Frequently Asked Questions

One of the most important aspects of the employing staff is ensuring they have an accurate employment contract. It needs to comply with the right regulations and clearly set out:

• What’s expected of your employee
• What their award and entitlements are
• The overall terms and conditions of employment

Obviously, there are a great many employment contract templates online. The only place you really need to look, however, is Fair Work’s Templates & guides. If you’re interested in how to write job advertisements, descriptions and letters of engagement, this has all the resources you’ll need.

Need more info? Contact us now to talk specifics.

Australia’s National Employment Standards (NES) dictate all employee leave entitlements. From sick leave to annual leave, you’ll find all the information you need at Fair Work’s Leave information page. Contact us if you need an extra hand.

Don’t hesitate to contact us for more information.

When it comes to hiring new staff, there’s a lot to take into account. After you’ve found the right candidate/s, there’s the logistical work of establishing the correct full-time, part-time, casual and other pay rates – and that’s just the beginning. Fair Work is the most important resource for all this information and more. Download and read through their extensive Guide to hiring new employees.

On the other side of the coin, both you and your business will suffer heavy penalties if you terminate someone’s employment for any unlawful reason. The most common form of employee termination is redundancy, which also needs to be handled with utmost care. This document, from the Fair Work website, includes up-to-date, step-by-step information on how to approach the redundancy process.

Need more information about hiring and firing? CarterLambert are happy to help. Contact us today with any questions you might have.

Minimum wages in Australia depend on the industry or job a person works in. For more information on accurate wage rates, visit Fair Work or go straight to their P.A.C.T. (Pay and Conditions Tool) – an excellent pay calculator resource.

For more advice on minimum wage rates, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Yes, and there are a few options out there. We’re partnered with enableHR, a great cloud-based platform that promotes proper workplace management and regulation. We recommend it to all our clients.

From the enableHR website: “Designed by actual practitioners, the user interface caters to the business user or line manager, not an HR analyst or administrator, meaning the experience is engaging, unintimidating, intuitive and encourages completion and recording of tasks that promotes maximum protection and compliance with less effort, greater efficiency, better results.”

For more information on enableHR and its capabilities for your business, contact us today.

It’s a commonly held belief among HR managers and professionals that making employees feel valued is the key to their ongoing retention – and this in turn is actually the most important part of the recruitment process. This is also where our skills can come in handy.

However, there’s quite a lot that managers and supervisors can do to make employees feel valued and optimise retention. For example, when your employees have clearly recognisable opportunities to develop and grow professionally, they’ll naturally feel more valued, perform better and stay with your company for the long haul.

Other proven ways to improve employee retention include:

• Effective supervision from managers who lay out clear expectations and who provide regular feedback on performance
• Allowing motivated employees to contribute work outside their job description, if they express an interest in doing so
• Creating an open and trusted environment where employees can work collaboratively

Have a look at these great articles from thebalancecareers.com for more tips on employee retention:

• Top 10 Ways to Retain Your Great Employees
• The Bottom Line for Employee Retention

You can also check out our Talent Management page, or contact us if you’d like more information.

While it’s true that HR managers are required to be “nice” (most of them are), it’s simply wrong to regard or expect this as their key trait. Often, we have the difficult job of restructuring, demoting and laying people off. It’s simply not enough to try and be “nice”.

When an employee’s job has changed or been affected in any way, they deserve a clear, respectful, fair explanation as to why. However, even after that, it’s unreasonable to expect the employee to be completely satisfied. That’s why the key attributes of an effective HR manager are empathy and fairness. Look for those qualities in a HR manager and your workplace will run as steadily as it can, even through its toughest times.

Need more information on effective HR? Contact us now to discuss.

A company’s culture is crucial to its ongoing success and sense of identity. HR can contribute positively when a culture change or consolidation is required, but it’s not fully responsible. Every employee is responsible for their company’s culture.

This article puts it pretty well: “While culture change can be an important and exciting project for HR, making it HR’s sole responsibility doesn’t work out as anyone had hoped. Too often, it devolves into a transactional ‘box-ticking’ exercise.”

Company leaders are often in the best position to bring about culture change. It’s HR’s responsibility to help them facilitate the process and offer the appropriate guidance.

Contact us if you’re interested in how we can help you through a culture change.

Yes – a HR representative will often perform the majority of logistical work surrounding recruitment.  This may include:

• conducting a job analysis to prepare a comprehensive job description and defining an appropriate salary range;
• developing best practice interview questions and facilitating the interview process
• coordinating or conducting other recruitment assessment activities
• completing necessary employment checks
• preparing employment contracts and assisting with on-boarding

As we mentioned, HR also offers great expertise when it comes to retaining staff, which we regard as the most important part of the recruitment process, and the absolute key to your employees’ success.

Contact us for more information on what HR can do for you when you’re recruiting new staff.

Yes. Managers are largely responsible for the supervision of employees as they carry out tasks and grow professionally. Therefore, they need to make sure they do it in a way that ensures employee satisfaction and security. It’s the job of managers, with the support of HR representatives, to set out clear expectations and provide honest, constructive feedback.
Need more information on how managers can help your company’s HR management ticking? Contact us today.