Think about the last person you turned down for a job. What would they say about your business? 

Even though they might have been disappointed, they may still have been impressed by the people they met. Or perhaps they’re wondering what really happened, when the interview seemed to go well but their next communication from you was a rejection letter. 

Now imagine those candidates describing their experience to someone you’d love to hire. Would they make your workplace sound like one people would actually want to join? 

Your hiring process is a preview of your workplace 

You know what it’s like to work in your business, but candidates don’t. The only glimpses they’re likely to get are the job advertisement, perhaps a recommendation from someone they know and the interactions they have with you during the recruitment process. 

Based on that alone, they’re likely to form an impression about everyday working life. On this front, an interviewer who has read their application and can explain the role properly gives a very different impression from one who arrives unprepared. Two managers offering conflicting accounts of the position could leave them wondering whose expectations they would need to meet. 

The research reinforces that candidate experience is not a nice-to-have extra. A meta analysis covering 86 samples and 48,750 participants found that positive perceptions about the selection process were associated with more favourable views of the employer, along with stronger intentions to accept an offer and recommend the organisation to others. 

Put simply, while you’re assessing candidates, they’re assessing you. So, if you want potential employees to perceive your organisation as respectful, collaborative and well organised, recruitment is an important place to demonstrate it. 

Better hiring starts with a clearer brief 

A good recruitment process begins before you advertise. Everyone involved should understand what the person will actually do, what success looks like and which capabilities they’ll need to bring to achieve it. 

That sounds straightforward, but a vacancy can expose differences you haven’t properly resolved – or perhaps even thought about – internally. Those differences matter because candidates may experience them as moving goalposts, inconsistent feedback or unclear expectations. 

For instance, one manager might want an experienced operator who can take responsibility immediately. Another might be looking for someone they can develop. Unless they agree, candidates could be assessed against different expectations or find the requirements changing as they progress. 

When you’re making these calls, be sure to distinguish what’s essential from what’s desirable, including any skills or capabilities someone could reasonably learn once they join. This helps you write a more useful job advertisement and gives candidates a clearer basis for deciding whether to apply in the first place.  

Also agree who will assess the candidates against which criteria, who makes the final decision and who keeps candidates informed. A shared brief gives your team a consistent basis for selection and helps prevent candidates becoming caught in an internal debate about what you need. 

Give candidates structure so they can show what they can do

Once you know what you’re looking for, the next question is how you’ll recognise it.  

Often employers engage candidates in unstructured conversation that leaves everyone feeling positive but gives little insight into their ability to do the job. 

A 2022 reassessment of recruitment research ranked structured interviews highest among the selection methods examined for predicting job performance. The researchers also found that the predictive power of many selection methods – including cognitive ability tests, work-sample tests and unstructured interviews – had previously been overstated.

A structured interview uses consistent core questions linked to the role’s requirements, with an agreed approach to assessing answers. You can still ask follow-up questions and let the conversation develop but the structure gives you a common basis for comparison. 

For example, if managing competing deadlines is essential, ask each candidate to describe a situation where they had to prioritise conflicting demands. Assess how they made decisions, communicated with others and handled the outcome. 

Ask interviewers to record their assessments before discussing candidates together. This gives everyone’s observations a chance to be considered before a confident or senior colleague shapes the conversation. 

A short, relevant practical task can also help potential employees demonstrate their capabilities. Explain what it assesses and how long it should take, and keep the demands proportionate to the role. 

Every stage should help answer a question about suitability. Adding more interviews or a lengthy assignment without a clear purpose creates extra work for everyone and can tell candidates something you didn’t intend to about how your business operates. 

Keep people informed even when there’s no decision yet 

A recruitment delay might be easy to explain from your side: a manager is away, interviews need rescheduling or you’re waiting for approval. From the candidate’s side, however, silence can undermine their confidence in you.  

They don’t know whether they’re still being considered, whether the role has changed or whether they should move on. That’s especially damaging if they’re also weighing another opportunity. 

