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News for the week beginning 11 December 2023 and Question of the Week: "How important is it to have friends at work?'
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Transcript
Weekly News Introduction
00:00:08
Speaker
I'm Adele Last and this is the news for we commencing the 11th December 2023.
Changes in Employee Contract Rules
00:00:14
Speaker
The new rules for engaging employees on fixed term contracts came into effect last Wednesday 6th December 2023 with the headline change being a fixed term contract can't be longer than two years including any extensions or renewals. The new rules require employers to give employees hired on a new fixed term contract a fixed term contract information statement.
00:00:36
Speaker
There are also some limitations on how fixed term contracts can be used around renewal and consecutive contracts. Employers can't take certain actions to purposely avoid these rules. These are called anti-avoidance protections, and these protections include ending employment or not re-employing the employee for a period of time, not re-engaging the employee and employing someone else to do the same or substantially similar work instead, or changing the type of work or tasks
00:01:05
Speaker
than an employee does or changing the employment relationship. The limitations also do not apply to casual employees.
10-Year Migration Strategy
00:01:13
Speaker
Home Affairs Minister Claire O'Neill yesterday unveiled the Albanese Government's 10 year migration strategy, which aims to lure skilled migrants to Australia while cracking down on non-genuine international students and migrant worker exploitation. O'Neill says the government is embarking on an ambitious reform project to address the challenges in the broken migration system.
00:01:35
Speaker
Anil went on to say the government's move to exclude highly paid trades from the specialised skills pathway will not hinder National Cabinet's goal to build 1.2 million homes. It's really important to understand that our strategy changes do not make it harder to bring tradespeople into Australia. The government feels strongly that for sectors like trades you should have to prove that there is a skills shortage before you start to recruit overseas, she said.
00:01:59
Speaker
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles says the migration strategy will lift wages, offer workers stronger protections, allow employees to more easily move between businesses and reduce exploitation. This strategy also means that we are able to better plan migration over a longer-term horizon instead of the short-term fixes of the past, Giles said.
00:02:19
Speaker
Business Council of Australia CEO, Bran Black, has welcomed the release of the migration strategy, saying business has long called for an approach that prioritizes sourcing the skills the country requires.
McDonald's Class Action Lawsuit
00:02:32
Speaker
McDonald's Australia has been hit with a class action from the Union for Fast Food Workers seeking $100 million in back pay for current and former employees who were allegedly asked to work one hour each shift for free.
00:02:47
Speaker
The SDA union alleges McDonald's asked 25,000 managers and supervisors from 1,000 stores across six years to arrive at work 30 minutes early to their rostered shift to conduct a pre-shift check and stay back an extra 30 minutes to finish handover tasks without pay. We estimate that a manager working five shifts a week could have been required to complete up to six weeks worth of work completely for free.
00:03:13
Speaker
No matter how you slice the burger, what McDonald's and its franchisees have done is unlawful and illegal. McDonald's must pay these workers back for the millions in pay they're owed, said a union spokesperson. The class action has been launched in the federal court in South Australia. The court action not only names McDonald's as a responder, but also 325 McDonald's franchisees. SDA is also calling for the court to impose penalties on the burger giant. In a statement, McDonald's said it would respond to the claim in due course.
00:03:43
Speaker
McDonald's Australia takes its obligations under all applicable employment laws very seriously," the company said.
Fair Work Legislation Amendments
00:03:49
Speaker
The government has split the Fair Work Legislation Amendment, closing Loopholes Bill 2023 in two. Following a deal reached with the Greens in the crossbench, the past measures, including
00:04:00
Speaker
criminalisation of wage theft and same job, same pay for labour hire workers. As part of the surprise deal, the following key measures were approved by the Senate in a vote last Thursday. Closing the labour hire loophole by providing for same job, same pay for labour hire workers. Criminalising intentional wage theft. Strengthening protections against discrimination, including by preventing
00:04:23
Speaker
adverse action against employees subject to family and domestic violence, and closing the loophole in which large businesses claim the small business redundancy exemption to avoid redundancy payments. The balance of the measures previously proposed as part of the closing loopholes bill will be contained in a separate statute. The Fair Work legislation amendment closing loopholes number two, 2023, which will include amendments dealing with more complex and controversial measures such as casual employment,
00:04:53
Speaker
definitions of employment and minimum standards for gig economy and road transport industry workers. The closing loopholes bill number two will be debated when federal parliament resumes in 2024.
