Processes of Human Resource Management (HSC SSCE Business Studies): Revision Notes
Maintenance
Introduction
Maintenance in human resource management refers to the processes required to retain employees and manage their wellbeing in the workplace. This involves several key areas: staff wellbeing, health and safety, effective communication, and compliance with industrial agreements and legal obligations.
Staff wellbeing is enhanced when employees participate in decision-making and have some control over their work environment. Organizations achieve this through employee participation strategies including team involvement, collective bargaining, workplace surveys, and structured activities. Effective communication systems underpin employee participation and foster a strong workplace culture.
Modern workplaces increasingly require employees to "do more with less", making work-life balance critical. Family-friendly programs such as flexible job roles, job sharing, multiskilling, telecommuting, part-time work, and flexible hours help employees manage both professional and personal responsibilities. Organizations must also meet their obligations regarding industrial agreements, payroll, and employee benefits.
Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) are confidential support services available in many larger workplaces. These programs assist employees and their families with personal issues including workplace conflicts, family difficulties, substance abuse, gambling problems, anxiety, or depression. Access is typically simple and confidential, providing crucial support for employee wellbeing.
Communication and workplace culture
Effective workplace relationships depend fundamentally on strong communication systems. Poor communication manifests through workplace conflict and elevated staff turnover rates.
Common communication methods
Organizations typically employ various communication channels:
- Regular team meetings between managers, supervisors, and employees
- Staff bulletins and newsletters
- Staff seminars
- Social functions
- Suggestion boxes and staff surveys
- Email and intranet systems
Email communication challenges
Email requires careful management to avoid becoming a source of misunderstanding and tension. Organizations should establish clear protocols for constructive communication and feedback timelines.
The expectation that staff respond to emails outside work hours is a common source of workplace conflict that requires careful management to prevent employee burnout and grievances.
Building positive workplace culture
Strategies focused on building trust and direct communication between people prevent conflict escalation. Recognition of staff achievements is essential in creating a positive workplace culture. Even when addressing employee problems, communications should remain constructive.
COVID-19 workplace adaptations
Post-COVID-19 work environments have necessitated changes in office layouts and risk minimization strategies. Where possible, organizations encourage working from home. When this is not feasible, businesses can implement:
COVID-19 Workplace Safety Measures:
- Screening to ensure symptomatic individuals do not attend work
- Separating workers into dedicated teams working the same shifts or areas to limit interaction
- Worker screening procedures
- Maintaining physical distancing through modified office layouts and workflows, particularly in kitchens and meeting rooms
- Staggering start and finish times
- Restricting access to essential visitors only
- Promoting good personal hygiene including hand washing
- Engaging in routine cleaning and disinfection
- Providing personal protective equipment (PPE) where appropriate
- Implementing contact tracing systems
- Using signage and posters to communicate virus information
- Minimizing opportunities for large gatherings
These changes require management to adopt more creative approaches to traditional team meetings while maintaining effective communication.
Employee participation
Workplace communication is evolving with increased email use and expanded opportunities for employee participation. Organizations encourage employee participation to improve communication, empower employees, and develop their commitment to quality and efficiency improvements.
Benefits of employee participation
Employees increasingly make decisions "on the spot" to solve problems or provide customer incentives, as customers demand faster and more efficient service. Organizations benefit from employee experience and on-the-job knowledge, with employee suggestions often proving critical to business competitiveness and success.
The effectiveness of employee participation depends on the training, knowledge, and skills of participating employees. While suggestion boxes represent one form of participation, more effective participation occurs through regular team meetings and briefings that discuss customer feedback, company trends, and issues. These build a shared sense of purpose and company identity.
Employee participation strategies
| Participation strategy | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Participation through membership of the board of directors | Allows an employee or senior employee to represent staff on the board. However, this strategy can present conflicts of interest, potentially alienating the representative from other employees. |
| Participation through ownership | Employees purchase shares in their company, potentially increasing commitment. However, ownership and participation involve different objectives and may create conflicts of interest, particularly as ownership stakes increase. |
| Joint consultative committees | Also known as works committees, these formally established groups consist of employee and management representatives, possibly including union representatives. Originally designed to provide management with employee views on various issues, enhance communication, and improve efficiency and productivity. In NSW, these are mandatory for larger workplaces under work health and safety (WHS) requirements. |
| Participation in collective bargaining | Legislation requires a majority of employees to participate in developing enterprise agreements. Under good faith bargaining principles, all parties must make genuine efforts to resolve issues through negotiation and conciliation, ensuring employees and employers can learn from each other's experience and negotiate mutually beneficial outcomes. |
| Team briefings | Teams provide excellent opportunities for employees to share knowledge, skills, and experience; find problem solutions; and develop innovations. |
| Employee surveys and feedback from performance interviews | Many businesses use surveys and staff reports to seek valuable feedback on improving business performance. |
Benefits
Benefits serve as an indicator of workplace culture as they are available to all staff. They may be monetary or non-monetary, with the extent of benefits reflecting the business's resources and the nature of its activities.
