23 Jul Beware the barriers for employers
Surely this is ridiculous – recently reported by CCIQ https://www.cciq.com.au/news/boorish-drunk-wins-unfair-dismissal-case/ an employer tries to do the right thing to protect female employees harassed at a work function by a “boorish, drunk” manager, whom they fired for his behaviour.
The Fair Work Commission rules that it was the employer’s responsibility to stop the employee getting drunk and that they should not have fired him. He will now likely be compensated by the employer for losing his job!
Why do we reward this kind of behaviour in Australia? Why do we force these penalties upon employers in situations when they are trying their best to value and protect staff? Why is there a continued decline of self-responsibility, where the minority of idiots are allowed to ruin it for everyone?
Most employers already concluded that there is too much risk to offering any kind of recreational activities for staff in Australia. And if there is a Christmas party, we order drinks for staff, or give them tokens like 5 year olds at a fair. An increasing number of employers are also concluding that its simply easier to not hire Australians.
Equivalent skilled workers are available in an offshore team for one fifth of the price, in countries where respecting staff is the norm and self responsibility still exists. The technology to connect them to your business is cheap. They speak English well. There are staffing models to allow you to choose the staff and run them as your own team. Hiring skilled office staff outside of Australia keeps getting easier every year.
Conversely, with each incremental step making it harder, more costly, and higher risk to hire Australians, the contrast is becoming greater. These kinds of laws simply damage our country and hurt our employment. The canary in the coalmine has been singing for a while now http://www.amazon.com/The-Third-Wave-Micro-globalism-employment/dp/1482088231 – unless we stop thinking of Australia as an isolated bubble at the bottom of the world, we are in for some serious employment problems ahead.