Employment / Workplace Relations

Employment and industrial law is an ever-changing area of the business landscape in Australia. Legislation is continuously evolving and employment claims and compensation payments continue to rise. The right expertise and experience can make all the difference in enabling businesses to effectively manage their risks, and in ensuring individuals fully understand their rights.

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Overview

Keypoint’s workplace relations team has the experience and expertise necessary to navigate this complex area of law. We advise on all employment related issues from the hiring of new staff to the termination of employment, including performance management, disciplinary issues and grievances, redundancies and the protection of company goodwill. We help companies ensure their employment documentation is up to date to reduce risk and improve employee efficiency. Our lawyers appear in all industrial tribunals and courts and can assist with any employment related litigation. We assist clients with enterprise bargaining, complying with good faith bargaining obligations, workplace health and safety, and equal opportunity and anti-discrimination matters.

We also help individuals on their own employment rights, regularly scrutinising contracts and giving guidance on employment documentation, discrimination, bullying and harassment. We offer proactive solutions ranging from mediation and conciliation, all the way to the prosecution of claims in employment tribunals.

Keypoint Law’s experts provide a full range of advice to clients on employment matters, including:

Executive service agreements
Employment contracts
Employment policies
Employment rights
Change management and redundancy
Human rights and equal opportunity law
Restrictive covenants and the protection of company goodwill
Bullying
Unfair dismissal / general protection claims / breach of contract
Whistleblowers
Enterprise agreements and good faith bargaining
Work health and safety
Training
Investigations

For further information, please email enquiries@keypointlaw.com.au or telephone (02) 8035 5200 to speak with one of our lawyers.

Lawyers

Australia

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Lisa Faisca completed law through the Legal Profession Admission Board, University of Sydney in September 2016. Prior to her admission as a lawyer, Lisa gained a wealth of practical legal experience working as a Paralegal and Legal Secretary in various law firms, including a leading industrial relations law firm, accredited criminal law practice and a large national firm.

Lisa

Faisca

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Shana has over 20 years' experience as an employment and industrial lawyer. She began her career as a barrister in South Africa. She has a Masters in Law from Cambridge University, and was most recently the Chief Executive Officer of Harmers Workplace Lawyers. She is an experienced litigator in the employment arena and is the trusted advisor for all employment related matters for her corporate and government clients.

Shana

Schreier-Joffe

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Dean graduated with distinction from the University of Technology, Sydney in 2013 having completed a combined Bachelor of Business and Bachelor of Laws degree. During his university career, Dean completed specialist subjects in employment law, insolvency, family law and alternative dispute resolution. Prior to joining Keypoint, Dean worked at national specialist employment relations firm, Harmers Workplace Lawyers.

Dean

Tolkin

Keynotes

Country

Australia

Labour for hire: What you need to know

When you think about it, it is inconceivable to imagine certain Australian industries such as construction, agriculture and the resources sector (to name a few), continuing to function, much less survive, without the supply of labour via labour hire. Given that many Australian companies utilise labour hire services of some kind either directly or via third party contractors, and the spotlight which is continuing to be shone by unions and regulators on the protection of vulnerable classes of workers in Australia, various State governments have recently enacted legislation to reform how labour hire activities are provided.

Posted on:

17 Aug 2018

The Fair Work Commission anti-bullying jurisdiction: Has the Fair Work Commission stopped the bullies?

Under Part 6-4B of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (“Act”), the Fair Work Commission (“Commission”) has the power to make a ‘stop bullying order’ when a worker has been bullied at work, unless the alleged bullying conduct amounts to “reasonable management action”carried out in a “reasonable manner”. This jurisdiction, which commenced on 1 January 2014 with widespread community support and in particular from the Commonwealth government, has been in operation for over 4 years, and in this time, it has had much lower rates of utilisation than expected. Evidently, much the same can be said for the success rates of those who have pursued a bullying application through the Commission.

Posted on:

3 Aug 2018

The $100,000 reason to keep your payslips and employee records in order

With the start of the new financial year and the annual increase in minimum wages, many businesses have most likely reviewed their pay rates and modern awards to ensure their company’s compliance in this regard. However, many businesses are failing to get some of the other basics right when it comes to record-keeping for their employees.

Posted on:

6 Jul 2018

Flexibility in the workplace: Does it actually work?

Flexible working arrangements have become more and more popular over the years. Traditionally, this was something used by working mothers and carers, but as social norms have evolved, it has become very common for all types of workers to want to adopt flexible working arrangements. For example, flexible working arrangements allow employees to balance family, carer and other responsibilities and interests alongside their work commitments and career goals.

Posted on:

22 Jun 2018

National minimum wage update – June 2018

The Fair Work Commission handed down a decision on Friday, 1 June 2018 increasing the National Minimum Wage by 3.5%. This means the National Minimum Wage will increase to $719.20 per week or $18.93 per hour and comes into effect on 1 July 2018. The increase will affect employees paid the National Minimum Wage, or at Modern Award rates and those employees under a registered enterprise agreement which is linked to any outcome of the FWC’s annual wage review.

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8 Jun 2018

Can you dismiss an employee by phone, SMS or email?

In a society where the use of technology including mobile telephones and computers has become so prevalent, it is no surprise that electronic devices are changing the way in which we communicate. There has been a growing trend where employees and employers now communicate almost exclusively via email or text message. As such, it is not unexpected that there are a number of employers who have terminated the employment of their staff by phone, text or email in order to avoid those hard to have conversations with their employees.

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8 Jun 2018

Are your employment contracts 'comic' enough?

Ordinarily, there is nothing very comic about legal contracts. In particular, employment contracts can be long, difficult to understand and full of legalese. As a way of tackling this, there is an emerging trend to think outside the box when it comes to contract law and expressing legal concepts. In this week’s client alert, we discuss the creative innovations that are being considered in contract design, specifically through the use of illustrations, diagrams and other comic-book like imagery.

Posted on:

25 May 2018

Legal representation in the Fair Work Commission

If your business has a matter before the Fair Work Commission (“FWC”) you may automatically think that the you are entitled to legal representation in that matter and that your legal representative is able to appear for the business in the FWC proceedings. You would be wrong. The issue of legal representation before the FWC has become a hot topic as a result of a number of recent decisions.

Posted on:

11 May 2018

Employer's duty of care – how far does it go?

We hear the words “duty of care” used commonly but in terms of an employment relationship, what does this really mean for employers and how far does the duty really go? By way of introduction, there are a number of duties that are owed by an employer to an employee. These include, but are not limited to:

Posted on:

30 Apr 2018

Going from grey to greyer! When can social media posts result in a termination of employment?

The explosion of social media use over the years presents many challenges to the employment relationship. The use of social media has blurred the boundaries between work and non-work life. This has led to many employers having to deal with situations where employees have posted something in their private capacity on their own social media accounts, which has (or is likely to have) a negative impact on the employer.

Posted on:

13 Apr 2018

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