Superannuation
Under the federal Superannuation Guarantee scheme, all employers must contribute financially to employees' superannuation (super) funds that employees can access upon retirement.
Superannuation exemptions apply to:
- Employees under 18 years (unless working more than 30 hours per week)
- Employees paid less than $450 per month
- Employees working outside Australia
The employer's main obligation involves contributing 9.5% of an employee's earnings for ordinary work hours to their superannuation account (from 1 July 2014). Like taxation, employers must maintain comprehensive records of superannuation-related transactions, including contributed payments, payroll and employee records, and each employee's entitlement level.
All employers must also pay superannuation for employees aged 18 years or older earning a minimum of $450 (before taxation) per month as casual, part-time, or full-time employees.
Types of benefits
Typical benefits include:
- Flexible working arrangements
- Paid training opportunities
- Travel allowances
- Health insurance
- Subsidized gym membership
- Housing assistance
- Company car
Organizations carefully evaluate benefits' value regarding staff retention and workplace culture, as they are expensive and some attract employer-paid fringe benefits tax (FBT).
Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) is a tax employers must pay on certain benefits they provide to their employees or their employees' associates (such as family members). It is calculated based on the taxable value of various fringe benefits provided.
Benefits potentially subject to FBT include:
- Airline transport
- Expense accounts
- Board and accommodation
- Housing loans
- Living-away-from-home allowance
- Car parking
- Property and entertainment allowance
Examples of workplace benefits
| Rio Tinto's Iron Ore | Orica | Westfield Australia |
|---|---|---|
| - Residential allowances - Fly-in, fly-out commuting allowances - Additional superannuation investment choice and insurance benefits - Housing assistance - Salary packaging - Employee incentive scheme - Subsidized gym membership - Savings-related share option scheme - Relocation assistance - Remote area holiday travel allowance - Subsidized private medical insurance - Discount offers from key suppliers | - Flexible working arrangements - Attractive health insurance package - Insurance discounts - Employee assistance program - Specialist leadership training and development support - Dulux staff card - Novated car leases - Mobile phone plan - Employee share plan - Paid family leave (up to six weeks, some paternity leave) - 20 days unpaid leave - Ford car program - 'Dare to Share' charity program | - Regular training packages and programs - Career progression (domestic and international) - Sponsor a friend recruitment program - Social club organizes discounted activities including opera and theatre tickets, fun parks, dinners - Study assistance, online textbooks - Employee assistance program - Salary sacrifice program - Intranet product and service exchange - Business improvement awards |
Flexible and family-friendly work arrangements
Approximately one-third of Australian employees cite work-life balance as a major consideration in future employment choices. Employers respond with more flexible working arrangements to attract and retain talented staff. These arrangements feature in the National Employment Standards and many industrial agreements.
Flexible working conditions enable businesses to operate more efficiently while allowing employees to balance work and family responsibilities more effectively. For example, some agreements permit home-based work, providing employees greater flexibility during working hours. This becomes increasingly practical as electronic communication methods and technology improve.
Features of family-friendly workplaces
Family-friendly workplaces typically include:
Flexible working arrangements:
- Part-time work
- Variable full-time/part-time work
- Career breaks
- Job sharing (two employees voluntarily sharing one permanent full-time position)
- Flexible hours
- Work from home
Workplace participation and training:
- Increased multiskilling to allow staff coverage
- Staff meetings to discuss work-life issues
Family support:
- Phone policies
- Employee assistance programs
- Seminars
- Respite care for elderly and disabled
- Supporting community service
- Arrangements to check on children
Child care:
- Joint venture child care
- Employer-supported ventures
- Reserved child care places
- Vacation care programs
- Sick children arrangements
- Advice/referral services
Leave:
- Maternity leave
- Paternity leave
- Family leave
Other:
- Flexible salary packages
- Support during parental leave
- Work-family information
- Relocation policies (such as school matching services)
- Family days
- Work experience for children
Types of flexible working conditions
- Flexible remuneration (reward) options
- Flexible working hours (Maxiflex allows employees to accumulate hours for a day off, with employers typically nominating the day; Flexitime allows employees to choose start and finish times)
- Flexible study/work arrangements
- Career break schemes
- Job sharing (requires commitment and communication to be effective; popular with women returning to work after having children)
- Work-from-home arrangements (rostered days off, telecommuting, compressed work week)
- Family leave
- Part-year work arrangements (often suitable for competitive athletes)
Benefits of family-friendly programs
Family-friendly programs effectively retain staff long-term by recognizing the interdependence of work and family life and reducing problems in managing family responsibilities. Employees can leave and later re-enter the workforce, reducing separation, recruitment, and training costs for new employees. Such programs also create a positive community image for the organization.
