Avoiding HR Nightmares – a Career Exchange Emergency Kit

The outcomes from HR practices and implementations can be mountainous, and with frequent changes to work laws, the way we recruit and technology changes, the chance for shortcuts to fall through the cracks into peril are high.

Because of this, HR needs to be more careful than ever. Mistakes can potentially land you and your company in a sticky and very costly legal situation.

Even small companies can suffer greatly from being lax with their HR processes. 

Imagine the following scenario, you hire someone based on face value, and you later find out that they don’t have the capabilities to treat your customers correctly and land your company a malpractice suit. This  example is a situation that can drain your company’s finance and time resources, or worst, damage your company’s reputation. Simply put, this is a situation you want to avoid at all costs.

The following are some tips that can help you avoid getting trapped in a sticky HR situation.

Transparent work expectations, policies, and procedures

From the very first day, be very clear to your employees about their performance expectations, and all the company’s policies and procedures they are expected to follow. Transparency helps employees to understand their expectations better, and therefore maximizing their chance of achieving success. It also minimizes any discrepancies between the employers and employees, lessening the chance of experiencing any negative feelings for both parties. Additionally, a clear guideline of the company’s policies helps employees from committing any misconduct. Should a violation occur, transparent policies will also help you to justify your decision for a disciplinary action or termination. One way to ensure transparency in this area is to create clear policy templates.  You could provide policies to employees as part of their on-boarding to facilitate uniformity of communication across the board.  

Keep up-to-date with the current employment laws and workplace regulations

Employment laws and workplace regulations evolve over time. You need to make sure to stay up to date to ensure compliance. This is really important, because a violation of these laws and regulations can potentially result in dreadful legal consequences for your company. Online resources such as www.workplaceexpress.com.au provide this information to help employers keep up-to-date with current laws and regulations.

Document, document, and document!

Consistent and accurate documentation is extremely important in human resources, especially for work events that may pose legal issues in later down the track. Things that you unquestionably need to document include employees’ absenteeism and tardiness, deficient performance, misconduct and violations of company’s policies, disciplinary actions, employment termination, and any discussions with the offending employee surrounding any of these issues. On a brighter note, you can also document any recognition and positive contribution employees made, leading to provable movements in pay rises and promotions. These written records can serve as your legal justifications should someone question the decisions you made, and since HR have quite a high rate of movement; makes task hand down easier when you’re moving on to bigger things! They can also protect you from any lawsuit associated with workplace disputes, saving you from headaches! Having a filing system with a folder for each employee, up to date with all relevant documentation will help to make documentation easy and effective. There are also apps and programs that you can download to streamline your communications. They serve as a time saver and ensure accurate records.

Without good workers, businesses would fail. Therefore HR has a key role in the success of a company. By being transparent with what you want in a worker, keeping thorough and accurate documentation and ensuring that rules and regulations are adhered to, you can avoid HR nightmares. 

For help managing employee communications, Psych Press can be used to supplement your business' HR requirements. They provide an all in one tool that is useful for documenting and tracking communications with employees. For more information, contact our partner company Psych Press about what a tailored total HR solution can do for you. Email info@psychpress.com.au or call 03 9670 0590.

Preventing and Managing Violence within the Workplace

In recent years, school based bulling and violence has been well publicised. However, bullying and violence extends beyond school, often being found in workplace environments. There are 3 types of workplace violence: random public, client-initiated and internal violence. This article focuses on the latter violence that occurs between employees (horizontal violence), or between employees and employers/supervisors (vertical violence).

What is Workplace Violence?

Workplace violence includes any threatening behaviour, verbal abuse or physical assault that occurs between workers, such as:

• Verbal abuse (shouting/swearing)
• Taking credit for others’ work
• Making false or spiteful statements
• Damaging the reputation of another worker (including social media)
• Threats and harassment
• Physical assault

Violence within workplaces not only affects those subjected to this behaviour, but also the organisation itself. Employees exposed to workplace violence can experience distress, sleep deprivation, reduced work performance, impaired relationships with co-workers, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. Violent behaviour can negatively impact profit for the organisation through loss of productivity, reduced workplace moral, higher staff turnover as well as expensive payouts for workers compensation claims.

Dealing with Workplace Violence as an Organisation.

There are several strategies organisations can utilise to reduce and manage workplace violence. The first step is to enforce a zero tolerance policy that clearly states the organisation’s commitment to preventing workplace violence. The policy must include how an employee can report a violent incident, how their report will be handled and how long the process takes. All employees should be informed of the potential consequences if the standards are not upheld.

Organisations should also set out clearly defined roles and responsibilities for each employee to reduce work-based conflict. In addition, educating and training staff to recognise early warning signs can assist in managing behaviour that is likely to escalate.

It is essential that records of all reported incidents are kept and monitored. These reports can be helpful to recognise patterns of behaviour that can prevent future violence. Confidential surveys, monitoring sick days, and conducting interviews with staff that are leaving can all aid in gathering such information.

Responding to Reports

When responding to a report of violence the following questions should be asked:

• Can the behaviour be considered as workplace violence?
• Is there potential for future risk?
• Is there anything in the report I need to clarify?
• Is more information required?
• Can the problem be resolved internally?
• Is an investigation required?
• Do any parties involved require debriefing or counselling?

Workplaces that support a zero-tolerance policy toward bullying and violence create a safe working environment for all employees. However, organisations have a responsibility to ensure employees feel they are able to report such instances safely; and that reports of harassment will be treated with professionalism and sensitivity. Together, employees and organisations can collaboratively ensure that all employees feel safe in their work environment.
The Fair Work Australia website and the Fair Work Ombudsman websites may be helpful in instances where bullying or violence is occurring in the workplace. 

If you have found this article interesting, feel free to share it with someone else who may find it useful. And remember, just because violence isn't seen in the workplace, it does not mean that it does not occur.