IKEA's New Work Policies
00:05:08
Speaker
IKEA Australia this week launched new progressive policies to support co-workers and their families better. IKEA will remove casual roles, increase annual leave and offer leading paid parental leave.
00:05:19
Speaker
The Sweden-based furniture retailer's new enterprise agreement includes an introduction of a fixed rostering option, a four-day work week, full and part-time employment only with no casual roles, five weeks of annual leave, paid parental leave regardless of tenure, and superannuation on unpaid parental leave. Workers who are affirming their gender may take leave for that as well, and anyone undergoing fertility treatment or supporting a partner doing so can take up to five days of paid leave per year.
Government Leadership Changes
00:05:50
Speaker
The Albanese governments failed to radically trim the outflow of public service work to the big four consulting firms, dubbed the Coalition of the Billing, is steadily taking place, with two key leadership positions for the government's in-house strategy shop recently announced. Officially named Australian Government Consulting and run from under the roof of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet,
00:06:11
Speaker
Victoria's Chief Data Officer Andrew Knipe has been poached to become Australia's first ever Chief Consulting Officer to lead the charge in restoring public service capabilities like strategy development and project management. Seconding Knipe will be Deputy Chief Consulting Officer Joe Rossiter, who is last listed on the Government Executive Directory and All Charts as the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, National Skill Agreement Policy and Modeling Unit.
00:06:41
Speaker
Previously a Director at Management Consultancy Naus Rossiter also spent around seven years in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Announced by Public Service Minister Katie Gallagher last Monday, the two senior appointments come with the government already preparing a project pipeline with two pilots already in place. There has been a stampede for consulting positions at HEC, with Gallagher confirming that more than 1,000 people have already applied for positions.
Spotify Workforce Reduction
00:07:11
Speaker
Music streaming giant Spotify is laying off 17% of its workforce in its third round of layoffs this year. The cuts reflect the company's efforts to adjust its workforce to sustain profitability amid slowing economic growth, Spotify CEO Daniel Eck said last Monday in a letter to employees. The post didn't specify how many employees would lose their jobs, but a spokesperson confirmed that it amounts to around 1,500 people. Despite our efforts to reduce costs this past year,
00:07:41
Speaker
our cost structure for where we need to be is still too big," X said in the letter. In January, the firm slashed 6% of jobs, bringing its workforce down to 9,200 employees. Just four months later, it cut another 2% or 200 employees, mostly in its podcasting division. Spotify has struggled to achieve profitability, posting a net loss this year of roughly $500 million for the nine months to September, despite growing its monthly active users to $574 million
00:08:11
Speaker
in the third quarter of 2023. Spotify shares rose 14 points or 7.5% immediately following the announcement. Despite its financial losses, the company's share price has more than doubled this year.
Amazon Promotion Policy Update
00:08:27
Speaker
Amazon recently added a new requirement to its promotions policy, being the office no less than three times a week.
00:08:34
Speaker
In October, Amazon told its managers that employees slated for promotions must comply with the company's return to office policy, which requires them to be in the office at least three times a week. If not, they'll need a VP approval or their promotion will be blocked, according to an internal announcement. Amazon has gradually wound back work flexibility for its employees throughout 2023. In July, remote Amazon employees were told to relocate near office hubs where most of their team members were.
00:09:02
Speaker
Those who refused to relocate or find another team that accommodated their needs were told to take a voluntary resignation package. By September, Amazon was sharing individual attendance records on employees, a shift from the previous policy of tracking only anonymized data. And last month, Amazon told managers that they now have the discretion to fire employees who refuse to comply with the return to office policy.