Work-life balance in Australia
Australia performs below the OECD average in work-life balance. According to the OECD's How's Life? 2020 report, 13% of Australian employees work very long hours, above the OECD average of 11%. Full-time Australian workers devote approximately 60% of their day (14.4 hours) to personal care and leisure, less than the OECD average of 15 hours.
Consequences of poor work-life balance include:
- Increased staff turnover and stress levels
- Decreased morale and job satisfaction
- Deterioration in health and wellbeing
The Australian Public Service has gradually increased workplace flexibility over the past 20 years. In 2017, 41% of male employees and 52% of female employees accessed flexible work arrangements, most commonly:
- Flexible hours of work (60%)
- Part-time work (31%)
- Working away from the office (19%)
Research shows flexible work arrangements help reduce unscheduled absences such as personal leave.
Legal compliance and corporate social responsibility
All employers must ensure human resource procedures and policies comply with existing legislation, including:
- Anti-discrimination legislation
- Sex discrimination legislation
- Work health and safety (WHS)
- Taxation legislation
- Social justice legislation
- Industrial relations legislation and agreements
Preventing workplace issues
Bullying and sexual harassment, along with employee conflict and high workloads, are major causes of workplace stress. These issues contribute to high levels of staff stress, absenteeism, turnover, and low productivity and morale. Creating a workplace where staff treat each other respectfully, professionally, fairly, and considerately is essential for employee wellbeing and retaining productive staff.
A major maintenance focus involves human resource managers minimizing business exposure to risk by implementing proactive and preventative strategies in health and safety, anti-discrimination, and conflict resolution. Problems arising from misconduct in employment relationships, particularly sexual harassment, bullying, and discrimination, can prove extremely costly and damaging to both the business and individuals.
Minimizing workplace bullying
Bullying is particularly common in industries with high numbers of vulnerable employees such as apprentices, young staff, or migrant workers. Organizations can minimize bullying by:
- Providing information about workplace bullying, covering common forms including verbal abuse, spreading rumors, exclusion, ignoring someone, physical intimidation or violence, and initiation practices
- Inducting and training employees in company policy, procedures for dealing with bullying, and consequences of bullying
- Providing training to increase cultural awareness
- Promoting a culture based on open communication, respect, fairness, and trust
- Ensuring management commitment to resolving bullying and grievances
- Implementing mentoring or buddy systems for new and young employees
- Having a staff-appointed member to handle complaints and grievances
Forms of workplace bullying
Noticeable forms:
- Intimidation
- Humiliation
- Verbal abuse
- Slamming doors
- Pushing, touching, or fondling
- Threatened or actual violence
Subtle forms:
- Excluding or isolating employees
- Assigning meaningless tasks unrelated to the job
- Deliberately changing work rosters to inconvenience particular employees
- Intentionally withholding information vital for effective workplace performance
Remember!
Key points to remember:
- Maintenance in HRM centers on retaining staff and managing workplace wellbeing through staff participation, effective communication, health and safety measures, and legal compliance
- Strong communication systems prevent workplace conflict and build positive culture; organizations must adapt to changing circumstances such as COVID-19 requirements
- Employee participation improves business performance through strategies like team meetings, collective bargaining, and joint consultative committees
- Benefits (both monetary and non-monetary) reflect workplace culture and include superannuation, flexible working arrangements, training opportunities, and various allowances
- Family-friendly programs support work-life balance through flexible hours, job sharing, work-from-home arrangements, and family leave options
- Legal compliance requires HR to follow anti-discrimination, WHS, taxation, and industrial relations legislation while preventing bullying, harassment, and discrimination
Key terms:
- Maintenance, employee participation, benefits, fringe benefits tax (FBT), work-life balance, flexible working arrangements, job sharing, superannuation, Employee Assistance Program (EAP), bullying
Critical concepts:
- Organizations must balance employee wellbeing with business efficiency
- Effective communication underpins all maintenance activities
- Work-life balance is increasingly important for attracting and retaining talent
- Proactive strategies prevent costly legal issues and improve workplace culture