Workplace relations services
Ensuring your most valuable assets work for you
Chamber of Commerce & Industry Queensland provides the state's leading workplace relations consultancy, offering a complete range of employee management and workplace relations services.
Workplace relations issues are often complex and risky. As an employer, you have an array of obligations and risks that can hinder your workforce's effectiveness. You also have a variety of opportunities to improve productivity, loyalty and employee satisfaction. Your bottom line is often affected by your ability to manage the issues in a timely and effective manner.
As long standing experts in the field of workplace relations, we can guide you through the issues before they arise, while you face them and afterwards, to prevent them arising again. Advice and consulting services are available from our team of experts at highly competitive rates, discounted for members.
Consulting services
Unfair dismissals, terminations and redundancies
By far the most common claim employers have made against them is for unfair dismissal. Our advisors regularly appear in the Queensland and Australian Industrial Relations Commission either at the conciliation conference or at a hearing. Chamber of Commerce & Industry Queensland is able to provide representation at all levels and will guide you through the process We can also guide you through the termination or redundancy process. Our advisors can provide you with practical solutions and outline the risks and pitfalls to be avoided, ensuring you make legally correct decision. Chamber of Commerce & Industry Queensland encourages members to contact an advisor during this process ensuring any risk is minimised.
Disciplinary issues
Invariably a disciplinary issue involves an employee breaching a company standard or simply not performing the job to the expected standard. Sometimes the non-performance of employee is obvious other times it's not. Our advisors can assist you in determining what matters should be dealt with and will guide you in developing the best approach for the situation. We can provide you with various levels of advice ranging from general advice through to guiding and working with you during the disciplinary process.
Dispute resolution - advice, mediation and negotiation
Often disputes can start out as a small matter which quickly escalates into formal proceedings at the Queensland or Australian Industrial Relations Commission. Timely advice and action can save an employer from costly and lengthy litigation. Our advisors can offer you professional and practical advice about managing disputes through to representation at the Commission and negotiation with union(s). We also have qualified mediators who can assist you in resolving the dispute at the workplace.
Employment contracts & unfair contract issues
Employment contracts are one of the most critical pieces of documentation in the employment relationship and it is important to get them right first time. Our advisors can assist you in drafting your employment contracts ensuring the contract is legally correct and complete. We can help you draft contracts from the 'shop floor' right through to senior staff members. Sometimes an employment contract's validity and fairness is challenged during the employment relationship. This can lead to an unfair contracts claim being made in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission. When this occurs, Chamber of Commerce & Industry Queensland's advisors can represent and defend you.
Wages claims
Employers can sometimes be faced with a claim for underpaid wages either from a current employee or a past employee. It is our experience that these claims can be complex and lengthy. Employers can also be fined for not keeping proper time and wage records as well as for not paying wages correctly. Our advisors can assist you assessing these types of claims as well as representing you during negotiations or proceedings.
Industrial relations audits
Chamber of Commerce & Industry Queensland is pleased to provide a strategic service in helping businesses ensure they remain on the right track when it comes to employee wages and entitlements. Our advisors are able to conduct an Audit on your employment records to ensure entitlements have been accrued properly and wages paid appropriately. We take a random sample of your workforce records and with you assess how entitlements and wages have been administered. We then table our findings in a report offering practical solutions and recommendations if necessary.
Negotiating and reviewing agreement
In order to maintain an efficient and effective workforce many employers have decided to draft their own terms and conditions of employment through ratified agreements, designed at addressing individual workplace issues. Certified Agreements, Queensland Workplace Agreements and Australian Workplace Agreements allows an employer to plan for increased efficiency, improve cost effectiveness and increase the quality of service and products which ultimately leads to a healthy bottom line. Chamber of Commerce & Industry Queensland's advisors can help employers through the entire Agreement process, from drafting, negotiation, certification and implementation of the agreement in the workplace, and subsequent reviews and renegotiations agreements.
Workplace relations advice
Members can access the expertise of our Workplace Relations advisors on a wide range of workplace relations matters including disciplinary issues, employee entitlements, termination processes, disputes and general non-performance issues. Our advisors can provide you with timely and up to date on the latest workplace relations practices and procedures. You can access the advice either though a telephone call or you can request written advice for more complex matters.
Equal employment opportunities
More and more employers are actively pursuing equal employment opportunities in the workplace. Chamber of Commerce & Industry Queensland can assist employers achieve the right balance by providing guidance or assisting the in development of equal employment opportunity strategies. Our advisors can also provide assistance in the drafting of reports for the Federal Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency.
Sexual harassment and discrimination issues
The issue of sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace in recent times has become widely publicised. While an employer may not be directly responsible for an incident that may occur in the workplace, they are vicariously liable for any wrong doing. As a result employers are often faced with costly litigation in order to defend the steps they have taken to prevent such actions. Chamber of Commerce & Industry Queensland advisors are able to offer employers advocacy in the relevant human rights tribunals as well as working with employers to prevent future claims. Our services range from general advice to representation.
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