member of their household, that:

Who is included?

When can it be accessed?

Full-time, part-time and casual employees may apply for FDVL if:

What evidence is required?

An employer can ask their employee for evidence that shows the employee took the leave to deal with family and domestic violence
If the employee doesn’t provide the requested evidence, they may not get FDVL
The evidence has to convince a reasonable person that the employee took the leave to deal with the impact of family and domestic violence

Types of evidence

What about Confidentiality?

New regulations prohibit employees from including information concerning FDVL on employees’ pay slips (Regulations)
This includes information about the employee taking FDVL, including leave records as well as any evidence provided by the employee
Payroll systems must be set up to ensure non-disclosure in leave records and on payslips
Pay slips must not mention FDVL, including any leave taken and leave balances

What are the obligations of an employer?

What should employers do now?

We recommend that all businesses take the following actions immediately:

We are here to help you with any of these changes. Reach out if we can offer you support.

The year’s end is fast approaching, but there are still several HR-related things you need to do before everyone clocks off for the summer break. To help, we’ve created this checklist of the six things you should do to get your HR function right before 2023 arrives.

1. Take stock

With limited time left between now and the end of the year, you should map out exactly what needs to be done. That means, of course, factoring in routine HR tasks such as payroll. But it shouldn’t just be about doing the bare minimum. There’s still probably enough time to get other, more strategic things done too. That could include things like developing recruitment and training plans, working on employee engagement strategies (it’s going to continue to be one of the biggest issues next year) and other important HR tasks.  

2. Prioritise

That said, you’re unlikely to get absolutely everything you want to complete before the break, so work out what your main priorities are and what you need to do to make them happen. Use the tried and trusted technique of ranking each task as ‘Urgent/Non-urgent’, ‘Important/Not important’, and focus on those that are urgent or important. 

If some of your big picture stuff is important but can wait until the New Year, work out what you can realistically do this year to progress it, so that you don’t have a mountain of work to come back to once the holidays end.

3. Communicate

This can be an unproductive time in some workplaces as people get that ‘end of term’ feeling. But, as a business owner or manager, you can’t afford to let things slide. So let people know your expectations between now and the end of the year. Don’t be oppressive about it – you want people to be happy AND productive But you need to make sure they also get through the work that has to be done. You should also let people know your expectations around the holiday period. Are you closing down for a while? Do you expect people to take leave? If so, let them know. 

Over-communicating is always better than under-communicating. 

4. Throw a party

You’ve probably organised your workplace party by now. But if you haven’t, there’s still time to do something. No matter how small your workplace, or busy you are, celebrating the end of year is an important point in the calendar and something your people deserve. 

Even if it’s just a lunch or some informal drinks, make sure you get people together before the holidays start to reflect on, and celebrate, the year that was.

5. Say thank you

Speaking of which, this is the time of year you need to say thanks (and your office party/lunch is an important part of that). For many of us, 2022 has been another trying year, and it’s important you let people know they’re appreciated. 

Saying thank you is important for your workplace culture, as well as for employee productivity and wellbeing. 

It’s also important for you as a manager or owner, because it boosts your productivity and wellbeing too. As the Harvard Business Review notes, “Gratitude is good for you.” 

So compile a list of the highlights of the past year, who’s been involved in them. And celebrate them either at the end-of-year function or in a company-wide communication. (Or both.) Just be sure to thank everyone for their efforts this year.

6. Get your HR ready for 2023

Finally, it’s worth remembering that while the year may change, the work goes on. There’s nothing worse than arriving back from holidays with a pile of work on the proverbial desk. So, going back to step one above, gear up for what lies ahead by drawing up a list of what needs to be done in 2023. 

Make headway into it now if you can, before you go on leave. And plan out what you can’t get through so that you don’t place yourself under unnecessary stress when you arrive back in the new year.

Want more?

Have a great holidays. If you’d like to know more about HR strategies for the rundown to the end of 2022, get in touch. 

Employers often use restraints of trade to try to stop employees from taking their confidential information to a competitor and gaining an unfair advantage over them. But just how enforceable are they? 

A recent New South Wales Court of Appeal (NSWCA) found that whether a restraint of trade is enforceable depends on whether you’re trying to protect a legitimate interest, as well as factors such as their duration and an employee’s seniority.

The background to the case

The case started with a familiar scenario – a senior sales manager left his employer to work for a competitor. However, his employment contract contained three clauses: a confidentiality clause, an ‘exclusive employment clause’ (this said he must devote his time and attention to the employer during business hours and promote its best interests), and a restraint of trade.

The restraint of trade clause was one of the typical ‘cascading’ ones that employers sometimes use that allow for ‘12 months’, ‘9 months’, ‘6 months’, etc, in the hope that a court will enforce the most reasonable duration.

When the employee left and worked for a competitor, the employer alleged he broke all three of these clauses in his contract. 

He then failed to comply with the notice of termination clause of the contract, which provided for three months that he would not work in direct competition. Instead, he started working for the competitor within four weeks of leaving. He also helped the competitor poach a more junior employee who was subject to a similar restraint of trade clause. 

The proceedings

The former employer brought proceedings in the Supreme Court of NSW (the NSWSC)  alleging the employee – and the employee he poached – had breached their employment contracts. It received interlocutory orders (that is, temporary orders), which prevented the employees from working for the competitor until the court decided the case.

The court eventually handed down a decision in the employer’s favour. It found:

The employee appealed the NSWSC’s decision in the NSW Court of Appeal. 

The appeal: Are restraints of trade enforceable? 

The Court of Appeal noted that restraints were only enforceable insofar as they protected an employer’s reasonable interests for a reasonable amount of time.

In this case, the employer had a legitimate interest in protecting its confidential information from a competitor, including its marketing plans and potential weaknesses in its product. As the employee was senior and privy to this information, it was, therefore, reasonable to restrain him from a competitor for nine months.

However, it also noted that the employee he helped poach was more junior and did not have any awareness of the company’s confidential information. It wasn’t reasonable to restrain him from working for a competitor because he could not damage its legitimate interest. 

The Court of Appeal also found that the employee breached his notice of termination provision. He had also breached his contractual and fiduciary duties to his former employer when he helped poach the employee.

The Court of Appeal also found that because the competitor had encouraged the employee to breach his fiduciary duty, it, too, was liable.

What the case means for you as an employer

There are times you can rely on restraints of trade to protect your confidential information, but they need to be proportionate, and they can’t be used as a ‘catch all’ to try to limit who employees can work for. You’re also far more likely to find they’re enforceable against senior employees.  

It’s always a good idea to have restraints drafted properly by your legal adviser. It’s also often a good idea to use ‘cascading’ clauses – based both on duration and geography – so that a court will enforce appropriate terms rather than ‘striking out’ an unreasonable restraint. 

Also. if you’re hiring an employee from a competitor and they have a restraint, proceed with caution. If possible, have your legal adviser check their restraint over before you sign them up.

Want more?

If you’d like to know more about restraints of trade, get in touch.

Alternatively, you can read the full decision here. 

 

Labour shortages and rising wages mean employers need to do more with less. So, if you’re one of the many business owners who find they have too many HR tasks and not enough staff to complete them, here are six HR tasks we think you can automate, outsource or eliminate.

1. Managing leave

Many employers still rely on an employee to stay on top of everyone’s leave entitlements. But these days, managing leave entitlements – including sick leave, annual leave, carer’s leave and long service leave – can all be automated. 

When it comes to sick leave, some of today’s HR software can automatically follow up with employees, make sure they’ve submitted a doctor’s certificate (which they can do via their phone) and then notify team leaders and managers of their absence.

Best of all, modern HR software can let you identify trends in people’s sick leave – which can be great for identifying mental health issues and minimising potential psychological harm to employees.

Using an automated system to track annual leave can also give you complete visibility over when people will be absent. It can also reveal when you’re likely to be short-staffed, based on your workflow – and even potentially recommend critical times employees should be encouraged to take leave. 

Not only is there no need to have someone doing this all manually anymore, but by automating, you could eliminate risk while also giving yourself a strategic advantage.

2. Timesheets and payroll 

If you have someone processing timesheets and payroll manually, now’s the time to rethink your approach. 

There’s excellent software out there that will do this for you much more efficiently and cost-effectively. It will automatically ensure you’re complying with relevant tax, superannuation and employment laws, submit what you need to the ATO, and generally make your life as easy as possible.

Or, if you want a more comprehensive offering involving a human touch, you could outsource it. 

3. Hiring new employees

Hiring new employees is a function we often fundamentally associate with HR, but it could be one best performed by someone else. After all, it’s something that’s vital to your business and its ongoing success, but it also requires specific skills and processes. And depending on the size of your business, it can chew up a lot of your resources.

These high-impact, low-volume tasks are often the very best ones to outsource. There are specialists, such as recruitment companies or a virtual HR provider like ours, who can tap into their network, offer impartiality, and help you select the best candidate. We can even work with you to develop a strategic plan for attracting and retaining talent for the long term, so that you know what you need ahead of time.

4. Performance reviews

Performance reviews have traditionally been another fundamental part of the HR process – and a part that can take an extraordinary amount of time. They’re also one aspect of the relationship between management and employee that can be sensitive, fraught with risk, and carry long-term implications for workplace productivity and culture. 

That’s why this is another part of the HR process that often makes sense to eliminate from your in-house function and outsource, saving time and money. 

5. Compliance

Making sure your organisation complies with employment and HR laws can be complex. It can also be something that can consume your HR professionals, keeping them away from the areas in which they excel. 

The good news is that these days, HR software will make sure you’re complying with some of the rules and regulations you need to. And, for a high-level, or strategic view, you can always outsource.

6. Writing policies and procedures

Again, writing policies and procedures is laborious, and it’s also easy to get things wrong – potentially opening your organisation up to legal exposure. And yet, writing complex, sometimes specialist policies and procedures often falls to generalist HR professionals. A better approach is often to outsource this work to people who specialise in the area so that you know you’re following best practice and setting yourself up for success.

Looking for ways to eliminate more HR functions?

HR covers a range of functions from the strategic through to the detailed, and it’s often virtually impossible to hire people with all the skills you need. By outsourcing some of the tasks and automating others, you can make sure you’re always running the most efficient and cost-effective HR function possible. 

Want more?

If you’d like to know more about how these changes specifically impact your workplace, get in touch. 

A growing number of employers are introducing ‘life leave’ for employees. Should your organisation be doing the same?

We explore what is how, how it works and the potential benefits (and disadvantages) of introducing it into your workplace.

What is life leave?

Life leave is a broad type of leave that lets employees have time off simply to do non-work related things. This could be anything from being at home so that work can be done on your property, having a day off for your birthday or even just taking a mental health day. 

Different types of life leave

There’s no single template available which means different employers implement it differently. 

For instance, EY Australia introduced unpaid life leave for its employees in 2019, giving them between six and 12 weeks to ‘explore interests’ outside of work, such as travel or study. In contrast, in 2020, CBA introduced three days’ paid life leave for its employees. 

CBA’s policy had its critics because, at the same time, some employees’ sick leave entitlements were reduced from 15 days to 12 days. CBA also only allowed employees to take the life leave entitlement if they’d used up their entire annual leave entitlement of previous 12 months and had less than a total 20 days’ accrued annual leave. 

Still, an internal survey released by CBA showed an overwhelming majority of employees – as many as 80% – welcomed the move. 

Why wouldn’t you just increase annual leave?

Annual leave is different from life leave because it is a statutory entitlement for all employees regulated by the National Employment Standards (NES). 

That means the NES provide for the situations under which an employee is entitled to annual leave and outline the minimum employers must provide. Importantly, they also specify that it ‘accumulates’ – something which isn’t necessarily the case for life leave. Also, under many Awards and Agreements, employees are entitled to a leave loading when they take annual leave. 

By introducing this new type of leave, employers have greater flexibility and can stipulate whether it accumulates, whether it’s paid or unpaid and whether leave loading applies. 

The pros and cons

The advantages of introducing life leave into your workplace include the following.

There could, however, be some downsides to introducing life leave too.

What alternatives are there?

If it all seems a bridge too far for your workplace but you want some of its benefits, you could always introduce more paid – or unpaid – annual leave. Alternatively, a lot of workplaces we work with have perks such as a day off for a birthday, a day off for family commitments, an extra long weekend or two a year or flexible public holidays. Some even offer unlimited leave.

Should your workplace introduce life leave?

Whether or not you should introduce life leave at your workplace depends on a number of factors, not least of which is the type of work you do. After all, while life leave lends itself to service-based jobs – such as accounting or financial services – it would be a much trickier proposition in industries that require someone to be present – such as manufacturing or retail.

That said, the flexibility that comes with life leave – both from an employer and employee perspective – makes it an increasingly attractive proposition.

If you’d like to know more about introducing it into your workplace, get in touch.