Set expectations early. Explain the stages, who candidates will meet, any assessment tasks and when they should expect to hear from you. Give them a contact for questions and make someone responsible for providing updates. 

If you miss a promised deadline, acknowledge it. A brief message explaining the delay and giving a realistic date for the next update helps candidates plan, even if you honestly can’t yet give them a decision.

Automated acknowledgements and reminders can help you stay organised. Just be sure to keep them to the initial phases. Once someone has invested time in interviews or an assessment, a personal update shows that you recognise that effort. 

Reliable communication also gives candidates a practical example of how you handle expectations when things don’t go to plan. 

A rejection doesn’t have to end the relationship 

Most candidates won’t get the job.  

That means much of your reputation as an employer will be shaped by people you turn down. 

Research published in 2025 examined rejection timing across two studies involving 264 and 259 candidates. Faster communication improved the candidates’ perceptions of fairness and satisfaction, along with candidates’ intentions to reapply and recommend the employer to others. The comparisons included rejection notifications sent after seven versus fourteen days. 

The practical lesson is to close the loop promptly once you’ve made a decision. Leaving someone waiting doesn’t soften the disappointment. 

How you communicate should also reflect how far they’ve progressed. An applicant rejected at the initial screening stage may need a straightforward notification. Someone who’s attended several interviews and completed an assessment deserves a more personal response. 

For finalists, useful feedback can explain the decision against the role’s requirements. For example, saying that the successful candidate demonstrated more experience managing a team gives someone more to work with than a vague reference to “fit”. 

That said, you will never make every candidate happy with the outcome. But you can help them leave knowing their application was considered seriously and their time was respected.  

That leaves the door open for a future opportunity, even when this one hasn’t worked out.

Treat the process as part of your recruitment strategy 

It’s easy to judge a recruitment campaign by whether you filled the vacancy. But it’s also worth asking how you reached that decision and what candidates experienced along the way. 

Did everyone involved understand the role? Did your assessments give candidates a fair opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities? Were timelines realistic, updates reliable and decisions explained respectfully? 

You can ask candidates for feedback, too – including those you didn’t hire. Their answers might just reveal problems your team couldn’t see, such as repeated questions across interviews or unclear instructions for an assessment. 

For the person who joins, the process has already begun setting expectations about working with you. They’ve seen how you prepare, communicate and make decisions. Following through on that experience once they start helps turn early confidence into an ongoing working relationship. 

And for those you turn down, a thoughtful process gives them a reason to consider you again… or recommend you to someone else. 

Want more? 

Catalina Consultants can review your recruitment approach, clarify what you need from a role, and then build a process that supports both sound hiring decisions and a positive candidate experience.  

Contact us to discuss your next hire.

For years, the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) has been a common feature of workplace sexual harassment settlements, with the idea being they can be used to protect the affected person’s privacy.

However, they’ve also come under growing scrutiny for the role they can play in silencing victim-survivors, prioritising the protection of organisational reputation, and preventing organisations from recognising patterns of harmful behaviour.

That scrutiny has intensified with new laws in Victoria restricting the use of NDAs in workplace sexual harassment matters. The changes, which came into effect on 1 July 2026, are designed to give greater control over confidentiality to the person who experienced the harassment.

But, while the Victorian reforms may be significant, they also raise a much broader question for employers across Australia: when a workplace sexual harassment complaint is settled confidentially, has the organisation actually resolved the problem or simply resolved the complaint?

An NDA designed to protect an organisation from risk can sometimes have the opposite effect. It can prevent the organisation from seeing the risk at all.

Why NDAs became commonplace in workplace harassment matters

There are legitimate reasons why confidentiality has become a common feature of workplace sexual harassment settlements.

The last thing a person making a complaint often wants is for colleagues, future employers or others knowing the details of what happened. Confidentiality can also provide a sense of closure and allow people to move on without having to repeatedly revisit an upsetting experience.

For employers, non-disclosure agreements can help bring disputes to a definite end, reducing the risk of further litigation, protecting sensitive personal information and providing certainty about what can and can’t be said once the matter is resolved.

