What did we learn over winter?
Over the past few months, the Strawberry Seed team have taken advantage of the long cold, wet days to stay up to date with the latest ideas, cases and decisions in the world of HR. We have attended numerous webinars, events and conferences, all to keep our professional development up to date. Topics have ranged from Casual Employment to Employee Engagement.
As we say goodbye to winter, our team wanted to share a few of our insights with our clients.
HR Summit 2019
In July, Carli and Frances headed into Melbourne for the 2019 HR Summitt where they spent two days absorbing as much information as possible!
Frances has written an excellent summary of her 5 Key Takeaways from the conference, which includes:
- Culture changes – how leaders can promote and lead change
- Flexible and remote working
- Reward and Recognition
- Technology – how to implement and transform your digital world
- Employee Health – physical and mental wellbeing
Find the full article here.
Workplace Investigations
Emily recently attended an online webinar titled Flawed Investigations (and how to avoid them) presented by Worklogic Director, Jason Clark.
During the session, they reviewed several recent cases where a flawed workplace investigation landed the employer in court. Jason shared essential tips of how to minimise this risk, highlighting common areas where investigations go wrong and explaining the golden rules for conducting a procedurally fair discussion.
Here are Emily’s Top 3 Takeaways from this session.
- If you are dealing with employees presenting with personal issues, ensure you offer your support (or an EAP program if your organisation has one), and judge their work performance solely on their output at work and not on their issues. Any termination of the employment should only be based on work behaviour or performance (except serious misconduct) which has been managed and documented over some time.
- In a potential investigation or disagreement between staff, ensure you are cautious in a “he said, she said” scenario with no other witnesses. Provide a “hearing” for the issues with no bias, maintain confidentiality and regular communication, provide support to all participants, consider all evidence (even contradictory), identify true accusations diligently and promptly, and justify your findings.
- When writing Position Descriptions, ensure you are documenting the actual tasks that your employees are responsible for executing. For example, an employee might be involved in developing a Monthly Report which consists in analysing the data, compiling the data into a presentable format, submitting the report for review from a senior person, reviewing the report and submitting the report to leaders. It is important to clearly document which part of the process they are responsible for. This will avoid confusion between colleagues who are involved in the same process or project.
Creating High Performance 21st Century Teams
In early August, Helen attended a workshop on Leadership in the 21st Century delivered by Maxine Driscoll from Think Strategic as part of the Geelong Small Business Festival.
With Millenials now the dominant demographic at work, Helen has undertaken some further investigation into how you can create 21st Century teams in your workplace. The areas she explores include:
- Emotional Intelligence
- Harnessing the collective genius
- Creating a culture of trust
- The Six Conversations
Find the full article here.
Buzz Cut for Breast Cancer
You may have seen that Helen was busy with another project over winter! In mid-July, gave herself a buzz cut for breast cancer. She did it in solidarity with her friend, who is battling this horrendous disease and raising money to help others. And her beautiful long locks are also being donated.
We are immensely proud of her here at Strawberry Seed. She reached her fundraising goal, raising $2090 for breast cancer research. A big thanks to all our clients and friends that donated to such a great cause. If you have a few dollars, please take a moment to donate.