Since COVID, more people than ever are working from home. In fact, it’s probably the single most important impact the pandemic has had on the workplace. But even before the pandemic struck, the Fair Work Act gave many employees the right to request flexible working and employers were obliged to consider that request. In my experience, some employers though are still reluctant to allow flexible working fearing that it leaves employees productive. So if you’re one of them – or if you’re an employee looking to prove your productivity when working from home – here are our tips for greater productivity.

Get off email (and other forms of communication)

Email is one of the main tools that has allowed many people to work effectively away from the workplace. More recently, it’s been joined by a host of other communication apps and methods, including Slack, Zoom, Teams, Jabber and more.

The problem is that the same tools that let us do our job are often the very same ones that distract us from it. 

How often do you find yourself giving up work momentarily to answer a message that’s probably not that urgent or just consistently checking it to see if anything interesting has come in?

One of the keys to productivity is simply to stop checking your messages. Instead, set aside a few times a day where you read and answer them in one batch. 

And, if you’re an employer looking to increase productivity in your workforce, either stop expecting an instant response or set aside a limited time each day (say 1 pm-3 pm) where people need to be available. Otherwise, try to let them get on with their work.

Structure your day

When we’re at the workplace, we have the external cues for when we should be doing certain things. We arrive and leave at set times, usually go on our lunch break at the same time others are taking lunch, and even chat around the proverbial water cooler or take our coffee breaks at a similar time each day. While imposing the same kind of regimentation on our homelife may not seem natural, routine is actually one of the real keys to being productive, healthy and even creative.

So, if your workplace hasn’t set a schedule for when you need to get work done, set one yourself. 

Give yourself a set time for when you’ll take lunch, when you’ll start and finish and when you’ll have scheduled breaks. Then stick to it. You’ll be surprised by how much more you’re likely to get done. 

Make to-do lists

One real key to productivity is to write to-do lists. But these shouldn’t just be spur-of-the-moment notes that focus only on what’s at hand. They should be strategic tools for setting out your monthly, weekly and daily goals.  

That said, you should be careful not to make your lists too long or too onerous: otherwise, you’re going to put yourself under too much pressure and feel like you’re failing when you can’t meet them. 

While it’s true that most of us have to-do lists in the office, in many ways, they become even more important at home. After all, remote working is all about keeping up your productivity to make sure the work still gets done.

If you’re an employer or manager worried about productivity, you could even have your employees submit their weekly to-do lists to you and then check them off.

Eat the frog

‘Eating the frog’ is a productivity technique that involves choosing the most important (and often unpleasant) task on your to-do list and making it your priority when you start the day. The reasoning is that by getting the thing that needs to be achieved done first, you’ll be devoting your best brain power to it and then leaving less important tasks for when you’re not quite as switched on. You’ll also have the sense of accomplishment that comes from knocking over your big task first.

If you’re an employer, you can encourage your remote employees to become more productive by having them identify their ‘frogs’ and then devote each morning to them.

Get time management technique

Beyond this, there are so many different ways you can organise your day to become more productive. A popular one is the Pomodoro (tomato) technique, whereby you break your day into 30-minute ‘pomodoros’ that involve 25 minutes of work and a five-minute break. You then take a longer break after four pomodoros – or after every two hours.

Another popular time management technique – and the favourite of Benjamin Franklin – is ‘time blocking’. Slightly less onerous than the Pomodoro technique, it involves breaking your day into blocks and then assigning work you’ll complete within them. By providing yourself with your deadlines this way, you should help overcome procrastination and get more done. (Although you will need a certain degree of flexibility, as even Franklin himself admitted.)

There are so many potential ways to organise your day for productivity, and we even found this quiz that can help you find which one’s right for you. And, if you’re an employer worried about your employees’ time management when working from home, why not train them in time management first? 

Want more?

If you’d like to know more about setting up your workplace for productive remote working, get in touch. 

It’s hard for us to believe that Catalina Consultants is now a decade old. It has been an incredible 10 years, with the business growing and evolving from just one person to a multi-skilled team servicing clients around the country. We sat down with founder and Principal Merilyn Speiser to ask her about the highlights of the past decade, as well as what’s in store for the next 10 years.

So, Merilyn, can you cast your mind back 10 years and tell us how you came to start Catalina Consultants in the first place?

I was a partner at a major accounting firm, which gave me exposure to the way lots of businesses worked and I saw the difference between those businesses that had access to quality human resources advice and an HR function and those that didn’t. 

In particular, I saw some good businesses that weren’t large enough to afford a full HR team and had to make a choice about where they spent their money and where they didn’t. This meant they always had gaps in their HR department and this would always cost them one way or another. I thought to myself ‘wouldn’t it be great if all businesses could have access to a full HR department regardless of their size’. That was when the concept for Catalina Consultants was born.

When you started, you were the only employee. How were those early days and when did things start changing?

At the start, I thought I had a good idea but I wasn’t sure what the appetite for it would be. There wasn’t really the same knowledge of outsourcing core business functions, such as HR, as there is now. Most of my work was coming from my accounting and personal network. I had to do everything myself and a lot of the work was more consulting style. I was doing a lot of leadership training, performance and engagement-related work. This was great but it was just a part of what I wanted to do.

Everything changed when I was approached by a national architecture firm that wanted Catalina Consultants to run its entire HR function. They didn’t just want strategic advice or high-level work done. They wanted a provider who could do the admin and keep the lights on as well. There was no way I could do it all by myself and I realised that if I wanted to play in this space I needed to hire someone to help out, even if I couldn’t really afford it yet. 

The next client we took on was an IT company and it was even bigger still. They had four offices and 120 employees and we were asked to oversee everything HR-related, so I hired again. It was such a good decision and everything started growing from there.

I’m really very grateful for those early clients. Without them, there’s no way we would be here today.

What has been the key to your success?

I think we’ve always offered a very different proposition from other outsourced HR businesses. HR comprises many functions and you need employees at a whole range of levels. That’s what we offer. A lot of others simply have mid-to-senior level employees who they place, say, a day a week with a client. I think that’s entirely the wrong approach because it says ‘HR only happens on a Monday’. With us, we’re always with our clients – they know they can contact us whenever they need help no matter what it is. 

That said, we also offer a level of flexibility, so some clients like us to come in and be visible in their workplaces, like a traditional HR practice. Others want only part of our services, such as offering advice that will facilitate the success of their managers. Whatever it is, we can make it work.  

What are the main things you’ve seen change in your business and also in HR over the past decade?

One of the real changes over the past decade is the understanding of what can be achieved remotely. Obviously, COVID played a big part in that, when most professional staff had to work from home. But there was a growing understanding of remote working before that too. It means the conversations I’m having now are very different from the ones I had in the start because I no longer have to convince people that we don’t have to be always physically present to do a great job – although sometimes we are.

Another big change has been that, in the early years, businesses often saw supporting their HR function as a discretionary spend. Now, even small start-ups tend to understand the need for strong HR right from the outset. That can be anything from strategic C-suite advice and guiding the leadership team through to creating the right culture or wellbeing engagement, or even having the right retention strategy in place. 

Finally, I’d say that the rise and use of technology and data have really changed HR and made it more affordable for everyone to understand their drivers and make better decisions. We’re able to now provide even smaller clients with quite a sophisticated data-driven HR function for a reasonable price. 

10 years is quite an achievement. What lies ahead for Catalina Consultants over the next decade?

We’re still growing and evolving and we have so much planned. We’re going to be expanding into Melbourne shortly. The mix of businesses tends to be very different there – with more manufacturing – and our model really lends itself to that sector.

Beyond that, we have plans to start a recruitment arm and a legal arm, as well as IT. These are adjacent services to what we already offer and there is a real synergy between them and what we do already.  Watch this space!

Finally, looking back a decade ago, what is the one thing that you really got right with the benefit of hindsight?

I think the main thing was putting trust in others. When I began hiring people the salaries I had to pay were higher than what the business was earning from contracts but I knew if Catalina Consultants was ever going to get off the ground, it had to be more than me. Every time I hired someone it was a real turning point. There is real strength in numbers in any workplace and everything we did together was far better than I could have ever achieved on my own. For any business, your people really are your biggest asset! That’s ultimately what HR is about.

Many employers see probation periods as something of an insurance policy when it comes to recruiting staff. If things don’t work out in the first six months, they potentially give you the option of ending the employment relationship without incurring significant costs or facing lengthy legal action. 

But with labour shortages, wage rises and mass resignations a feature of the employment landscape in 2022, do employers need to be a little more circumspect when it comes to terminating a probationary employee’s employment? We explore everything you need to know about probation periods in 2022.

The case against terminating employment

Let’s begin by looking at when terminating isn’t the best path. 

Hiring and firing employees is an expensive business. In 2019, I wrote about how to terminate employment when someone is on probation. Back then I noted that one US study found that the cost of losing a staff member and re-hiring generally equates to around a third of their income. In other words, if you need to fire and re-hire someone on $60,000 a year, expect it to set your business back $20,000. 

That study was made in a very different labour market than the current one too. Today, the costs are likely to be much higher, given just how difficult it is to find good employees.

That means terminating someone’s employment – even when they’re on probation – isn’t something you’d do lightly. 

But, still, there are times you really should dismiss an employee, especially where the cost of their continuing underperformance will be much bigger in the long run. 

How do probationary periods work? 

Even when you’ve done all the right things in the recruitment process, you’ll sometimes make mistakes. After all, you can’t be 100% certain about anyone’s work – or how they fit into your organisation – until you actually see it for yourself. Probationary periods are designed to get around this, letting you use an employee’s early time with you – usually between three and six months – to assess whether they’re right. 

If they’re not, well, you have the opportunity to end the employment relationship without the same legal obligations you’d have towards a more long-standing employee. 

That said, an employee still has some entitlements during probation. For instance, they’re still entitled to the 10 National Employment Standards and some of the protections contained in the Fair Work Act 2009. 

This means you’ll have to provide them with a week’s notice of termination (or at least payment in lieu of this notice period). They’ll also be entitled to be paid for any annual leave they’ve accrued. 

What they usually won’t be entitled to do, is to bring an unfair dismissal claim in the Fair Work Commission.  However, under the Fair Work Act 2009, employees can’t bring an unfair dismissal for the first six months of their employment anyway – or 12 months where the employer has less than 15 employees.

The key: An effective probation period

The key to getting probation right – especially in today’s environment – is to run an effective probation period. This means not just giving your employee the opportunity to prove themselves but also helping equip them with the skills they need to be a good employee. 

Here’s how I think you should do that in 2022.

Read more here about getting the first six months of employment right.

Can you extend a probationary period?

With labour in short supply, you might be tempted to extend an employee’s probationary period, effectively giving them a second chance. But are you allowed to do this?

The answer is that it depends on what the contract of employment says. Some employment contracts will provide that the employer can extend probation in certain situations. If the employee is covered by an Award or Agreement, you also need to be mindful of this too.

At the same time, always remember that the employment laws, most notably the Fair Work Act 2009, still apply. That means, that if you extend an employee’s contract beyond the statutory probation period, they will have the right to bring an unfair dismissal claim, as well as to all the other entitlements of other employees. 

With that in mind, there may be little point in attempting to extend a probationary period because the employee will have all the same rights as other permanent staff members.  

How to terminate an employee when they’re on probation

While you can terminate a probationary employee’s employment without having to go through some of the requirements of a permanent employee, you can’t just dismiss a probationary employee for any reason you like. 

Even if they can’t access unfair dismissal remedies, probationary employees can access unlawful termination remedies from the moment they start working for you. That means you can’t terminate their employment for a prohibited reason, such as temporary absence from work, union membership, making a complaint or on the basis of race, gender or pregnancy.   

If you are terminating employment for a legitimate reason, you don’t have to wait until the end of the probationary period before dismissing them. When you’ve done your best and you really have reached the point of no return, my view is to act now and begin the process of hiring someone to replace them.

Want more? 

Terminating a worker’s employment can be fraught, even when they’re on probation. And never has there been more at stake than right now. Get in touch if you’re unsure about one of your new employees and need a guiding hand.

Research shows having people from different backgrounds and different points of view can be great for any workplace. As McKinsey noted in its groundbreaking 2014 Diversity Matters study: 

“The unequal performance of companies in the same industry and country suggests that gender, racial, and ethnic diversity are competitive differentiators: more diverse companies lure better talent and improve their decision making, customer orientation, and employee satisfaction.”

But recruiting a diverse team isn’t necessarily as easy as it seems. Even most organisations’ best efforts fall short of hiring for true workplace diversity. 

With that in mind here are our four tips for successfully recruiting for diversity. 

1. Look outside your networks

The traditional way businesses have worked was that people tended to recruit through personal networks, or if they didn’t, they tended to hire people just like themselves. If someone knew you or knew your friends, went to the same university as you or grew up in the same area, you could trust them, right?

One of the main problems with this is that unnecessarily limited the pool of talent available. This restricted the types of ideas and perspectives that came from employees. And that, in turn, restricted the number of people a business would appeal to. 

