The Challenges of Managing Employees - recorded online conference

You can put your staff in the boardroom and watch it there. You can watch it on your computer or on your portable electronic device. All for the same low price.

The conference will be based on our highly successful video webinar technology: there’ll be a chairperson, a panel of experts, presentations and discussion.

Session 1: Conducting Effective Workplace Investigations: The What, Why and How

Workplace investigations into alleged misconduct must be done in a fair, sensitive and timely fashion. This session will ensure you understand when and why you should be investigating alleged misconduct, and all the key steps involved in an effective workplace investigation. It covers:

• What is the employer’s duty of care in workplace investigations?

• Alleged misconduct and the appropriate avenue – choosing between informal intervention or a formal investigation

• Formal investigations – internal or external investigations

• Privilege considerations

• When should you advise a respondent or claimant not to attend work

• Procedural fairness considerations in conducting investigations

• Dealing with evidence collected during investigations - what goes into the report?

• Case study examples of flawed investigations

Session 2: Managing Ill or Injured Workers: A Lifecycle Case Study

An employee is absent and provides a medical certificate that states they are unfit for work due to medical reasons. The absence continues, with the employee periodically submitting further certificates without providing any further detail about their condition or when they will be able to return to work. What happens next? This session examines this scenario and considers:

• What are your options for injured workers?

• Can they perform the inherent requirements of the role?

• What reasonable adjustments are you required to make?

• Getting an opinion from employee’s nominated doctor

• When can you seek an independent medical exam?

• Can you terminate an employee for refusing to undergo an IME?

• What happens if the medical advice is inconsistent?

• When should you implement a return to work plan?

• How far should you be involved in the rehabilitation process?

• Dealing with regulatory compliance covering injured workers

• When is it appropriate to dismiss an injured worker?

• Have you considered the risks of terminating? Understanding your exposure to discrimination, unfair dismissal, workers compensation and adverse action claims

Session 3: Performance Management in the Age of Adverse Action Claims

Legitimate performance management of employees should be a straightforward process. However, complications can, and do, arise when performance management coincides with the employee lodging a complaint or grievance, or extended stress leave. If not properly handled, these issues can lead to time-consuming and costly adverse action claims. This session covers how employers can navigate the perilous path between performance management and adverse action claims, including:

• How can the general protection provisions be used by an employee subject to performance management?

• Dealing with an opportunistic employee who quickly lodges a complaint or grievance following performance management

• Performance management followed by long-term stress leave:

  • How can you get the performance management process back on track?

  • Minimising the risks in the performance management process when extended leave is involved

  • When should you seek medical evidence?

• Steps you can take to safeguard the decisions and actions taken in the legitimate performance management process, including termination

• A review of recent case law