Been talking in the break room/of labour and unrest and eyeing the clock

There is a strong argument that one of the solutions to the economic slow-down and upwards wages-pressure competing with standard-of-living issues is to give workers more freedom to negotiate their wages and conditions. Howard argues that this is what he has done by allowing workers to individually negotiate using AWAs.

The counter argument of course is that by giving workers more ability to negotiate their wages and conditions you give massive HR departments and small business owners holding a job in one hand and your soul in the other the ability to comprehensively ream you out of any entitlements you might ever have expected.

Diminishing numbers of applicants for jobs is an issue. But it’s a time for employers to get smarter about who they bring on board, and it’s time for them to start offering more in order to keep their workers happy as a means of having a stable workforce, which is – are you ready for this - cheaper in the long run.

You don’t have to be a multi-million dollar industry to treat your staff well. You also don’t need to be “Femmo McPhee and Partners” to offer family-friendly workplaces and ensure that your workers have the emotional and personal time they need to ensure their wellbeing and future productivity for you.

It’s only really been in the last few weeks that industry analysts have started talking the realities of the future labour market:

HELLO STUPIDS, ALL OF THOSE BABY-BOOMERS ARE RETIRING IN A COUPLE OF MINUTES, ROFLMAO!!! HANG ON WHERE IS MY CAPPUCINO/REPORT ON GLOBALISATION STRATEGIES FOR ACME CORP.?

So I present to you....

Gigglewick’s guide to harmonious human resources or

How to keep the staff you have, and get the new ones you want

Lesson one: Hey dude! Blokes wanting to take time off with their kids are not “fags”

Pru Goward’s studies into the role of parents in their children’s lives threw up a lot of interesting things, including the observation that Gen X and Y fathers are likely to be more involved in caring for their children, including wanting to work part-time and to leave on-time in order to collect their kids from childcare. This is going to be particularly true for parents where a wage-disparity works in favour of women (which is increasingly the case).

Employers need to grasp that the future of work/family balance is not a women’s issue, it’s a genderless concept that can be applied equally to women and men. While the burden still lies for the most part with women, the tendency of employers of men to believe that staying home with sick kids (for example) is the mum’s problem is going to make it difficult for some employers to consider themselves outstanding in their staff relations*


Lesson two: Mister! Over here! It’s EASIER to negotiate with a couple of workers on behalf of all workers than it is to negotiate seventy different agreements!

I don’t know if this has escaped some employers (particularly small business industry representatives) but there is a reason that the unions and the major industry groups get on so well (when cameras are off) – it’s because Mr Large Corporation would actually rather deal with a couple of people than negotiate individual work contracts with every single one of his workers.

Similarly, it allows employers to make some easy judgement calls too: I won’t do X for this employee unless I can do it for every employee. Small business owners spend a huge amount of time working on HR issues, and they could have avoided this by sticking to the awards system.

Of course, this award system now means that hardly any of the things that might make your workers more productive come as standard, leaving the negotiation of issues like overtime, public holidays and penalty rates more difficult for employers to negotiate. If there’s no award, you can’t use the aforementioned non-existent award as a ready reference for what is reasonable in your industry, and you could be left with no employees (or ones who lack the sufficient skills) because you don’t offer good working conditions.

Lesson three: Boomers are leaving the building, get ready for Generation X and Y

Tailoring workplace conditions to meet the needs of workers mightn’t be an issue now, but becomes a huge issue as full employment edges nearer and the baby-boomers retire causing a massive workforce shortage. According to all estimates, the retirement of baby-boomers will give remaining workers unprecedented choice about who they work for and under which conditions they are prepared to work.

There are scary looking graphs and pie charts about this – they’re all over the internet, and don’t think that the Federal Government hasn’t seen them, which makes WorkChoices even weirder.

Basically, in a couple of years, skilled workers will be able to pick and choose who they work for based on issues as flimsy as whether or not they like the décor of the lunch room because there will be several hundred thousand jobs that cannot be filled from the available number of living and breathing adults. Never mind though, you can always hope that the next government commits to providing thousands upon thousands of cheap, non-argumentative labour from other countries for you to exploit. And then all those whingeing X-ers can get stuffed.

Either way, do we really think the way to prepare for this is to create a HR department which relies on workforce conditions being in the toilet in order to function? For goodness’ sake, give your HR departments a little bit more money and you could have the staff your company deserves, staff can get the conditions that they yearn for, and productivity can go through the roof. They’ve done studies on this, honestly. And if you can’t be bothered reading them, just watch 9 to 5. It has workplace flexibility AND Jane Fonda. What more could you want?


Lesson four: United we bargain, divided we don’t get to watch an extra hour of TV after dinner even if we’re really good, promise

Collective bargaining is an Australian tradition. Anyone who has grown up in a family or more than one child knows this. That’s why you send your cute younger sister to argue the point about an extra chocolate bar right before dinner. Similarly, if I want to negotiate a wages and conditions package, I’d like the person doing that to be adequately qualified, with a strong track record in successful negotiation of wages packages and a strong understanding of the local industry and comparative workplace conditions (e.g. not me).

Lesson five: You don't have to be James Packer or Rupert Murdoch to give your staff good conditions
My current (not for profit) employer gives all staff members seven weeks' leave per year. It has the biggest sick leave entitlement I have ever seen and there are no questions asked. They pay less than the private sector, but the working conditions, access to training and professional development are outstanding. They have a bunch of employees who have been with the organisation 10+ years because they are treated well and valued appropriately. Staff take a lead role in things like strategic direction of the organisation and future development plans. The next plan, as I understand it, is to negotiate extra leave as the organisation can't free up any extra money for wages. There is, clearly, more than one way to skin a cat.



Disclaimer: For the record, I am married to a small business owner who hates red tape and excessive paperwork. He does not employ staff. But he is also determined not to carry out the practices of his former employers, who were characterised in the most part by their lack of flexibility and “you’re lucky to have a job” attitude.



* And here I’m looking at YOU, former employer of Mr Fix. I earn the most money in our family, so he can damn well have the day off when Grizzlewick is sick for the fourth time in a month.