So, the first step in hiring for diversity is to look beyond your immediate networks. That means advertising publicly – or through an independent party – for any job vacancy.

2. Be objective

“A vast body of research shows that the hiring process is biased and unfair,” says the Harvard Business Review. That’s not just because hirers tend to favour people who think and act like themselves without even realising it, it’s also because they tend to be drawn to charisma rather than skill. The sweet-talker who performs well in an interview usually gets hired ahead of the more reserved – and often more competent – candidate.  

One way to help get around this is to create a list of attributes and skills you’re looking for in your new hire and to focus on these rather than on factors that don’t actually relate to how well someone is going to perform a job. 

If you’re carrying out the recruiting process internally, you should also try to pull together a diverse team of people to carry out the hiring process.

Better still, why not create your list of skills and attributes and then give it to someone external so that your own biases play no part in the recruitment process at all?

3. Go blind and hold a test

It’s not just in the job interview that bias can take hold. One place that it can often kick in – and reduce diversity in the workplace – is during the initial CV check. 

A way to get around this could be to have someone remove names and other obvious identifiers from applicants’ CVs before you do a cull. 

Even when you’ve narrowed it down, you don’t necessarily have to go straight to a face-to-face job interview. Depending on the type of role you’re hiring for, you could ask people to perform a work test or to provide a sample of something they’ve done. 

That way your first port of call will be on someone’s quality of work rather than on their background.      

4. Work on your own culture

Sometimes workplaces end up lacking diversity because the culture simply doesn’t attract people from various backgrounds or with different points of view. If that’s your organisation, you need to find ways to make your workplace more inclusive. 

Educate your employees on diversity and its merits and introduce diversity training for your managers. Set diversity goals and hold people to account for meeting them. Introduce workplace activities that appeal to a cross-section of people, not simply one narrow group. 

To make your workplace truly diverse, you need to look within as well as without.

Want more? 

You can read about how we recruit here at Catalina Consultants in this article.

Alternatively, if you’d like to know more about creating a more diverse workplace through your recruitment strategies, get in touch.

There is little doubt wage rises are coming in 2022. With inflation surging and the cost of living taking centre stage this federal election, there’s now little doubt your employees will be seeking a pay rise in 2022. However, a lot of business owners feel ill-equipped to deal with higher incomes, with some telling me they’re already losing staff to competitors willing to offer more.

That’s why I thought it was time to look at non-financial benefits, or what you can do when you can’t afford a pay rise.

Reduced hours/increased time off

If you can’t afford to pay someone more, what about asking them to work less? The opportunity to take more holidays, leave work earlier or have a Flexi day each fortnight holds real appeal for many employees. That means it could be a good way to keep them on board without needing to offer more money.

If you’re worried about the impact this might have on your business’s productivity, you don’t necessarily have to be. A comprehensive Icelandic study found that there was no reduction in an organisation’s level of service when its employees went from working five days a week to four days a week. In fact, many indicators of service provision and productivity actually rose. At the same time, employees’ happiness and well-being improved dramatically.

If you’re going to go down this path though, it helps to make sure that your employees actually want to work less. For some workers, cutting hours may feel like a demotion or backwards step in their career rather than a benefit.

Other flexible working options

It’s not just time off that many employees want, it’s also the opportunity to work autonomously. During the COVID lockdowns, many of us got very used to working our own way. We often also had the opportunity to fit in more time with our families, on hobbies and just generally looking after ourselves. Now, as things return to normal, it can be a difficult thing to go back to the feeling that we always need to be in the office.

By continuing to offer some degree of flexible working even after COVID, your workplace could continue to appeal to employees even without a pay rise – especially if competitors aren’t doing the same.

Providing recognition

One of the main things employees want out of their work is the recognition for a job well done or at least the feeling that they’re not being taken for granted.  Too many employers forget this and expect their employees to keep working their best and remaining loyal, without ever letting them know how much they mean.

Don’t fall into this boat. Make sure you tell your staff how much you value them even if you can’t afford to pay more. Throw after work drinks or regular dinners to celebrate their achievements and acknowledge how they contribute.

Career mapping

While some employees are tempted to move by a short-term windfall, many look to the longer term. If you can offer a genuine and fulfilling career path, they’ll have much more incentive to stay with you. This could be a good time to sit down with the staff you want to keep to find out exactly what they want from their careers and how you can help facilitate it. By following through, you’ll be giving them more reason to stay than just pay.

Know where you stand

Finally, before you say no to a pay rise, you need to do your homework and find out exactly where you stand. If your employees are covered by Awards or Agreements and these provide for a pay increase, you may have no option but to pay more.

You should also review your bottom line, to work out how much is coming in and what’s going out. If you find that you need to increase pay, it may be time to increase your prices…

Want more?

If you’d like to know more about how to get non-financial benefits work for your business, get in touch.

The first six months of your relationship with a new employee is vital for building the foundation for their entire time with you. We explore what you can do to set both them and your organisation up for success.

1. Develop a formal onboarding process

Onboarding an employee should begin before they even start, when you make the employment offer. Make sure you give them enough time to consider and negotiate their employment contract and that they’re clear on the terms and conditions of employment. As part of this step, you should also have a formal onboarding policy, which you can present them with when they sign up to work for you. 

This onboarding policy should cover the first six months of the employees’ time with you. It should include details of what you expect from the employee, what they should expect from you, what training they will need, your policies and procedures and key contacts, including any mentors or buddies (see below). You should also include details of any formal reviews.

2. Start the onboarding before they arrive 

Once you’ve agreed the terms and conditions of employment, you usually don’t have to wait until they start to make contact. (Unless, of course, there’s a restraint of trade at play.) 

Depending on the situation in which you’re hiring the new employee, you should be able to send them some welcoming content even before they arrive. This should include details of what they need to do on their first day. But it should also include details of key people they’ll need to work with and important things they’ll need to know.

3. Make them feel welcome 

Remember, just because your office starts work at 8.30 or 9am, that doesn’t mean you should get your new hire to begin at the same time. You’re usually better off getting them to come in mid-morning, so that your people have time to properly prepare for their arrival and they’re not left sitting outside in an empty foyer.

We’ve all been to that workplace where we’re not introduced to people and you have to figure out who they are and what they do as you go. This isn’t really a recipe for feeling part of the team. 

Arrange each new employee a buddy and when they arrive, arrange for that buddy to introduce them around the office. Don’t make the buddy the office junior (unless you’re hiring a junior). Make sure they’re on the same level as your new hire. 

Also,  don’t confuse orientation with onboarding. It’s just one step in the onboarding process – and an important one – but there is also so much more.

4. Set expectations

Solid relationships are always built on mutual understanding. Right from the start you should make it clear what you expect from your new employee when it comes to hours of work, productivity, raising problems and more. You should also ask them what they expect of you and what you can do to help them get their work done and make their life easier.

5. Train

Some employers take the view that they shouldn’t invest too much in their employees until they’re certain that they’re going to stay. Nothing could be less useful for effective onboarding.

I’m a firm believer in training people properly right from the start so that they can make a contribution from day one. After all, one study found that as many as 93% of employees would stay at a business that invested properly in their careers. Because it creates more efficient employees who are less likely to leave, proper training should also benefit your bottom line, even if it costs you in the short-term.

6. Keep up the talk

The worst thing you can do for any new team member is to leave things unsaid. If the employee is doing a good job, let them know and if the employee isn’t living up to expectations, let them know too. Even a small bit of guidance can often help employees get back on track and do their best work. By putting everything out in the open, you also help prevent small problems from becoming bigger ones. 

You should also ask the employee if something doesn’t make sense, if they need guidance in any part of their job, or if there’s anything you can do to make their life easier.

7. Understand your obligations

One reason that the first six months matters so much to many employers is that it’s the period of time in which unfair dismissal laws don’t apply (although it’s 12 months for small employers). That means, a lot of them see this period as risk-free when it comes to hiring and firing staff.

But it always pays to remember that having employees work for only a short period can be exceptionally costly for your business. One 2019 study found that hiring an entry level staff member costs on average of almost $10,000, while hiring an executive costs an average of almost $35,000.

Also, even though the unfair dismissal laws may not apply, you still have obligations. You can’t dismiss an employee for an unlawful reason and the employee is still entitled to the general protections that all workers enjoy. 

So, if it’s not working out, you should still tread carefully before terminating the employment contract and involve a professional if you need to.

Want to know more about planning for your employees’ first six months? 

If you’d like to know more about getting the first six months right, get in touch.

The High Court has clarified who classifies as casual employees, as well as what they’re entitled to. In doing so, it has ended close to five years of uncertainty for employers.

The ongoing saga of Workpac

In 2016, the Federal Circuit Court ruled that a Workpac employee who the company believed to was casual was actually permanent. As a result, he was entitled to the benefits of permanent employment, including paid leave. In reaching this finding, the court looked at the nature of the engagement. It noted that the worker had an ongoing roster and worked alongside permanent employees.

Another of Workpac’s employees engaged in similar circumstances claimed he also should be paid annual leave in light of the decision. In 2019, Workpac brought a claim before the Federal Court hoping for a ruling he was a casual employee. However, the Federal Court rejected its application and affirmed the earlier decision.

In doing so, the Federal Court found that Workpac didn’t expressly provide the worker with any loading but instead paid him a flat rate. It also noted that he was given his roster up to seven months in advance and that he worked a similar pattern to its permanent employees.

These factors, it concluded, meant he was a permanent employee and was entitled to the benefits of permanency.

Effectively, this meant the Federal Court found that it was the conduct of the employment relationship that mattered more than the employment contract itself.

The impact of these two cases

The two Workpac cases sent shockwaves through many workplaces, as employers struggled to come to terms with the status of their own employees. Many suddenly found that workers they assumed were casuals could in fact be permanent, potentially exposing them to significant liability.

The Commonwealth government attempted to intervene and amended the Fair Work Act so that, from March 2021, it defined who was a casual employee. This was someone who accepted an offer of employment with ‘no firm advance commitment to continuing and indefinite work according to an agreed pattern of work’.

The government also introduced provisions allowing long-term casuals to convert to permanent employees.

The High Court’s ruling for casual employees

The High Court’s decision was based on the Fair Work Act as it stood before the government’s recent amendments.

The High Court accepted the Federal Court’s reasoning that a casual employee was someone who didn’t have a firm advance commitment for work. However, it disputed the basis on which this could be determined.

Instead of relying on the conduct of the parties, it found an advance commitment needed to be a binding obligation – that is, one that was generally written into a contract of employment or agreement.

It found the Federal Court had erred when it looked at conduct instead of examining the terms of the worker’s employment contract and the employer’s obligations under them.

What the new ruling means for employers

The High Court’s ruling provides some degree of certainty that if you’ve employed someone under a casual contract of employment they are, in fact, a casual. It doesn’t matter if they receive their roster in advance, nor whether they’re engaged to perform work alongside permanent staff.

That said, employees can still challenge sham arrangements and the general rules of engaging employees still apply.

Furthermore, as a result of the government’s recent regularly-engaged many casuals now have a pathway to permanent employment, so long as they’ve been engaged 12 months and have worked a regular pattern of hours.

Want to know more about casual employees entitlements?

If you’d like to know more about how the High Court’s Workpac ruling impacts your business, get in touch.

Unfortunately, sexual harassment is too common in Australia’s workplaces. And, if it happens in your workplace, you may find that you’re liable.

According to the law, there is only one way around this. This involves taking certain steps to investigate allegations in a distinct way. Let’s look at what you must do when it comes to sexual harassment in the workplace.

What the law says constitutes sexual harassment

Under the Sexual Discrimination Act 1984, sexual harassment is unlawful in all work-related situations. That means circumstances such as training conferences and the office Christmas party – where harassment is often more likely to occur – usually count just as much as the office itself.

The Act also defines sexual harassment as unwelcome sexual conduct that makes someone feel offended, humiliated or intimidated. The question of whether behaviour is unwelcome is a subjective test. That means it’s enough that the victim didn’t want it to happen. However, the question of whether the victim was offended, humiliated or intimidated is an objective one. This means a court must decide whether a reasonable person would anticipate that the behaviour would have this effect.

Under the Act, employers can be held vicariously liable where their employees commit sexual harassment. This is unless they’ve taken ‘all reasonable steps’ to prevent it. As an employer, this is an extremely difficult threshold to overcome. This is because recently, courts have tended to find in favour of the victim.

Your legal obligations as an employer

Your legal obligations as an employer take two forms. The first is to take steps to prevent it from occurring. The second is to take appropriate corrective action if it does occur.

Preventing it begins by having a solid sexual harassment policy in place. But this is not enough on its own. You must also communicate this policy to employees. They must understand, and know how to report any instances of alleged harassment. Your management must also model what appropriate behaviour looks like. If the bosses aren’t behaving appropriately you can’t expect staff to either.