Economic Forecast and GDP Growth
00:09:29
Speaker
threat of an imminent US recession has faded according to the University of California Los Angeles Anderson forecast. The forecast cites expansionary fiscal policy, new national industrial policy and a consumer that keeps on spending. On the other hand, growth will be tempered as interest rates remain high. The forecast also notes inflation rates will recede but only slowly. It expects fourth quarter GDP growth of 1.7%
00:09:56
Speaker
down from the 4.8% growth seen in the third quarter. In addition, the forecast sees a weaker 2024 with 1% annualised growth in each of the next three quarters by picking up to 2.5% in early 2025. Australia's seasonally adjusted GDP growth rate was 2.1% in the September 2023 quarter. And that's the news for the week beginning the 11th of December 2023.
Workplace Friendships Impact
00:10:24
Speaker
I'm Ross Clennett.
00:10:35
Speaker
Onto question of the week this week, and this is about an article that I found that prompted some thoughts around friendship at work. The article is called The Power of Work Friends, and it's from the Harvard Business Review. And there is a summary that says, despite claiming people are our greatest asset, too many executives still expect employees to leave their personal lives at the door when they come to work. Yet Gallup data shows that having a best friend at work is strongly linked to business outcomes,
00:11:04
Speaker
including improvements in profitability, safety, inventory control and employee retention. Your thoughts Ross? Well, it does sort of back up the importance of friendship in recent research from the Pew Research Centre and they found that 8% of people have no close friends
00:11:30
Speaker
and only 38% say they have five or more close friends. And my experience of work was I made strong friends at work and I have many people that I regard as my friends who were people I first met at work. So the formal question of the week then is how important is it to have friends at work
00:11:58
Speaker
particularly in relation to engagement, I guess I'm interested
Personal Experiences with Workplace Friendships
00:12:01
Speaker
in. So let's answer this question for you in our own experience. Ross, how important is it to have friends at work? Well, let me think about the jobs that I had as a full-time employee. So my first full-time employment was at what is now known as Hayes in the UK. And that was a really difficult job, my first recruitment job. And I only stuck at it because
00:12:28
Speaker
I built up what I regarded as friendships and I say what I regarded because my experience in the English workplace was very hard to make friends, but I certainly felt that I was friendly enough with my colleagues and certainly my boss Kim, my first boss Kim, she invited me and some of my colleagues to her home and so I felt
00:12:55
Speaker
Like there was a genuine attempt to build friendship outside work and that certainly kept me there. And then when I returned to Australia and I worked at Recruitment Solutions, the people, and I worked there for 10 years, many of the people there I still regard as my friends and they're people that I stay.
00:13:14
Speaker
in contact with including the people-to-people co-founders, Amanda Milling, Arc Smith, Simon Gressier, Greg Savage, they're all people that I regard as my friends and there are many other people from that company that I'm regularly in contact with and many of those people actually no longer live in Australia. So for me, the workplace was a very important part of forming friendships and keeping friendships over the years. What about fewer, Del?
00:13:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think I agree with you on this one that I do believe it's an important part of your experience in the workplace and that feeling of being part of the group and being part of the tribe and fitting in and feeling connected and feeling that you're going through similar experience. You know, that shared experience together is really important and having, you know, people that you can
00:14:11
Speaker
Talk to your frustrations about who understand the environment. Sometimes you don't want to take that home or to your partner. It's good to be able to talk to work colleagues and share those experiences. But it's interesting you mentioned your first job and you mentioned your boss, Kim. And I was thinking about this in the context of where it sits differently from manager to subordinate, so to speak, in terms of that sort of friendship arrangement. Because that's where I often did find it more difficult once I became a leader
00:14:40
Speaker
And certainly coming into an organization at a leadership level and in the recruitment businesses that I worked in, I was often the only person at that level within the organization. I didn't work for a haze, so I didn't have equivalent peers at my level. I worked usually for small to medium, privately owned businesses. And so I was the most senior employee in the organization and everybody else was below me or reported through to me.