In that sense, confidentiality is not inherently problematic. In some cases, it may be exactly what the person affected wants. The difficulty arises when confidentiality becomes routine or when it is imposed primarily to protect the organisation rather than the individual.

Also, what reduces an organisation’s immediate legal or reputational exposure may also make it harder to understand its longer-term impact on people and cultural risks.

That’s where an NDA can shift from an instrument for protecting privacy to one that reinforces silence, while also exposing the organisation and its other employees to increased risk.

What Victoria has changed under its new NDA restrictions

Victoria’s new laws place significant restrictions on the use of NDAs in workplace sexual harassment matters.

The key change is that confidentiality can no longer simply be imposed by an employer as a standard condition of settlement. In most cases, the person who experienced the harassment must initiate the request for an NDA. The agreement must also reflect their genuine preference.

The reforms also introduce safeguards designed to make sure that the decision to sign an NDA is informed and voluntary. Employers can’t pressure a complainant into accepting confidentiality. The legislation also preserves that person’s ability to make certain disclosures, including to legal and health professionals and others providing support.

In effect, these reforms shift the starting point. Instead of asking whether an employer can require confidentiality, the focus is increasingly on whether confidentiality is what the person affected actually wants.

That means an NDA might still be appropriate where it protects a complainant’s privacy and gives them greater control over what happens next. But it becomes much harder to justify when its main purpose is to protect the organisation from embarrassment or scrutiny.

Why NDAs can create risks for employers too

Victoria might be the first Australian jurisdiction to significantly restrict the use of non disclosure agreements in workplace sexual harassment matters, but the broader shift against the use of NDAs is already national.

Since December 2022, Australian employers have operated under a positive duty to take reasonable and proportionate steps to eliminate workplace sexual harassment, sex-based harassment and related conduct as far as possible.

This is a preventative duty that requires them to think about workplace culture, risk factors, reporting mechanisms and patterns of behaviour before problems escalate. It is not enough to respond only once someone makes a complaint.

And that has important implications for the way organisations use confidentiality.

An employer may be able to settle an individual complaint and keep the details private. But if the process also prevents it from identifying repeat behaviour, understanding cultural problems or learning where its systems have failed, it is effectively resolving the dispute without addressing the risk.

It is this broader duty to prevent harassment in the first place, that all employers should consider before using NDAs.

In this regard, a complaint isn’t simply a problem to resolve. It is also a piece of risk intelligence.

From complaint resolution to organisational learning

That’s why one of the dangers of treating sexual harassment purely as an individual complaint is that it can obscure the bigger picture.

A complaint should not only prompt questions about what happened between the people directly involved. It should also encourage the organisation to look more broadly at the circumstances that allowed the behaviour to occur in the first place.

Was this genuinely an isolated incident? Have similar concerns been raised before, formally or informally? Are there particular teams, managers or working environments where the risk is higher? Do employees feel confident reporting inappropriate behaviour? And, importantly, does senior leadership have enough visibility over complaints to identify patterns when they emerge?

None of this requires anyone to disregard a complainant’s privacy. Organisations can protect sensitive personal information while still learning from what happened.

What you should be doing now as an employer

For employers, Victoria’s changes to the rules around the use of NDAs should offer a good reason to review how workplace sexual harassment complaints are handled within the organisation.

To do this, begin by looking at whether confidentiality clauses are being used routinely or only when there’s a clear reason for them. Consider who’s proposing confidentiality, how broad the clause is, and whether it genuinely reflects what the person affected wants.

You should also make sure that settling an individual complaint doesn’t prevent the organisation from learning from what happened. Complaints should feed into broader risk management, including identifying recurring behaviour, cultural problems, weaknesses in reporting processes and areas where managers may need more support or training.

It’s also important to consider what information is reaching senior leadership. For example, individual identities and sensitive details may need to remain confidential, but you still need enough visibility over trends and patterns to understand where risks are emerging.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, avoid treating settlement as the end of the complaint process.