Often, sexual harassment takes the form of offensive emails or electronic communications. It’s also vital that your sexual harassment policy covers appropriate digital behaviour in the workplace. 

It’s also important that you train staff and managers in your sexual harassment policy. They need to know both what to look for and what to do if an instance occurs.

What to do when alleged sexual harassment happens

Even with the very best sexual harassment policy in place and all the training in the world, you may not be able to prevent every alleged instance from occurring.

When someone makes a specific complaint of sexual harassment, you’re obliged to take appropriate remedial action. That means having a proper complaint-handling procedure so that people can report the behaviour. It also means having trained people investigate the incident and making sure that both the alleged perpetrator and the victim are treated fairly and in line with the principles of natural justice. 

The law doesn’t provide for any particular procedure businesses should implement but leaves some degree of flexibility. However, the Human Rights Commission recommends businesses use both informal and formal complaint procedures.

An informal response is one that emphasises resolution and it’s more appropriate where the alleged harassment isn’t too serious but the victim wants the behaviour to end. For more serious allegations – or where the complaint involves a senior member of staff or informal means fail – you should conduct a formal investigation.

How to run a sexual harassment investigation

When you’re carrying out a formal investigation of any kind, you should be sure to document as much as you can. You should also be careful to act impartially and responsibly.

Make sure a senior, independent and skilled person runs the investigation. They should interview the alleged victim and particularise the allegations in writing. They should also put these to the alleged perpetrator in full, giving them the chance to respond.

Once this is done, you need to gather all the evidence that you can, although it’s important to remember that facts are likely to be disputed.

Also, often in sexual harassment claims no one has witnessed the event but you still need to speak to other relevant people and gather what evidence you can.

Once that’s done you can determine whether, on the balance of probabilities, sexual harassment has occurred.

What are your options if you find someone has committed sexual harassment?

How you should respond to a finding of sexual harassment depends on factors such as its severity, the harasser’s level of contrition, the wishes of the victim and any past actions, such as warnings or prior incidents.

With these factors in mind, your options can range from counselling and a formal apology to official warnings and disciplinary action, including termination of employment.

It’s also important that you treat the victim fairly, such as offering to reinstate any leave they may have taken as a result of the incident and reimbursing any costs they’ve incurred.     

The consequences of getting it wrong

Finally, it’s important to remember that there can be severe consequences for getting sexual harassment wrong.

Most frequently, courts have found in favour of the victim where they bring a claim against an employer for vicarious liability. It’s only in the most watertight cases that an employer escapes sanction. For instance, in one of the rare cases where the court found that an employer had taken all reasonable steps, the employer had:

Outside of the legal consequences, a sexual harassment incident can often cause real reputational and business damage too – not to mention damage to workplace morale. On the other side of the equation, dismissing an alleged harasser without adequate evidence can leave you exposed to a claim of unlawful termination.

Want more?

In short, sexual harassment is a fraught area with real repercussions for the victim and potentially for your business too.

If you’d like help preventing harassment in your workplace or need advice on how to deal with a specific incident, get in touch.

Australia’s complex wage system means you may be paying your workers too little without knowing it. In this article, we explore what you need to be looking out for to ensure you’re not underpaying your employees.

How does Australia’s wages system work?

Australia’s wages system consists of different levels of pay and employment conditions, which can be hard to interpret.

At the most basic level, the Commonwealth Government’s 10 National Employment Standards and the minimum wage is the best place to start. These apply to almost all workers (however, some State Government employees are exempt) and generally can’t be contracted out of.

On top of these standards are modern awards. These cover employees by individual sectors and their experience. And, they provide penalty rates and overtime.

Outside of modern awards are modern agreements including enterprise agreements. These are significantly more defined, developed for specific businesses or groups of businesses.

Finally, an organisation might develop their own employment contracts which are agreed between the business and the employee. These can offer better conditions than the above awards and agreements, but can’t offer anything less than described. An agreement can be in writing, but can also be verbal, based on practice or even custom. These agreements can be developed into a contract without you knowing it – for example, you might verbally agree with your employee on a 10 per cent commission, despite it not being written in the contract.

What’s the minimum wage in Australia?

The minimum wage for a full-time worker is currently $19.84 an hour, or $753.80 for a 38 hour week. But it’s important to remember that this is for permanent employees only.

Casual workers must also receive a 25 per cent loading as they don’t receive paid annual leave, sick leave or other entitlements. That means if you’re choosing to employ casual staff, the minimum you can pay them is $24.81 an hour. That said, this is the minimum wage for adult workers who are at least 21 of age. If an employee is under 21, they may not be entitled to this full amount. Instead, it’s a percentage based on their age.

Exactly what percentage? This depends on the industry they’re working in. This is something that employers need to be aware of. If you’re curious to know what the industry rates are for juniors, you can view the Fair Work website.

What are other things to be looking out for?

Generally, employers are pretty good when it comes to paying employees the right wage. Where I’ve witnessed discrepancies, is often around entitlements outside of wages. Think overtime, overnight hours or working on a public holiday. These payments are covered by awards.

What about experience? Some employees are entitled to a higher rate of pay due to their seniority and experience. For example, an employee who supervises others or is more skilled should be paid more. And, depending on the industry and role, some employees are entitled to allowances, as well as leave loading – these too can sometimes be accidentally ignored.

So, what about unwritten contracts?

Another challenge – one that can be complex – are entitlements that haven’t been agreed in writing. These entitlements could be part of workplace culture or verbally agreed.

For instance, you might pay staff 15 per cent superannuation, offer a commission structure even though there’s no entitlement under an award agreement or written contract. If you’re not careful, employees can argue that they have a contractual right to keep receiving it, even if you’ve always seen it as discretionary.

Underpayment of employees – some examples

As a business owner, it’s your job to be aware of any changes and to ensure that employees are being paid fairly. Here are some scenarios that I’ve personally witnessed, where employees have underpaid their employees without even realising it:

How to ensure employees are being paid properly

If you’re looking to avoid underpayment, there are several things you should do.

  1. Regularly perform an award and agreement audit. Ensure that there haven’t been updates to agreements.
  2. Work out what you’ve agreed. If you now have other agreements in place, be very clear on what they are.
  3. Put it in writing. To avoid ambiguity, record everything.
  4.  Sign contracts. If you need to, encourage employees to sign a contract to formalise their arrangements.
  5. Set up payroll properly. Many businesses, especially small ones, fall down when it comes to execution. Get your payroll right.

Still have questions regarding awards and agreements?

It’s a complicated space. At Catalina Consultants, we’re human resources professionals and have a thorough understanding of this space. If you require any assistance regarding workplace agreements, payment rates or contracts, feel free to reach out to us today.

As an employer, there’s a lot you can do to support your employees’ mental health. From an HR perspective, you have a responsibility to take care of your employees, particularly around their mental health. In this article, we look at the simple steps you should be taking and explore why it’s crucial right now – both for your employees and your bottom line.

Why does workplace mental health matter so much?

Good mental health is the glue that binds a workplace together. Employees with good mental health are happier, more productive and more likely to stay in roles. A PwC study found that for every dollar an employer puts into ensuring good mental health, they get back an average return of 230%.

However, there are some employees who feel that their employers can be doing more when it comes to mental health. While 90 per cent agree that good mental health is important for a properly-functioning business, just half believe their workplace is mentally healthy. Seventy-five per cent admit that mental health will impact whether or not they take a job. Perhaps, and most importantly, it’s the second-most decisive factor in determining whether to leave employment and take a job elsewhere. What’s the first? Pay, of course.

What contributes to poor mental health in the workplace?

Many factors can contribute to poor workplace mental health. But the reality is, more often than not, it comes from the top. Poor management practices, lack of communication, creating unnecessary stress and providing a lack of support are all critical contributors to a mentally unhealthy workplace. While every workplace culture is different, it’s incumbent on employers and their HR department to provide staff the support they need and to create the right environment. We’ll show you how to do this in six steps.

HR Tip 1: Work out your mental health priorities

Headsup.com.au recommends once leadership commits to managing mental health in the workplace, begin by identifying all mental health needs. You can do this by meeting with employees both individually and in a group setting. Surveys and informal conversations have their place too. You should also look at all the HR data you have available, such as absentee rates and workers compensation and harassment claims statistics to analyse where any problems lie.

HR Tip 2: Have a written plan in place

In anything HR-related, you should always have the right strategies, policies and procedures in place. While WHS and employment laws cover such things as workplace bullying and harassment, these really should be seen as the base level for how you operate. Complement these with a written mental health plan – one that expresses your priorities, defines what you want to achieve and outlines your focus and attention. Be sure to include what’s acceptable in the workplace and what’s not. The more detail you can add here, the better.

HR Tip 3: Get buy-in from across the organisation

Leadership is the key to promoting mental health in the workplace. Make sure senior staff members are on board as well as the rest of your team. Let people know what you’re trying to achieve and why it matters so much. And, it’s worth training departments in what to look for when it comes to recognising the signs of anxiety, depression and poor mental health in others.

HR Tip 4: Give people the power to speak up

Often people feeling stress or suffering anxiety don’t feel empowered to raise the matter, with stigma often playing a part. It can also be stress caused by managers and colleagues, or a feeling of being unsupported. Keep an open-door policy and encourage teams to raise issues when they see or experience them. Here, an anonymous hotline can give people the courage they need to come forward.

HR Tip 5: Be realistic about work levels

One of the leading causes of a mentally unhealthy workplace is employer expectations. There are some people in leadership positions that expect employees to overwork, leading to burnout. Others often ‘throw them to the wolves’, naturally siding with clients whenever there are issues. Make sure expectations are in line with what employees can realistically achieve. If you expect them to have skills they don’t, train them. If you expect them to bill more, cut their other job requirements so they can focus. And, always approach any conflict with an open mind. You know the customer isn’t always right.

HR Tip 6: Communicate, communicate and communicate again

The best businesses always have one thing in common: open communication. And, there’s never been a more critical time to have open communication than right now. COVID-19 has introduced a whole new level of stress – with reduced turnovers, job losses and redundancies becoming normal. Let employees know how you’re going and what lies ahead. And, if people are working from home, check in on them regularly to find out how they’re going. There’s no excuse for leaving people out of the picture just because they’re out of the office. By keeping up the conversation, you’ll be ensuring that workplace stress doesn’t impact your organisation.

Keep on top of mental health

It’s never been so important. If you require assistance in setting up an HR strategy around mental health or wish to speak with a human resources expert, then reach out to the Catalina Consultants team. We’d love to help.

Employee sentiment analysis is one of the hottest things in human resources right now. But what exactly is the point of it? How do you do it effectively? And how can it improve your organisation?

What is employee sentiment and why analyse it?

Employee sentiment analysis involves taking a snapshot of what your employees think and feel about your workplace at a point in time. Its purpose is to show you how your staff perceive your business and their place in it, what they believe you do well and not so well, where they see the company (and themselves) headed and what makes them tick.

This information can give you valuable insights into your workplace culture and highlight any strengths or weaknesses you might have. It can also serve as an action plan for what you need to work on to create a real culture of high performance.

How do you measure employee sentiment?

The truth is, a lot of businesses have been doing some form of employee sentiment analysis for a while. We’ve all filled out one of those employee surveys – the ones that ask us to rate specific statements on a scale of 0-to-10 depending on how much we think it applies to us. That’s a basic form of employee sentiment analysis. So is analysing the HR and payroll data, such as leave sheets, absenteeism, worker’s compensation claims and other information that tells you what employees are experiencing.

These days, however, employee sentiment analysis has moved well beyond pen and paper and into the realm of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. There is software that will automatically analyse reams of data that your organisation stores in an attempt to get an accurate picture of where things are at. This can include quantitative and qualitative information, such as performance reviews, onboarding and exit interviews, performance feedback and, well, any other information that you choose to use.

Tips for carrying out your employee sentiment analysis

If you want to gauge employee sentiment in your workplace here are some things you should always keep in mind.

1. Keep it relevant

If you’re doing manual employee sentiment analysis through surveys, make sure they’re relevant to what people do. A lot of businesses opt for off-the-shelf questionnaires that ask generic questions. Most employees will see through or switch off from this type of polling and treat it as a box-ticking exercise. Give your questions some proper thought and connect them to the reality of your employees’ day-to-day work.

2. Keep it short

As a general rule, the longer something is, the harder it is to keep someone’s attention. If you go in with 100 different questions, people are likely to give up pretty quickly. That means your data will be incomplete or inaccurate.  If you find you’re asking too much, whittle your survey down to no more than about 10 questions. Allow employees to elaborate if they feel the need.

3. Keep it confidential

Nothing will turn people off answering questions truthfully than having their information shared with others. Always guarantee confidentiality over any survey and ensure privacy and anonymity.

4. Keep it up

While a single burst employee sentiment analysis can be great for giving you a snapshot of where your business is at, what’s even better is when you do it frequently so that you compare changes in sentiment. Think of how economists use consumer sentiment to gauge the likely direction of the economy.

