Several changes have been made to workplace laws and will continue to take effect over the coming months.
More information about the changes to the Australian Workplace Laws is available from the Fair Work Ombudsman.
Several changes have been made to workplace laws and will continue to take effect over the coming months.
Introduction of a positive duty requiring employers to implement measures to prevent sexual harassment, sex discrimination and victimisation in the workplace.
The Fair Work Act will explicitly prohibit sexual harassment in connection with work, which includes the workplace.
Employers face new obligations before they can refuse a flexible work arrangement.
They must:
When an employee makes a request to extend their unpaid parental leave, you can:
More employers will be exposed to multi-employer bargaining through the introduction of single interest agreement bargaining.
From 1 February 2023, full-time, part-time, and casual employees of non-small business employers can access 10 days of paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave.
For those who work for a small business with less than 15 employees, access to this leave starts on 1 August 2023. When counting the number of employees, employees of associated entities of the employer are included in this number. Casual employees are not included in this total unless they are engaged on a regular basis.
In our submission to the Australian Government on the development of this leave, we emphasised the special circumstances in smaller and family workplaces, particularly in family businesses and in small and regional communities, where vulnerable employees may also be family members or have personal associations with perpetrators.
To help small and family businesses provide the best possible support in the spirit of the new leave and to comply with new law, we urged the Fair Work Ombudsman to produce education and information resources that smaller workplaces could readily put into operation.
As part of the 2022-23 October Budget, the Australian Government announced $3.4 million to develop and deliver education materials, provide technical advice, and support services help small and family businesses implement the new leave arrangements in their own workplaces.
We continue to work with the Fair Work Ombudsman to make sure resources intended for smaller workplaces are as helpful and useable as possible.
What small businesses need to know
According to the Fair Work Ombudsman, employees can take paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave if they need to do something to deal with the impact of family and domestic violence.
This could include:
An employer can ask for evidence to show the employee took the leave to deal with family and domestic violence.
The types of evidence provided can include:
Employers can ask employees to provide evidence for as little as one day or less off work.
Employees must notify their employer as soon as possible if they need to take leave, and in some cases, this could be after the leave has commenced.
More information about the changes to the Australian Workplace Laws is available from the Fair Work Ombudsman.