Because while resolving a complaint is important, so too is understanding why it happened, what it says about the workplace, and what needs to change to reduce the risk of it happening again.

Conclusion

Victoria’s new laws may have brought renewed attention to the use of NDAs, but the broader issue extends well beyond one state.

Across Australia, employers are already expected to take a preventative approach to workplace sexual harassment. That means looking beyond the resolution of individual complaints and considering what those complaints reveal about culture, systems and risk.

Confidentiality can still have an important role to play, particularly where it is genuinely what the person affected wants. But it should not become a mechanism for making uncomfortable problems disappear.

Because while an NDA may bring a dispute to an end, it cannot by itself prevent the next one.

Want more?

Managing workplace complaints effectively means looking beyond the immediate incident to understand the people, cultural and organisational risks behind it.

Catalina Consultants helps organisations build healthier workplaces, strengthen leadership capability and manage complex people issues.

Contact us to find out more.

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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

Australia’s government-funded Paid Parental Leave scheme now provides eligible families with up to 26 weeks of pay.

For children born or adopted on or after 1 July 2026, Parental Leave Pay increased from 120 to 130 days. Of those 130 days, 20 – or four working weeks – are generally reserved for the non-primary carer/partner.

On paper, this may seem like a relatively simple expansion of an existing entitlement. In practice, however, it represents something more significant: another deliberate step towards treating the care of a new child as a responsibility to be shared, rather than work that falls primarily to one parent (most often the mother).

But reserving leave for partners doesn’t guarantee they’ll feel comfortable taking it.

Instead, for many fathers and other non-birth parents, the decision will still be shaped by workplace expectations rather than any statutory entitlement.

They may fear that taking an extended period away from work will make them appear less committed, disrupt an important project or affect their future opportunities. Similarly, many employers formally support parental leave but continue to treat a partner taking more than a week or two as unusual.

That means the success of the 2026 changes will depend partly on what happens inside individual workplaces. Employers have an opportunity to turn a statutory entitlement into a normal and expected part of working life: and to encourage a more balanced caregiving dynamic that continues long after parental leave ends.

What changed in Australia’s Paid Parental Leave scheme in 2026?

The expansion that took effect from 1 July 2026 is the final stage of a gradual increase in government-funded Parental Leave Pay from 18 to 26 weeks.

For children born or adopted from that date:

• eligible families can receive up to 130 days of Parental Leave Pay, based on a five-day working week
• a partnered parent can generally claim up to 110 days of this
• the remaining 20 days are reserved for another eligible parent
• a single parent can claim the full 130 days, and
• partnered parents may take up to 20 days of Parental Leave Pay at the same time.

The payments can also be taken flexibly within two years of the child’s birth or adoption. This means families don’t necessarily have to divide the entitlement into one uninterrupted block taken by one parent and then the other.

Government Parental Leave Pay is separate from any employer-funded paid parental leave. It’s also different from the unpaid parental leave available to eligible employees under the National Employment Standards.

Depending on their circumstances and workplace policies, parents may be able to combine these different forms of leave.

Having leave available doesn’t mean it will be taken

The four-week reserved portion is intended to give partners a clearer opportunity – and incentive – to spend meaningful time caring for their child. In doing so, it removes one important obstacle to sharing parental leave: those days can no longer simply be absorbed into the birth parent’s entitlement.

But legislation can only go so far. Whether non-birth parents take the leave available to them will also depend on whether their workplace genuinely expects and supports them to do so.

The barriers in this regard generally break down into two key areas:

• Practical barriers. Because government Parental Leave Pay is paid at the national minimum wage, a family might struggle financially if its higher earner takes an extended period away from work. That’s particularly true if the employer doesn’t offer its own paid parental leave entitlement.
• Cultural barriers. Fathers and other non-birth parents may worry that taking more than a token period of leave will make them appear less committed to their career. They can also become concerned about missing an important project, placing additional pressure on colleagues or being overlooked for future opportunities.