Regular analysis can help you identify issues – such as potential staff departures or declining morale –  before they start to hit your bottom line. It can also give you the information you need to keep refining your policies and practices so that you build a high performing team.

Want more HR advice?

If you need help analysing employee sentiment in your workplace, get in touch.

Do you know where you stand with your employees and their working status? The Workpac appeal decision means employers need to tread carefully when looking at the distinction between casual and permanent employees. Since Workpac v Rossato, employers who get that distinction wrong can face hefty liabilities.

What happened?

Last year the Australian Federal Court ruled a regularly working casual employee in mining recruitment to be a permanent employee. As such, they received permanent employee benefits, including annual and long-service leave. This decision was handed down in Workpac v Skeene

Another purported casual employee, Mr Rossato attempted to claim the exact same status and benefits. As a result, the employer decided to bring the case before the Federal Court. The bench found Mr Rossato to be a permanent employee, not a casual. Why? He worked regular hours in a similar pattern to Workpac’s other fulltime employees.  He had been doing this for over three years. Along with this, Workpac provided Mr Rossato accommodation on-site and a roster seven months in advance.

It was clear that Mr Rossato’s employment was both stable and regular in nature.

Workpac’s HR dilemma 1: What about Mr Rossato’s casual loading?

Workpac’s argument suggests that if Mr Rossato is a permanent employee, then he isn’t entitled to the 25 per cent loading applied to his pay. However, the full bench rejected this argument. Instead, the court discovered his pay was on a flat hourly rate. This amount was simply the market rate – Workpac wanted to attract and retain the right staff. Despite their attempted argument, any casual loading couldn’t be separated from the payment as a whole. And, the court found that Mr Rossato supported this employment contract – it didn’t include an identifiable casual loading rate. It also didn’t allow for this loading to be clawed back if he was deemed to be a permanent employee.

Workpac’s HR dilemma 2: What about Mr Rossato’s hourly rate and entitlements?

Workpac also argues that, based on its belief that Mr Rossato was a casual employee, the organisation had paid him an hourly rate above the Enterprise Agreement. Workpac claimed their entitlement was to offset the above-agreement amount against any entitlements owed to Mr Rossato.  The court rejected this submission too – finding that the above-agreement payment and Mr Rossato’s denial of leave didn’t correlate. The court also noted employees aren’t entitled to cash out leave for extra pay except in limited circumstances.

What do these findings mean for you as an employer?

The most recent Workpac decision highlights the importance of ensuring your employee’s working status is correct. If not handled correctly, you may find yourself facing significant claims and potential bad publicity for underpayment.

Want to make sure you’re doing everything correctly? Start with your employment contract and get proper legal advice. Write clear clauses specifying the nature of the engagement and allocating an amount of the employee’s pay to casual loading. Make sure you treat casuals as casuals and not as permanent staff. This means they shouldn’t have fixed rosters or know their hours well in advance. If you’re in doubt, you may be able to switch them to part-time permanent employment or fixed-term employees.

That said, the Commonwealth government is actively reviewing this space and has indicated that there may be changes to the law. Workpac has also said it will appeal the decision.

Unsure of your employee’s entitlements or have any HR questions?

At Catalina Consultants, we’re the HR experts when it comes to employment status, contracts and entitlements. If you have any questions, then feel free to reach out to us. We’d love to help.

Managing the performance of employees working from home is something many managers may find challenging. When your team members are out of sight, there can be a temptation to also leave them out of mind. But with COVID-19 shutting down workplaces and disrupting businesses, working remotely has gone from a convenience to a necessity for many organisations. And now that many Australians have got a taste for it, working from home looks like it could become a long-lasting fixture for some. 

It’s always important to be across your teams and to understand how people are motivated in their roles. Everyone approaches their work differently. So, with this in mind, we thought it was time to put together our HR guide on how to manage remote employees so that they stay high performers. 

The scale of the problem

Studies have shown that about forty per cent of all jobs in a modern economy can plausibly be done from home. During the height of Australia’s COVID-19 closedown, that figure was well and truly pushed to the limit. Now, with people returning to work and many businesses scaling up again, many people have gained a taste for it. Perhaps more importantly, the government is encouraging people to work from home and discouraging public transport use during peak hour. So it seems that working from home may be the reality for many workers for the foreseeable future.  

Working from home presents a real challenge for some employers, especially when it comes to getting the best performance from their team. After all, the reaction of many employers is to counter poor remote working performance by simply asking the employee to return to the office. Now, that situation is not as simple as it seems. 

It’s time to come up with a better solution.

HR Tip 1: Harness the power of structure

One thing missing from many people’s day to day when working from home is structure. That’s understandable but the reality is that many people need it. In my opinion, good managers need to build structure into their team’s day, even when they’re working from home.

That doesn’t necessarily mean they expect their employees to sit at their desk for nine hours straight. But, it does mean having regular team meetings (preferably on Zoom to encourage employees to get out of their pyjamas). It also means having frequent phone calls with each member of staff, where possible. As a general rule, talk more often, not less. You can check in on the tasks that people are performing and make sure that productivity stays high. It also gives people the chance to ask any questions they need answered, to get on with the job.

You should aim to have regular one on one meetings with each employee to talk about what they’re working on, communicate your expectations and address any concerns that they might be having. 

HR Tip 2: Keep your door open (or your phone on, at least)    

When working from home, communication should be a two-way street. You should be available to your team, just as you expect them to be available to you. So encourage your team to call you when they have an issue or to contact you via a chat app (our team loves Google Hangouts!). Don’t leave everything to email — when you’re in the office, you’ll usually have a whole lot of informal interactions. By recreating this in your remote workplace, you can quickly and easily deal with the small stuff and keep your employees productive.

HR Tip 3: Encourage breaks

Believe it or not, one of the biggest problems associated with working from home for many workers is the difficulty of pulling themselves away from the screen. Or, at least, that they will probably find themselves sitting in front of the computer too often, trying to compensate for not being in front of you. 

This can often be counterproductive and lead to a lack of motivation and burn out. Encourage your staff to take regular breaks and enjoy the better parts of working from home. 

HR Tip 4: Socialise with your employees

The extroverts of your office thrive on social occasions, such as the office birthdays and Friday night drinks. So try to recreate this where you can — enjoy afternoon ‘quarantini’s’, share a virtual meal together at lunch or simply start your morning meeting with a chat or the latest TV gossip. Keeping the social butterflies in your office happy helps give their performance a boost and keep your workplace culture strong.

HR Tip 5: Encourage and support your staff

Scared and stressed workers are rarely productive workers. If working from home has suddenly been thrust upon you, some employees are likely to feel anxious and concerned. The Harvard Business Review explains that it’s important you show empathy and keep up communication amongst the workplace. Simply asking employees how they’re going and what they’re finding challenging can go a long way in helping them to overcome their fears. 

HBR also says that employees take their cues on how to react from managers. So if you’re stressed and cranky, it’s likely that they will be too — let employees know they’re supported to encourage clarity and focus.

HR Tip 6: Have the difficult conversations face-to-face

Even with the best human resources processes in place, there may be times when you need to have a serious talk to an employee working from home about their performance. Don’t be tempted to shy away from this or revert to less direct methods, such as email. You should always have difficult conversations face-to-face, even when someone is working remotely.

Personally, I believe managers should use Zoom or another video conferencing service when performance issues need to be raised — treat the meeting as though you were in the office. Make sure you’re in a private place and that the employee is too. Look them in the eye as best you can and give it to them straight.

Be sure to follow the same process you would in the office —the same rules about performance management still apply. It’s important that, as a leader, you’re proactive and take the lead on any conversations or disciplinary action. By letting things slide, you could potentially end up in a much worse position than you would if everyone were still in the office. However, one word of caution – don’t neglect to consider the impact that COVID-19 has had on all of us, your employees included. The past few months have been stressful and uncertain, with professional and personal lives converging like never before. Take time to reflect and consider how COVID may have contributed to the issues you need to discuss.

Want more expert HR advice? 

Open and consistent communication is key to keeping employees motivated and engaged when it comes to working from home. If you’d like to find out more about managing the performance of employees working remotely, or assistance in setting up a virtual HR strategy whilst everyone is away from the office, then reach out to the Catalina Consultants team today. 

Given the events taking place due to coronavirus, businesses are faced with the task of cutting back spending where possible. But where do you cut back? And, how much? What stays and what goes? As someone that works in HR, I can’t stress enough how important it is to keep your human resources alive – however, I understand, some cutbacks are unavoidable. So what should you do if you have no other option to reduce spend when it comes to your HR strategy? We explore seven ways in which you can downsize those HR costs and still have an effective human resources team.

1. Look for duplication

One of the easiest ways to save money in any business? Identify and eliminate any duplication across all departments. This could be duplication of roles, duplication of processes or really any kind of double up. Often, we find that duplication happens when tasks and processes are done manually rather than relying on technology or some sort of automated programming. In other cases, it’s because there are just too many people and too little communication. McKinsey found, for instance, that HR departments often duplicated certain activities simply because they had several layers in the organisation doing similar things. The consulting firm concluded that it was often easy to remove some of these levels with little-to-no strategic risk.

2. Redesign your processes

It’s quite common for businesses to change but for processes to stay the same. It’s also common for business processes to grow organically without any real thought as to whether these human resources processes are efficient at all. How long has it been since you looked at your HR processes? Readjusting unwieldy processes can be an easy way to keep costs down and now, might the right time to apply the metaphorical blowtorch to each of your organisation’s processes. And, here’s a little HR tip – I find it’s a good idea to work backwards: start from the result a process is trying to achieve and then chart the simplest, most efficient path to getting there.

3. Maximise your HR roles

With the right people in each HR role performing the right tasks, you’ll find that teams work more effectively and efficiently. It’ll also produce better results at a lower cost. Take a look at who’s doing what within your HR department and observe how they’re doing it. Ask yourself the following questions – are your people suited to the tasks they’re performing? (A good psychometric assessment could help determine the answer here) and, are you using skilled and expensive people to perform work that someone cheaper could do? Matching the right people with the right tasks will improve your HR output and could potentially work wonders on your bottom line.

4. Invest in better HR technology

Implementing the right HR technology won’t just make teams more efficient, it’ll help you reduce the number of tasks you need to perform in the first place. Many processes we had to do manually just five years ago can be automated. For comparatively little cost, specific processes can be streamlined and improved through robotic process automation (RPA). Payroll, new employee onboarding and compliance are all prime areas for this exciting wave of technology.

5. Interrogate your spending

It’s very easy to spend money on things that you and your teams don’t get full value from. It’s costs like subscriptions you no longer use or training that serves little purpose. Even staff or consultants whose values are not commensurate with the amount you pay. Look at where the dollars are going in and out and ask yourself, ‘am I getting the most out of this spending?’.

6. Build effective compensation packages

When there’s a disconnect between how someone is paid and their productivity at work, you’re likely to be spending money inefficiently. An effective way to save money can be to better match your HR professionals’ performance with their pay. Here, reviewing KPIs to match your business goals and shifting from relying only on base salary to bonuses can bring about better results for your HR team. You can read more about how to build better employee incentive programs.

7. Outsource your HR

Have you considered utilising a virtual or custom HR service? Outsourcing some or all of your HR capabilities can certainly cut costs while delivering more efficient HR outcomes. You’ll only pay for what you use and access a wide range of human resource skills – everything from the administration through to strategic planning – without necessarily having to employ full-time staff in each role. By outsourcing, you may be able to get by with a reduced HR team, saving you thousands in salaries and superannuation. In fact, you may be able to employ skeleton HR staff or even no dedicated HR team at all. It all depends on your business and how it’s structured.

It’s important to maintain some form of HR function within any organisation – even when times are tough. Human resources services are for the people and a necessary element to business success. If you’re facing financial difficulty or need to keep your costs down, look at altering your HR function, not getting rid of it. If you have any questions regarding the tips I’ve mentioned or you’d like to discuss how you might be able to virtualise your human resources, get in touch. We can certainly look at custom HR packages to suit your business and budget.

Even before COVID-19 became a feature of our lives, working from home was starting to become the norm for many workplaces. But given what’s happened with the coronavirus outbreak, working from home has become an imperative. During times like this, it’s important to keep your people healthy, happy and engaged. But how do you keep up morale and maintain workplace culture when your team is working remotely?

The importance of workplace culture

Before we get into the specifics of how to make sure your workplace culture survives remote working it’s probably worth reflecting on why having a workplace culture is so important in the first place. According to Forbes Magazine, that really comes down to three key things:

Identity – culture will help set the values and identity of a company. For instance, if your culture is one in which setting and meeting goals is valued and encouraged, this can help keep employees directed without too much intervention.

Retention – strong company culture attracts and retains better talent. People feel like they belong and are more inclined to stick it out for the long-term.