00:15:06
Speaker
And so friendships became thin then, you know, it was harder to, to form friendships that you could really trust because obviously some things you needed to discuss and talk about, you couldn't do that with people who reported through to you. So I've definitely made friends with people and I've continued relationships and friendships outside of work post leaving a business. And they have been very valuable to me and continue to still be to this day.
00:15:31
Speaker
But I will say, I think it's a bit harder when you come in at a senior level to call it really friendship. I think being friendly and having the feeling that you're accepted is one thing, but I think friendships where you've got deep intimacy around, you know, personal issues and professional issues is much harder as it gets, you know, as you kind of get further up the line, I think. Yeah. I look for sure when I think about my experience of joining, um,
00:15:59
Speaker
slave group where I was joining as a leader. I don't have any, well actually, no, I actually had one friend from that time and I'm certainly still friendly with Jeff, but it would be a stretch to say that I'm friends with Jeff. Like I don't, you know, Jeff and I don't
00:16:21
Speaker
go out and socialize together, although we have had the odd drink. So that's sort of a different relationship because I reported to Jeff that certainly none of the people that I worked with or who worked for me are people that I remain in contact with. So look, you're right.
00:16:40
Speaker
And I think that's just kind of natural. It's just very difficult. There is a difference between being friendly and being friends. And if you're friends with someone, it means that you're seeing them outside of work and you have common interests outside of work. And that certainly was the case at Recruitment Solutions where there were many occasions when one or more of us got together socially on the weekend or out of hours and there was
00:17:08
Speaker
and remains genuine friendship. And you can see where this is really playing into some of the surveys and the reports around staff engagement and particularly in office and out of office and hybrid working and all of these models because that in some ways makes it more difficult if you're not spending time with people. Certainly obviously you can foster relationships across
00:17:32
Speaker
you know, the phone and video, but, you know, I guess it's those experiences when we're in the office together that make the fastest and deepest bonds with
Hybrid Work and Workplace Culture
00:17:40
Speaker
people. So I wonder whether this kind of survey result will start to really play out as we see more and more organizations having hybrid working or not requiring people to come into the office. And therefore some of these friendships may not be as deep.
00:17:55
Speaker
or as well bonded as they might have been in previous years and what the impact might be to culture. And that's why we're seeing a lot more of a transient workforce nowadays. Without doubt, and you're absolutely spot on Adele, this will be fascinating to see people less frequently in the office have less opportunity
00:18:17
Speaker
to form genuine friendships and will that make their engagement with work drop as a result or not as strong? Certainly the data suggests that this year we're heading for the highest level of employee turnover for at least five years is remote a factor in that very hard to say but clearly the impact of friends at work
00:18:43
Speaker
does help people decide to stay because you're not just leaving work, you're leaving friends and you're leaving the camaraderie. The fact that you feel safe at work, like you're with people who get you and it's much harder to leave if you've got that experience and you're unsure about whether that's an experience that you'll be able to replicate with a perspective you employ.
00:19:12
Speaker
I'm aware of one recruitment agency who very specifically says that the time when people come into the office should be spent in collaboration and in kind of bonding activities. And they're not mandating it as such, but they're definitely encouraging people only to come in in groups or come in when your team's in so that you can bond together and do things together. And I think that may be the key to this. So if you're sort of still out there pondering and worried and still struggling to get teams back in,
00:19:42
Speaker
Maybe it's about trying to make it more about creating those bonds and those connections between your staff more so than just saying you need to come back into the office to sit in front of the computer again. Try and perhaps focus on those connections between people because that's the stuff we need to do in person. That's certainly what I'm seeing in reading about successful, excuse me, hybrid
00:20:06
Speaker
workplaces where the time that people spend in the office isn't so much doing work as collaborating to produce work and certainly in the world of recruitment. I mean there is a very strong individual component but the smart owner will look for opportunities to deliberately create those scenarios to encourage people to come into the office and to look forward to seeing their colleagues
00:20:35
Speaker
We'd love to hear if you agree or disagree with our comments on this subject. Thanks for listening.