These concerns may never be stated openly. However, employees notice who takes parental leave, how managers respond and whether senior people genuinely disconnect while they’re away. An organisation can describe itself as family-friendly while its managers continue to assume that mothers will take lengthy periods of leave and fathers will return to work after a week or two, or still be available for calls.

There are, however, some encouraging signs that these expectations are beginning to change.

According to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, men now account for 20% of employees taking primary or universally available employer-funded parental leave – an increase of three percentage points in a year.

Against this, however, almost half of employers still distinguish between “primary” and “secondary” carers in their parental leave policies.

These labels can reinforce the very division the expanded government scheme is intended to challenge by making unequal caregiving the assumed starting point.

The four weeks reserved under the government scheme send a different message: partners aren’t merely there to provide short-term support to the birth parent. They’re parents and caregivers in their own right.

The habits formed during parental leave can last for years

Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that women continue to perform more unpaid work than men, averaging four hours and 53 minutes a day compared with three hours and 52 minutes for men. And, while encouraging partners to take meaningful periods of parental leave will not eliminate that imbalance by itself, it can help establish shared responsibility from the outset.

After all, how parents divide leave following a child’s birth often influences how they divide care long after both have returned to work.

When one parent spends considerably more time providing care from the beginning, they’re more likely to become the person who knows the child’s routines, manages appointments, communicates with childcare and notices when something needs to be done. This means they tend to become the household’s default caregiver, even if it happens gradually and unconsciously.

The same pattern can then shape whose work gets interrupted when a child is sick, childcare is unavailable or an appointment falls during business hours. Even where both parents are employed, the mother is more likely to be the one expected to rearrange their day or take leave.

This can have consequences that go well beyond the occasional day away from work. Repeated interruptions can affect the projects an employee accepts, their availability for meetings and travel and their employer’s willingness to consider them for advancement.

Over time, an unequal division of care at home can contribute to unequal opportunities and earnings at work.

What employers can do to support shared care

Employers obviously can’t determine exactly how individual families divide their caring responsibilities. They can, however, create a workplace in which taking parental and carer’s leave is treated as a normal part of working life for every parent.

This begins with workplace parental leave policy.

Where possible, you should replace “primary” and “secondary” carer categories with gender-neutral parental leave that gives both parents meaningful time away from work. You should also explain how employer-funded leave interacts with the government scheme, rather than leaving employees to navigate the different entitlements themselves.

Line managers and HR teams have a particularly vital role to play. Conversations about parental leave shouldn’t assume that a non-birth parent plans to take only a week or two. Instead, proactively discuss the options available, ask employees what arrangement they’re considering and plan appropriate cover (without subtly signalling that an extended absence would be inconvenient).

If possible, you should also give your employees some visible examples of the policy in effect. When senior fathers and other non-birth parents take substantial periods of leave, genuinely disconnect and return without a career penalty, they demonstrate that the organisation’s support extends beyond the wording of its policy.

That support should continue after parental leave ends by normalising fathers and other non-birth parents using paid personal/carer’s leave when a child is sick or childcare arrangements unexpectedly fall through. Employees should not be questioned more closely, treated as unusually helpful partners or made to feel that caring for their own child is primarily somebody else’s responsibility.

Other practical steps include:

• making flexible return-to-work arrangements available to all parents, not just birth parents
• checking that important opportunities are not withheld from employees because they’ve taken, or may take, parental leave
• training managers to recognise assumptions about which parent will provide care
• measuring parental leave uptake by gender and reviewing whether leave affects remuneration, promotion or retention, and
• treating leave coverage as routine workforce planning rather than a disruption caused by the employee.

In short…

This year’s changes provide a timely reason to review both your parental leave policies and everyday practices.

The goal shouldn’t simply be making sure employees know that four weeks have been reserved for partners, but creating a workplace in which those employees can use their entitlement without feeling that they’re placing their careers at risk.

Want more?

Catalina Consultants can help you review and update your parental leave policies, communicate entitlements clearly and equip managers to support shared care in practice.