Image – a good culture where people enjoy themselves and work hard shows in the marketplace – this, in turn, helps build loyal customers or clients.

In short, when culture is right, the rest tends to flow naturally. From an HR perspective, employees are more productive, efficient and engaged. This mindset will give your business the best possible chance of succeeding. But how do you encourage this, particularly when everyone is working remotely? How do you keep employees happy, engaged and productive simultaneously when they’re not in front of you?

Tips for keeping workplace culture alive when people are at home

I’ve been working in human resources for many years and I understand what drives people to work harder and what can turn them off. Ensuring people are engaged and feel a sense of worth and belonging is critical. So when employees are forced to work from home, here are my seven tips to keeping that workplace culture alive.

1. Have written policies ready

In the coming weeks as people settle in and iron out the bugs of working from home this will be an important factor. Having well-written HR policies in place that you can stick to is extremely important. Even more so when people are working remotely – let everyone know what you expect of them when they’re working from home. When do they need to check in with you? What hours do you expect them to work? What should they do if they’ve finished the tasks they’re assigned. Getting this right from the get-go will have a big impact on whether remote working works or fails. And remember there is a WHS requirement to WFH so don’t skip over the logistical requirements or you may have a Workcover claim!

2. Use software and apps to communicate

Don’t rely on email as your main form of conversation. It can be isolating, overtly formal and information can get lost in a sea of inboxes. These days, it’s not hard to find software or apps to keep your workplace humming along. As a minimum, you should make sure you have a good video chat and instant messenger app that everyone knows about and knows how to use. Something as simple as Teams, Slack and Google Hangouts often does the trick. Oh and my big tip? Make sure everyone on a video call actually has their video on! They will get past the awkwardness, trust me. But beware – anything that could and should be formally within your information systems should be kept securely in that environment – so don’t get too trigger happy with cutting off your email system.

3. Set up groups

In any workplace, you’d usually have times where everyone is together in the same room – it might be for brainstorming sessions, meetings or just a general get-together. There’s no reason you can’t do this virtually. Again, you can do this with Teams, Zoom, Google apps. Alternatively, an-all-in one online tool such as Slack can work here, letting you set up groups, chat and host video calls all from the one platform. Equally you may want to set up smaller sub-groups – based on teams, client groups, managers etc – anyone who communicates together on a regular basis. What you are wanting to do is replicate the way you might gather and communicate in your workplace, only now it’s virtual.And again, video on!

4. Check-in with your employees regularly

If everyone goes off and does their own thing, you’ll find that communication channels will break down. Sure, you don’t want to chain people to their remote desks but at the same time, regular catch-ups at the same time each day – like a virtual ‘stand up’ meeting – can help keep everyone on the same page. Put that 9:30 am invite in people’s calendars and make sure people are present online. A lot of businesses are also checking in at lunchtime and at the end of the day too to make sure people are feeling connected at those times when they would ordinarily huddle and chat.

5. Use face-to-face

As I have mentioned above, when you have these regular catch-ups use face-to-face software. Don’t let people dial in on the phone. Seeing each other visually contributes so much to the sense of belonging, it’s much more natural and it can go a long way to keeping up morale. I know some people will complain they are still in their PJs, or they haven’t done their hair – but hang on a minute, aren’t you at work?? Just because your team is working from home doesn’t mean they can be invisible, and giving people the incentive to be dressed for the day and in a workplace frame-of-mind is probably what they should be doing to remain focussed anyway.

6. Give remote working a trial run first

It’s hard to believe there would still be an organisation that hasn’t adopted working from home by now but if your workplace hasn’t gone 100% remote just yet, choose a day to trial and ensure your systems all work. Then it’s about keeping up the pace. Normal workplaces thrive on constant communication so remember in remote workplaces it becomes even more important. If you’re the business owner, the manager or team leader don’t drop the ball and take the easy path of not checking in – even for a day. Keep up the chat, keep those groups active and keep everyone together with a common purpose in mind.They will all be looking to you to set the tone.

7. Recreate your office vibe whenever you can

Ok so it’s never going to be the same as Friday night drinks but remember there are parts of work that are actually fun. The socialising, the banter, the catching up about the weekend. Some people can forget about this when they work from home. Far from slacking off, they begin dedicating even more of their time to work and less to the fun they have, and they struggle with separating their worlds. Have a bit of fun during video calls – play trivia or host a virtual team lunch. Enjoy yourself and do what you can to encourage others to enjoy themselves too. Honestly, this is probably the single most important thing you can do to keep the workplace culture alive.

Keep the workplace culture alive

Given the current climate, remote working will be the norm for a while. So it’s important that you get everything set up correctly from the get-go. Maintaining morale and happiness in the key to success when it comes to working from home. If you have any questions or concerns or if you’d like some assistance in setting up some virtual HR systems, then reach out to the Catalina Consultants team today, we’d love to assist.

The office Christmas party is an important event for any workplace. And, from a human resources perspective, it can boost morale and encourage teamwork. It’s a chance for colleagues to let their hair down together, celebrate the year and socialise in a different setting. It’s an opportunity for you, as an employer, to show your appreciation and recognition for all the employee’s hard work. But get the staff party wrong, and it can leave you out of pocket, with a potentially damaged workplace culture.

With that in mind, here are five mistakes we see employers commit when it comes to the office Christmas party. Not only will we go through them, but also compare these mistakes to a real-life case study – Drake & Bird v BHP.

HR Mistake 1: Not communicating expectations

If you’re an employer or manager, you won’t want to come across as the ‘fun police’. However, you do need to remind employees they’ll be representing the organisation. Even when it’s party time, when it’s offsite and if they organise the party themselves.

That’s what the Fair Work Commission (FWC) found in Drake & Bird v BHP, in which two BHP workers were sacked over their behaviour at their workplace Christmas party. In Drake & Bird v BHP, the workers argued that because they organised the event and not management – and because it was held at the local bowling club open to the general public – it wasn’t a BHP function so the company code of conduct didn’t apply. However, the FWC wasn’t convinced. It found that because the co-worker’s behaviour was inappropriate, and BHP’s reputation was at stake, the party counted as work.

HR Mistake 2: Serving unlimited alcohol

It’s a simple fact that almost every office Christmas party that can end in disaster begins with alcohol. That’s what happened in Drake & Bird v BHP, where both workers – as well as the supervisor they allegedly assaulted – were all heavily under the influence of alcohol.

If you’re offering an open bar, this needs to be monitored. For example, have an open bar for just a set period of time or give employees redeemable tickets.

HR Mistake 3: Having no social media policy

Unfortunately, ‘what happens at the office Christmas party’ often ‘doesn’t stay at the office Christmas party’. Social media has made it even more accessible for people to capture what’s happening there and then. In doing so, there’s the potential to damage the reputation of your employees and your business.

It’s imperative, from a human resources perspective, that you let employees know your expectations of them. To be frank, it’s worth considering a social media blanket ban. Otherwise, go old school and have an official photographer. Then limit your social media posts to these pictures.

Interestingly, while social media didn’t play any part in the Drake & Bird decision, the FWC was critical of one employee’s decision to take ‘selfies’ of the supervisor’s injuries rather than using the ‘old school’ method of taking him to a doctor for assessment – another symptom of the digital age.

HR Dilemma 4: Becoming too involved

With the music blaring and the drinks flowing, it’s all too easy to kick back and relax too much. All too often, in casual environments like office parties, employees and management can let their guard down.

In the Drake & Bird case, for instance, the two workers sacked for fighting, had used the occasion to tell the supervisor – who was part of another team – that he didn’t belong at the event, using inappropriate language in the process. It pays to remember that ultimately office parties are still a professional event. Keep it that way by staying professional yourself and don’t get involved in office gossip.

HR Dilemma 5: Assuming they’re protected

Based on what you’ve read so far you’d probably think it’s safe to assume that the usual workplace rules apply at the office Christmas party and if someone chooses to behave in an inappropriate manner, then you’re in a position to exercise your power and potentially dismiss them. But in truth, you can’t. In fact, it can be murky waters to navigate.

In Drake & Bird, the FWC concluded that BHP was fine to dismiss one of the two men but it found that the other shouldn’t have been sacked. It noted that his action – an intoxicated verbal stoush in front of 90 people and a scuffle – was worthy of sanction but there was no valid reason to actually terminate his employment. In particular, there was no concrete evidence that he was violent.

In another recent decision, the FWC also ruled that construction giant Boral, acted wrongly when it decided to sack an employee who misbehaved at an office Christmas party. The accused employee allegedly propositioned colleagues and behaved inappropriately throughout the course of the evening. However, the FWC found that the worker should have been counselled and that terminating his employment, was a step too far. One factor that weighed in the employee’s favour was that Boral had provided a free and open bar and that the accused gentleman had committed most of his indiscretions once he’d left the office Christmas party.

Party appropriately, don’t party hard

In short, the office Christmas party can become an HR grey area when not managed properly. And, if mismanaged, can land you in hot water, leaving you open for liability and damaging both morale and reputation. If you’d like advice around this, then reach out to the Catalina Consultants team today.

Thinking of selling your business? Your Human Resources (HR) policies, processes and practices are all likely to have an impact on the price you receive. 

We explore what you need to do to get your business HR ready for sale so that you secure top dollar when it comes time to sell.  

1. Have the right HR policies in place

First and foremost, any potential buyer will usually want to know how your business functions from an HR perspective. Even more importantly, that your HR policies will continue to function when the buyer takes over. They’ll also want to know that you have established HR customs and procedures that don’t conflict too much with their own. 

This means always taking the time to document and write down your HR policies and procedures before your business goes to market. This means everything from employee leave and flexible working hours through to termination and redundancy.

2. Understand your HR liabilities

The other key concern most buyers will have is your HR liabilities. They’ll usually go through a due diligence process to uncover these (or at least their lawyers will). When they do, they’ll notice things like “golden parachutes” for managers, massive redundancy entitlements, large looming bonuses and, most importantly, excessive leave liabilities. 

To get the best price, you’ll need to keep these to a minimum. If a member of staff has accrued more than eight weeks’ annual leave, you may be within your rights to ask them to use some of it. You should also be prudent when it comes to agreeing on severance terms with senior staff.  

3. Do what you can to retain key staff

One of the most challenging things to do will be convincing your employees to stay on after the sale. Some buyers will stipulate as a condition of sale that your key employees stay. This is especially true of any businesses that rely specifically on the skill of the staff to make money (ie professional services), as well as for relationships-based businesses. 

Key employee retention is also important when the sale doesn’t involve a merger or acquisition by a similar business. That’s because the buyer won’t have existing employees to take over that workload.  

Losing key staff in the run-up to a sale is also likely to diminish your business’s value. Reassuring them about their value is obviously a start, but sometimes it takes offering them incentives for them to stay. You may find you need to offer loyalty bonuses in this regard.

4. Keep up employee morale

A buyer is able to see a workplace with poor employee morale or a toxic workplace culture. They will notice workers who are disengaged and productivity that is slipping. To get the best value of your sale, you need to prevent this from happening. That involves communication.

It’s only natural employees will be worried, and let’s face it, perhaps some staff have every right to be. But you also need to let employees know the positives that new owners will bring. Will there be increased opportunities? A new direction? The chance to play out on a bigger stage? Just be sure that you’re realistic about what the future brings as promising the world is likely to have the reverse effect.

Also, keep your door open and let people come to you with their fears. Staying open and honest is vital. 

5. Make sure you’re compliant

Finally, one of the main HR-related exposures any business buyer can face is inheriting non-compliance with a law, regulation, award or agreement. Here, it’s your responsibility to make sure the buyer won’t uncover any major surprises in their due diligence. 

The way to do that is to audit your HR policies and practices. You need to find out where your exposures lie. Then you can make them right and make an educated decision on how to best approach things. 

Uncovering a major breach of law can make a buyer nervous and leave them wondering what other exposures they may be facing. 

Are your HR policies ready for sale?

Selling a business can be a long and drawn-out process. Any serious buyer is going to take time going through every detail to make certain they know what they’re buying. By identifying and correcting any HR-related issues, you’ll be in a much stronger negotiating position and more likely to get the best price. 

If you’d like to get your business and HR policies ready for sale, speak to the Catalina Consultants team.

Building a positive workplace culture is no easy task. It requires vision, organisation, patience and persistence. These elements are difficult enough to bring together even when you do everything right. But when you start getting things wrong they become almost impossible.

So, what common mistakes are businesses making and how can you avoid creating toxic work culture?

Workplace culture mistake one: being too simplistic

A recent article published in the Harvard Business Review based on extensive Gartner research found that many businesses are too simple when it comes to describing their workplace culture.

Managers tend to resort to a generic and overused set of adjectives to describe their workplace culture. These include high-performing, collaborative, innovative, customer-focused, entrepreneurial, results-oriented, transparent, and trusting. 

The problem with this approach is that the buzzword chosen often doesn’t reflect what’s happening in the day-to-day operations of the company. 

According to the same article, this leads to a “say/do” gap which employees see as hypocritical. The result is a loss of moral rather than a boost to it.

How to avoid

It can be easy to describe your workplace culture using buzzwords. But if they don’t reflect reality, you’re doing more harm than good. Speak to the tension between where you would be in an ideal world and the reality of what needs to happen on the ground. 

Instead of professing a “culture of innovation”, try “we support a culture of innovation while continuing to seek growth and profits from legacy businesses.” 

Workplace culture mistake two: letting the data speak for itself

Many companies rely solely on employee surveys to measure how their workplace culture is performing. Relying on data like this can be very misleading. As workers fear reprisals, feedback is usually sanitised so that it doesn’t tell the real story. Businesses end up relying on meaningless or inaccurate feedback that never provides a true picture of the business culture.

How to avoid

Look to close the gap between survey results and the reality of what’s happening in your workplace. The best thing you can do in this regard is create an atmosphere of trust, where employees feel confident speaking up about issues without fear of reprisals. 

Then, when you do undertake a survey you’re likely to see what’s really happening and not a sugar-coated response. 

Workplace culture mistake three: not aligning your policies with your cultural goals

Sometimes company’s policies fail to support what they’re trying to achieve in their work culture. For example, a company says it believes in collaboration but pits employees against each other by staging performance reviews where only a certain number of employees can get top marks and a full bonus. Another example is where the business says it’s customer-centric but then penny-pinches. Both result in businesses failing to provide the tools to let employees do their job properly. 

How to avoid

This really is one of the most fundamental mistake anyone can make when it comes to creative positive workplace culture. If you’re not giving your business what it needs to provide the culture you’re striving for, how can you expect to achieve it? 

The only way you can ever overcome this one is to set up the structures, processes and incentives you need. That means properly investing in your employee culture rather than expecting people to achieve cultural goals without any support.    

Workplace culture mistake four: poor communication

Poor communication is an issue when a business wants to foster a certain workplace or employee culture but they fail to properly communicate what that looks like. 

You see this when a manager wants a creative workplace but fails to tell employees they want them to work together. Conversely, it happens when a business says it wants to be flexible but never articulates properly what that means. 

How to avoid

Don’t just tell employees what your cultural goals are – show them what it looks like and how they can contribute to it on a personal level. If you expect them to be in the office on certain days or at certain times, let them know. If they’re expected to behave a certain way or to do certain things, let them know that too. The more honest and specific you are, the smaller the gap between theory and reality will be.  

Create your positive workplace culture

These mistakes all include a gap between cultural ambition and the culture that’s playing out on the ground. 

Actually practising what you preach and clearly outlining the culture you want to create will help it to take hold and thrive. 

If you’d like to build a genuinely high performing and positive workplace culture get in touch with the Catalina Consultants team.

What is an HR audit?

An HR audit is a systematic review of all your human resources processes. Carried out by an independent HR expert, it’s intended to identify exactly how healthy your human resources function is right now, as well as analysing what you need to do to get better. You can use an HR audit to identify any non-compliance, highlight any HR related risks and see how you stack up against best practice. That means it should serve as one of the foundations on which you can build your future HR and business plans and strategy. Here’s our guide to using an HR audit to make sure your human resources function is as healthy as it can be.

What’s included in an HR audit?

You can make an HR audit as narrow or as broad as you like. But the more comprehensive it is, the more effective it’s also likely to be.

That said, we understand that time and money won’t always allow you to do everything you’d like. There are, however, two main sources you should review in detail in any HR audit.

This isn’t as simple as just checking your written policies. Policies and procedures can also be informal too. All those unspoken rules and customs that have built up over time in the workplace culture will also count. Working out exactly what these are, though, is not always straightforward at all.

What to do with this information once you have it?

Once you’ve identified all of your policies and procedures, it’s time to measure how you compare. Generally, I recommend using it for one or more of three separate measures.

Legal and regulatory compliance

The most obvious thing to look for is whether you’re complying with the rules and regulations that apply. Again, this isn’t always as straightforward as it might seem.

For instance, if you’re like many employers – especially smaller ones – you’re probably using the same contract for all staff, regardless of their role or seniority. And yet, for many of your employees, the contract of employment is just the beginning. There are also the 10 National Minimum Employment Standards, which you can’t contract out of.

Beyond that, however, there are Awards, which are likely to provide for different terms and conditions of employment depending on the role employees perform. This can range from pay rates to dispute resolution procedures and pretty much everything in between. Not being across each of these Awards can leave your company exposed.

On top of this, the regulations frequently change and new laws are introduced. For instance, the rules and regulations on whistleblowers, flexible working and personal and carer’s leave entitlements have all changed or been clarified recently. Failing to keep up with these changes could land you in serious hot water.

Best practice

Complying with the law may be the first step in getting things right, but what about finding out how you compare to your competitors?
After all, if your rivals operate more efficiently than you do or if they’re offering different terms and conditions to their staff, their HR practices could be giving them a competitive advantage over you.

By incorporating HR best practices into your HR audit, you can see how your human resources policies stack up to your peers and work out where you’re deficient and what you can do to improve. That way, you can use your HR to help get to the top of the pack and stay ahead.

Strategy

The third and final way you can use the information you’ve gathered is to evaluate whether or not it’s helping you achieve your business goals. Human resources doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s a vital part of your operations and it should be used to support and achieve your strategic vision. This often gets lost in the day-to-day of doing business.

For instance, are you really promoting a positive workplace culture? Are you recruiting the right people? Do your employees feel energised and motivated? Do your KPIs and incentive schemes drive the right kind of behaviour?

By going back to your strategy and comparing how your HR processes help effect this, you can often make the tweaks and adjustments you need to get to where you want to be.

In short…

Our human resources policies can either hold our business back or propel it forward. By performing an effective HR audit you can give your human resources practices a real health check and give yourself a starting point for refining or even recalibrating your people-related policies.

Don’t have HR issues, have HR solutions. If you’d like to discuss how we could help your business with an HR audit, get in touch with the Catalina Consultants team today.

When you engage an HR consultant, you expect them to take your human resources headaches and challenges off your hands. In the process, an ideal HR expert will help take your business to the next level. But what are the qualities they need to do this?

We’ve identified six key characteristics we think an outsourced HR consultancy should always have.

HR quality 1: Commerciality

Probably the most important characteristic of any HR consultant is commerciality. In business, time and money are everything. Your HR consultant needs to be able to assess risks, limit costs and make accurate calls quickly and decisively. They need to be able to understand your bottom line so they use their judgement to make effective commercial decisions. That never means acting unethically or breaching the law. Even putting the morality of this aside, the commercial risk of doing so is far too great. But it does mean being able to weigh up the pros and cons of different HR strategies and then having the judgement to choose the one that delivers the best long-term financial outcome.

HR quality 2: Leverage

An effective HR consultancy isn’t just one person. Nor is it simply a group of senior human resources practitioners who charge high rates and only want to be involved in the strategic decisions your business make. I think a good HR consultancy should consist of a team of HR professionals who operate across all levels of the business. They should have the capacity to perform every one of the HR functions you don’t have in-house – from the strategic to the administrative and from the day-to-day to the once-off projects. I say this because every business has different human resource needs. In fact, even the same business’ HR needs will change from time-to-time. Any HR consultancy you engage should be able to account for this and should have the in-house skills, expertise and experience to deliver what’s in your best interests, no matter what they are or how they evolve.

HR quality 3: The human touch

Believe it or not, the clue is the name: human resources is about humans, not just numbers. Every HR decision you make will directly impact on people in your workplace. In that sense, it’s unlike any other of your commercial functions. I think that means your HR consultants should be human too. They should understand the workplace culture, and know how to treat people tactfully, sensitively and with empathy. They should have the experience and astuteness to know what makes people tick and what they need to do to motivate them or change their behaviour. And they should be able to bring people into their confidence without ever being unprofessional.These are qualities you simply can’t – and won’t – get from off-the-shelf and highly automated HR solutions and one of the reasons why it’s always worth paying for a professional HR consultancy.

HR quality 4: Flexibility

The one constant about business is that there are no constants: your strategy and ambitions get modified, customers or clients come and go, staff turn over, new markets open up, new roles are created and the opportunities and risks vary and evolve. An effective HR consultant knows this and can change and grow with your business.I think the best way they can achieve this is by choosing an HR consultant that’s neither too small to cope with change nor too large to be nimble. Putting it another way, they should be small enough to know your business intimately but large enough to have all the skills and knowledge they need to serve you as you change.

HR quality 5: Curiosity

Speaking of which, I think a good HR consultant should be staffed by a team of forward-looking, curious and engaged people who are genuinely interested in and motivated by what they do and are prepared to keep learning. The field of HR changes all the time and your advisers need to be the ones who keep up with it.
But I think their curiosity should extend beyond just their individual area of expertise. They should also be curious about both business and the world around us more generally. That way they’ll be able to frame any advice they give in a broader context rather than solely within the confines of human resources.

HR quality 6: Collaboration

The final vital skill your HR consultant should have is the ability to collaborate. They should act as a true business partner – someone who gets where you’re coming from and helps you achieve it. This means understanding your vision for the business and working out what they can do to make sure it happens. It also means listening to your concerns and challenges and responding to help you overcome them. But as a true partner, your HR consultant should also be thinking about what they can do to proactively help your business, whether that’s in introducing new efficiencies, helping you stay on top of risks or being one step ahead of the changing regulatory landscape. In short, it means seeing themselves as an integral part of your team and understanding that your future and their future are intertwined.

Are you ready to find your HR consultant?

If your HR partner has these six qualities, they can help drive your business forward so that your staff are productive, your risks are managed, your costs are kept down and your goals are met. Catalina Consulting is a professional HR Consulting firm, offering a wide range of services including custom HR solutions. If you would like to know how we can help you take your business to the next level, get in touch today.

Companies that fall foul of the new whistleblower laws risk seriously heavy fines. So what should your business and your HR department be doing to comply? Employers who fall on the wrong side of these new whistleblower policies, risk the prospect of being fined up to 10 per cent of their annual turnover. This new whistleblower protection regime came into effect on 1 July 2019.

Which whistleblower protections have changed?

The key changes introduced on 1 July, that affect your HR policies are set out below.

The federal government introduced the changes by amending the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and the Taxation Administration Act 1953 (Cth). Together, these Acts regulate almost all companies, including foreign corporations, trading or financial corporations formed within the limits of the Commonwealth, ADIs, NOHCs, super funds, and insurers.

What penalties apply if your business breaches the new whistleblower laws?

Courts can make orders against a company if they fail in their duty of care to protect a whistleblowing employee. The maximum civil penalties for breaching the confidentiality of an eligible whistleblower’s identity or causing or threatening harm include:

Three actions your company needs to do to comply with the new whistleblower laws

To make sure your company stays on the right side of these laws, we believe there are three things your business should be doing.

Implementing a whistleblower policy

From 1 January 2020, some companies will be required to have a whistleblower policy that complies with the new section 1317AI of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) or face a $12,600 fine. This can be drawn up by your Human Resources department.

This includes:

To comply with section 1317AI, the policy must contain:

What if you don’t fall under these rules?

Although only certain companies are required to have a whistleblower policy, we strongly recommend all companies create or update their whistleblower policy. We also recommend that your policy includes a scope to conduct investigations internally and externally, and addresses client legal privilege. Your policies should also set out a cohesive process to work through situations where a person subject to disclosure is also authorised to receive it. Finally, as part of these new policies and procedures, we suggest you have a process for determining whether eligible whistleblower consent to be identified during an investigation.

And for listed companies?

ASX-listed companies should also take account of the ASX Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations, which further recommends that policies:

Assessing your current whistleblower procedures

The new regime requires employers and HR departments to analyse and strategise any existing whistleblower procedures they have in place and to rework or replace them where necessary. Further, to protect whistleblowers from harm, ensure any whistleblowers’ information is stored securely in confidentiality and that what you’re doing complies with privacy laws.

Training all your staff in whistleblowing protections

Given these significant changes, we recommend employers provide two types of tailored HR training. The first training program should be for ‘eligible recipients’. This is eligible to members part of the sector such as senior managers, officers, and anyone else authorised to receive disclosures from whistleblowers, including compliance officers. This training should cover the process set out in the company’s whistleblower policy to respond to disclosures. Pay special attention to the importance of protecting the whistleblower’s right to anonymity during the investigation, unless they consent to being identified. Remember you auditors, actuaries, tax agents and BAS agents are also ‘eligible recipients’. Although it isn’t expected fo you to train these people, we recommend you inform them of their new obligations.

The second training program should be for all staff, including all Human Resource employees. This should set out how the whistleblower regime works and how your whistleblower policy provides a process for disclosing and investigating certain matters. It should also be used to provide details of the protections that will be provided to eligible whistleblowers.

What do you need to do right now?