Get in touch with our HR consultants to discuss your workplace.

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: 

• Too much work is started 
• Employees switch constantly between unfinished tasks 
• Productivity and accuracy decline 
• Work takes longer to complete 
• More projects become urgent, and  
• Urgent work creates still more switching and interruption. 

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: 

• Employees are regularly pulled away from work already underway 
• Managers spend more time following up and requesting progress reports
• Meetings multiply as teams attempt to coordinate changing priorities
• Deadlines lose credibility because everyone expects them to change, and
• Work is rushed as projects finally reach crisis point, increasing errors and rework. 

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: 

• Capacity: There aren’t enough people available to perform the work
• Capability: The organisation lacks particular knowledge, experience or skills, or
• Workflow: Work is being poorly prioritised, distributed or progressed. 

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:  

• regulate the amount of work entering the system, and
• allow employees to complete an active task before redirecting them

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: 

• Making active work visible across the team
• Setting realistic limits on the number of projects being progressed simultaneously
• Establishing clear priorities and acknowledging the work that will consequently need to wait
• Allowing employees to finish existing tasks before assigning new ones
• Protecting work already underway from unnecessary interruption, and
• Identifying recurring bottlenecks, such as approvals, specialist input or management decisions.

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: 

• Do we genuinely have enough people to perform the work?
• Do our employees have the right capabilities and experience?
• Where does work repeatedly slow down or stop?
• How often are employees being pulled away from work already underway?
• Are our priorities clear and consistent?
• Are we progressing too many projects simultaneously?

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. 

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.

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:

• Review your staff’s pay rates, as well as penalties and allowances, including the rates in any existing enterprise agreements, to ensure that all base rates meet or exceed the new minimum rates.
• Review and update any employment contracts or other documentation which reference pay rates.
• Apply any pay changes from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026. So if your pay cycle commences on a Thursday, it will apply from Thursday 2 July 2026.

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:

• Ensure that your payroll system and internal procedures are set up to process super payments with each pay cycle, rather than on a quarterly basis.
• Review your contractor payment schedules and processes to align to superannuation payment requirements where relevant.
• Cashflow planning to meet new payment timings.

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:

• Review your employees’ super contribution amounts, including any salary sacrifice or personal deductible contributions, to ensure that they do not unexpectedly exceed the concessional contributions cap and are subjected to extra tax on the excess.
• Identify any employees who may be at or reaching the maximum contribution base and discuss any implications with them.

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:

• Review and update your company policies regarding parental leave
• Ensure your payroll and leave-related systems are set up to manage parental leave submissions

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:

• Understand where your employees sit in regards to this threshold, particularly when considering performance management and potential termination of employment.

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:

• Ensure your pay systems and calculation methods are updated to reflect these increased thresholds/caps

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:

• Understand your obligations as an employer when addressing a sexual harassment case.

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:

• If you have business operations in Victoria, you can start getting business ready ahead of the commencement date by reviewing the role requirements within your Victorian operations, your team operating structures, and your workplace policies related to working arrangements.

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.

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. 

Want more?

Thinking about building a graduate hiring strategy that works for your business? Talk to us.

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. 

• “Splitters” who prefer clear boundaries between work and personal time, and
• “Blenders” who prefer to move fluidly between work and no-work activities throughout the day. 

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. 

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:

• Fixed Model. In this model, employees have set days where they work from the office and also days where they work from home. This can be great for planning but restrictive for employees craving flexibility. 
• Flexible Model. Here, employees get to pick where they work each day, depending on what they feel suits them best. This model suits people who like to control their own schedule, but it demands a high level of trust. 
• 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 when they’re not needed for collaboration or other face-to-face work. 

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. 

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.