Employers should respond to the new whistleblower regime now to make sure they comply with new laws and that they’re not exposed to the potential of exceptionally high fines. After all, a fine of 10% of annual turnover is high enough to cripple most companies. Don’t have HR issues, have HR solutions. If you’d like to know more about your own company’s circumstances, introducing these policies into your organisation or what practical steps you can take, get in touch.

There’s been an update to leave.

On 21 August 2019, the Full Federal Court of Australia handed down a decision in Mondelez Australia Pty Ltd v AMWU [2019] FCAFC 138 – a decision that has far-reaching implications for all employers.

The decision deals with the method of accruing and taking paid personal/carer’s leave for the purposes of the National Employment Standards under the Fair Work Act 2009. On the back of this decision, the Fair Work Ombudsman has announced it is reviewing and updating its advice. Although the decision may be appealed to the High Court if any special application is made and granted, the Full Federal Court’s decision clarifies the current state of the law which is:

– Full-time and part-time employees are entitled to 10 working days of paid personal/carer’s leave for each year of employment.

– This protects those employees’ income when they are entitled to be absent from work due to illness or injury (or providing care or support to a family or household member who is ill, injured or suffering from an unexpected emergency).

– The leave must be calculated in working days, not hours. A working day is the portion of a 24 hour period that an employee would otherwise be working.

– An employee’s entitlement is expressly based upon the time working for the employer and is expressly calculated in days. For example, every 5.2 weeks, an employee accrues an entitlement to another full day of time off.

– For every day of personal/carer’s leave taken, an employer deducts a day from the employee’s accrued leave balance. If an employee takes a part-day instead, then an equivalent part-day is deducted from the employee’s accrued leave balance.

What does this mean for employers?

Employers need to review their payroll systems to ensure they are accruing personal/carer’s leave at the correct rate. There could also be implications for part-time employment contracts and leave policies.

We recommend you review these systems and documents and contact the Catalina Consultant team if you require any assistance.

Working from home has become commonplace. But is it really an encouraging workplace solution? How does it impact your overall human resources? We explore when it works, when it doesn’t and how to ensure it delivers positive benefits to your organisation. Should you really let that employee work from home? Is this key to performance management? More and more employers seem to be answering this question in the affirmative. After all, it is the age of flexible working, so allowing them to stay away from the office when they’re not needed is just what you have to do, right?

Besides, doesn’t letting your employees work from home produce a focused, happy and productive work culture? A HR win right?

The real benefits of working from home

The truth is, there can be real advantages in allowing employees to work from home – both for employers, employees and your human resources department. When Microsoft organised its own study into the topic and surveyed 4,000 IT workers in the manufacturing, financial services, professional services and retail/hospitality industries, it was found that there were immediate benefits. The Microsoft study also revealed that 45% of workers overall and 71% of information workers in retail/hospitality thought their productivity was higher when working remotely. Due to fewer distractions and a generally quieter atmosphere, this in part allowed them to get their daily tasks done.

Microsoft’s findings have been supported by other studies undertaken around the world. For instance in 2014, a Chinese-based NASDAQ listed company, randomly choose half of its 16,000 call centres workers to work from home while the other half stayed in the office. A nine month academic study into the impact of this experiment found that those who worked from home were 13% more productive – largely because they took more calls per minute and fewer breaks and sick days. How about that for HR strategies?

HR strategy or mistake? Common hesitations about allowing employees to work from home

That said, many employers are understandably still concerned about letting employees work from home – much of this concern centres on the loss of control. Potentially rising HR issues and lack of employee engagement. Who knows how hard your employees will work when there’s no one watching over them? What’s to stop them from going off-task or just completing the bare minimum? Isn’t it better to have them in the workplace and under a watchful eye?

Another common hesitation employers have is around whether workers can actually perform their role according to HR policies and procedures, especially when they’re not in the workplace. And there are obvious times this is true – a customer-facing hospitality employee can’t always meet and greet people from their living room; nor can a courier deliver parcels from a home office. 

But there are also many situations that are a little more complex – such as the creative team who must accumulate ideas together, the consultants who need to collaborate to solve a clients’ problem, or the manager who really needs to be accessible to team members, consulting them on their roles and overseeing their work. 

Finally, some employers are concerned about potential security breaches – especially in industries that rely on a high degree of confidential information and data such as professional and financial services. What happens if the employee compromises our systems or introduces a virus to our network from their own device? This could put your human resources department into meltdown. 

Getting around these hesitations: is it worth it?

My industry work with clients has shown that sometimes employers’ fears are well-founded. Some employees won’t do the right thing and shouldn’t be granted such deep trust; sometimes work is best completed in the office where employees can consult face-to-face and bounce ideas off each other, as a supportive team.

However, placing a blanket ban on working remotely can have a negative impact on morale and ultimately affect your business. Instead, for employee management and development I prefer to look at each scenario on a case-by-case basis. Starting with a written policy that states exactly what the rules are around working from home – who’s allowed to do it, when and for what reason.

Beyond that, I also think there are a few key initiatives every employer should do to ensure working from home works for everyone – not just the employee.

How to get working from home right in your workplace

If you’re struggling coming to terms with challenges of working from home, here are key measures every business should consider.

1. Analyse what can be done from home.

In conjunction with your employees, decide which tasks can be performed at home and which are best for the office. Restrict remote time to the days when only those non-office tasks need to be done.

2. Set measurable goals.

HR management is all about setting goals. If someone is working from home, make a list of achievable expectations. Write down what you expect them to achieve while they’re away from the office. If incomplete, their remotely working status should be reviewed.

3. Communicate.

Successful managers constantly let people know where they stand – what they’re doing well and where they need to improve. Unfortunately, when someone works from home it can be “out of sight, out of mind” on this front.

4. Bring people back into the office.

There are benefits of working face-to-face too – both from a social and productive standpoint. By making sure your team come into the office from time-to-time, a noticeable beneficial outcome will show for the business. For instance, set a compulsory weekly or fortnightly team meeting that can’t be missed without a valid excuse.

5. Keep connected.

These days apps such as Slack and Google Hangouts let you stay in constant communication with your team members. Take advantage of these (resist temptation of checking on employees) it may just help with employee engagement.

6. Put the right tech in place.

If you’re worried about your systems being compromised, speak to your IT members. Discuss ways to avoid this and have a written protocol on what’s allowed and what’s not.

And finally…

Real benefits can come from working at home. However, the reality is leadership and management needs to be planted and in some cases, the answer will have to be no. Be prepared for these instances and have a solid, logical reason for why you would deny some employees access to it – and communicate this clearly. By being consistent and transparent, you’ll get the respect from your employees, while helping create a happier, healthier and more productive workplace. If you have any questions regarding flexible working conditions and working from home, speak with the Catalina Consultants team today.

Unlimited leave has come out of Silicon Valley and is starting to infiltrate Australia’s workplaces, particularly in the tech sector. But is it something that would work for your business? Or should you settle for the ‘old school’ approach of four weeks?

Are you ready to embrace the ultimate flexible working policy?

IIn the world of human resources, we know how important it is to manage annual leave. Leave makes employees happy and when employees are happy, they’re also more productive. So, just by keeping their spirits up, means you’ll have both a more efficient team and a more profitable business.  This is the main thinking behind unlimited leave. And it’s not even the only reason to consider introducing it.

Unlimited leave as a recruitment and retention tool

Proponents of unlimited leave argue it can be a great retention and recruitment tool. After all, the war for talent is very real in a range of industries. As an employer, there’s only so much salary you can use as a bargaining chip. By offering unlimited leave, you are setting yourself apart from other employers, giving staff something beyond salary to lure them. At the same time, your employees who grow accustomed to having no check on the amount of leave they can take may find it particularly hard reverting back to the traditional ways.

So, what are the downsides?

Before you introduce unlimited leave in your business, it’s worth considering how much you trust your employees. What is the likelihood of them abusing the policy?  There’s a good chance that there might someone in the organisation who will stretch it to its maximum (although, conversely, many employers may be surprised by how trustworthy their staff really are when given greater responsibility and freedom).
Then you need to flip it on its head – what if your employees take even less leave than they’re supposed to? This could leave staff burnout, ironically something an unlimited leave policy is trying to counter.

Where can unlimited leave assist businesses?

Unlimited leave tends to work well where employees are highly engaged, self-motivated and can take a long-term view of their role and career. It also works well in businesses where there could be periods of intense activity, followed by periods of downtime e.g. businesses that are seasonally focused. However, unlimited leave won’t work if the organisation is a hyper-competitive one. In these sorts of environments, taking leave can be seen as an impediment to their career progression. What you’ll tend to find, is employees avoiding taking leave and facing greater levels of stress, anxiety and ultimately burn out.

How to implement an effective unlimited leave policy

Implementing any kind of leave policy begins by setting the example yourself. You, as the business owner or manager, have to be prepared to be flexible and take time off. This seems difficult when you’ve got a business too run but if you don’t, no one else will take leave. However, you have to make it clear and explain that an unlimited leave policy doesn’t mean not showing up. There will still be processes people need to follow and should have to give you reasonable notice of their intention to take leave. Finally, you may need to tell your team that they need to be reasonable. They can’t necessarily take time off when they’re needed in the office. For instance, if you know that a particular month or week is going to be busy, you should make sure your staff are aware they need to be around.

And remember, keep a record

Even though you might not be counting your employees’ annual leave days for your own records, for legal and compliance reasons you’ll still need to be taking notes. After all, the 10 National Minimum Employment Standards, entitle every worker to four weeks of annual leave. These will still accrue this no matter what your employment contract with them says. If they take less than four weeks a year, you may find you owe them when they leave employment with you.

Are you ready to go unlimited?

An unlimited leave policy can work in the right circumstances. But knowing when and how to implement one is a challenge. If you’d like to find out whether your workplace could benefit from one and, if so, what it should look like, get in touch with Catalina Consultants team today

Many, if not, most employment contracts contain a probationary period during which the employer can terminate the worker’s employment without having to go through all the usual processes. But when should you invoke its terms? This is a human resources dilemma that many business owners can face.

Why do probationary periods exist in the first place?

Let’s face it, even with the very best hiring and HR processes, you can sometimes get it wrong. For example, there can be flaws that start to emerge which might’ve not been obvious in the interviews or reference checks. Now you’re lumped with an underperformer and the worker who you thought would propel your business to new heights, is actually having a negative effect on operations. How long should probationary periods be? As a rule of thumb, for most workplaces, they can be anywhere between three and six months long. The whole idea of a probationary period, means you have ample time to assess whether an employee is really right for the role. And, if they’re not, their employment can be terminated without the same legal ramifications you’d be faced with long-term employees.

What are employees entitled to when you terminate their contract during probation?

They’re entitled to the 10 National Employment Standards and some of the protections contained in the Fair Work Act 2009. For instance, you’ll have to provide them with a week’s notice of termination (or at least payment in lieu of this notice period). They’ll also be entitled to be paid for any annual leave they’ve accrued.  However, they won’t be able to bring an unfair dismissal claim in the Fair Work Commission. Under the Fair Work Act, employees can’t bring an unfair dismissal for the first six months of their employment anyway – or 12 months when the employer has less than 15 employees.

So why invoke the probationary period’s termination provision?

Hiring and firing employees can be expensive for organisations. One US study found that the cost of losing a staff member and re-hiring generally equates to around a third of their income. In other words, if you need to fire and re-hire someone on a salary of $60,000, expect it to set your business back $20,000. Therefore terminating someone’s employment – even when they’re on probation – isn’t something you choose to do lightly. If they genuinely are lacking the skills or aptitude for the position, then terminating their contact could save you a large headache down the track. The ongoing cost of having an underperforming employee will be a drain on your business and sometimes, it’s simply best to cut your losses. But how do you know if you’ve reached that point? After all, almost every employee will face some teething problems. Are they really dismissal worthy?

How do you run an effective probation period?

Give your employee every chance to prove themselves and do what you can to help them get there. Here’s how I suggest you do this:

So I need to terminate their contract, what now?

When you do decide to terminate a worker’s employment on probation, act decisively. There’s no legal reason you need to wait until the end of the probationary period. My view is that, if you’ve reached the point of no return, act as quickly as possible. However, if you reach the end of the probationary period and you’re undecided, use probationary as the reason. It’s in the employment contract after all. Remember – the employee will have access to the Fair Work Commission’s unfair dismissal jurisdiction. So, be aware if you extend the probationary period beyond that six month period – or 12 months for small businesses. Probation doesn’t give you carte blanche to dismiss an employee for any reason – they’ll be entitled to access unlawful termination remedies. You should never terminate anyone’s employment for temporary absence from work, union membership, making a complaint or based off race, gender or pregnancy.

Catalina Consultants is here if you need

We understand that terminating a worker’s employment can be a complex and confusing HR process – even when they’re on probation. If you’re needing some expert advice or assistance regarding terminations and probationary periods, then please get in touch with my team today.