• Talent acquisition: AI could potentially help in candidate sourcing and screening. But it doesn’t necessarily have to start and end there. With good training and data, it could potentially also match the right talent to the right job based on various factors, including skills, personality, and organisational fit. In doing so, it could speed up the recruitment process and also create better matches between candidates and job roles.
• Learning and development. For the moment, Workday uses AI to help employers understand the skills they have right now in their organisation and what they’ll need for the future. But platforms like this are likely to become much smarter – continually intervening to assess employees’ skill levels and helping them acquire new ones so that they match organisational objectives. 
• Employee engagement: Every employee has their own goals, aspirations and motivations. AI could have a role in tying these together with the broader organisational goals so that everybody wins.
• Diversity and inclusion. AI could help detect and reduce bias in recruiting, promoting and remunerating employees – analysing patterns that develop over time. It could also analyse communication and collaboration patterns to identify any inclusivity issues.
• Workforce planning. AI could help forecast demand for particular skills, analyse where there are gaps and optimise the way human resources are allocated so that the right people are on the right projects based on their skills and preferences and the organisation’s needs. 

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.

• The human touch. A lot of HR still involves interpersonal relationships – whether this is conflict resolution, employee counselling or simply the ability to empathise. While AI may be able to use advanced logic, it has no emotional intelligence. That means it’s not really capable of these nuanced interactions.  
• Complex decision-making. While AI is great at automating step-by-step tasks, it won’t always make the best judgements in areas that involve a mix of emotions and problem-solving, such as layoffs and promotions or addressing grievances.
• Ethical considerations. There are still some concerns about privacy and data, and it’s important to still have humans in the loop to address these issues. There’s also the chance that AI can introduce biases of its own.
• Organisational culture. Numbers and data are all well and good, but I still believe nothing determines a company’s success or failure more than its culture. A human resource team that’s actually human has a crucial role to play in building and maintaining a positive organisational culture. 
• Continuous improvement. Unlike AI, humans can provide qualitative feedback and insights based on their experiences – invaluable for continuous improvement in HR processes and procedures.   

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. 

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?

• Full-time, part-time and casual employees will be able to access 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave in a 12-month period (FDVL)
• Previously, only full-time and part-time employees could access FDVL and only up to 5 days of unpaid leave in a 12-month period
• The full 10-day leave entitlement will be available upfront and can be taken in a single block or in any other manner
• There is no length of service requirement or qualifying period
• The leave does not accumulate year-to-year
• There are now tighter rules about information that must not be included on an employee’s pay slip relating to paid FDVL in order to preserve confidentiality

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:

• seeks to coerce or control the employee;
• or causes them harm or fear

Who is included?

• Spouse or former spouse, de facto partner or former de facto partner
• Child, Parent, Grandparent, Grandchild or Sibling
• A child, parent, grandparent, grandchild or sibling of an employee’s current or former spouse or de facto partner,
• A person related to the employee according to Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander kinship rules
• Intimate partners (even if not living together), or
• Housemates

When can it be accessed?

Full-time, part-time and casual employees may apply for FDVL if:

• they experience family and domestic violence
• they need to do something to deal with the impact of the family and domestic violence
• it is impractical to deal with the family and domestic violence outside their ordinary hours of work

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

• documents issued by the police service
• documents issued by a court (AVO/ADVO CAN’s)
• family violence support service documents, or
• a statutory declaration

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?

• FDVL is now an NES entitlement
• FDVL has strict record-keeping requirements
• A contravention of these requirements by an employer can lead to civil penalties
• $16,500 for individual; $82,500 for corporation
• FDVL poses general protections risks in that someone may not be treated adversely due to accessing FDVL.

What should employers do now?

We recommend that all businesses take the following actions immediately:

• Update your employment contracts
• Update your Family and Domestic Violence Leave Policy
• Communicate the changes to all employees
• Update your induction processes to ensure all new employees understand the policy and how to seek support
• Ensure your payroll and finance systems are compliant with confidentiality requirements

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 breached his employment contract when he worked for the competitor within his three-month notice period.
• A nine-month restraint was reasonable and, therefore, enforceable in both contracts.
• The employee breached the ‘exclusive employment clause’ when he helped the competitor poach another employee.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.