S5 Ep 1: Your HR questions answered

Welcome to Season 5!

We started this podcast to answer your questions about managing people. And since we've begun, we have received some interesting questions. We're using the very first episode of our new season to give you some answers.

Here's what you have asked:

1. I know what hourly rate to pay my employee, but what else should I be paying them (if anything)?
2. Can I pay higher than the award rate?
3. Do I need an employee handbook?
4. What questions can I ask to get the most out of job interviews?
5. My business partner and disagreed when interviewing for new employees recently. What should we do?
6. There is so much to HR. How do I know I am doing all the right things?

You can find the show notes for this episode here

Would you like to submit a question to the show? Let us know on our website or via LinkedIn.

Brought to you by Aster HR, the Work Wonders Podcast is hosted by Angela Gauci & Susan Rochester and is recorded at Launch Pad at Western Sydney University.

All information or advice included in this podcast is general, has been developed as a starting point for your business, and should be tailored to your specific requirements. It should not be considered legal advice. We have made every attempt to ensure the accuracy and currency of this information at the time of recording. However, references to things like employment laws are subject to change. For specific advice relating to your business, please get in touch with us.

Chapters

• 0:06 Navigating Employee Payment Obligations
• 14:00 Interview Best Practices and HR Audits

Transcript

Susan: 0:06

Welcome to the Work Wonders podcast brought to you by AstaHR, where we simplify the human side of business.

Angela: 0:12

I'm Angela and I'm Susan. Let's dive into today's episode and find out what you've been wondering about, hi.

Susan: 0:21

Susan, hi Angela. We're into season five, can you believe?

Angela: 0:26

it. I can't Starting our third year of podcasting.

Susan: 0:30

We're certainly pleased to be back in your ears in 2024. How exciting is that? Lots to plan and get ready for in 2024. I wonder what you're up to in your business.

Angela: 0:40

Yeah, so as usual, we're starting off the season with questions from our listeners or other things that we've come across in our troubles.

Angela: 0:49

So let's dive in. This is the Work Wonders podcast. The first question, angela, I think this one's for you, okay, since you're our payroll guru. So someone's just starting out with their first employee and they know that they have to pay the hourly rate, whether it's according to the award or whatever agreement they've had they have with their new employee. What else do they need to consider in terms of their regular payments for the employee?

Susan: 1:21

Sure, yeah, yeah, okay, because there's a lot more than just an hourly rate.

Angela: 1:25

Obviously, that's very important, yeah, well especially to the employee, but also to your budget. But in terms of your budget, there might be other things that you need to consider. So, maybe we can talk about those.

Susan: 1:38

Well, look, firstly, there's a lot more complexity to paying someone than just one base hourly rate, depending on a lot of factors. So, first and foremost, always check your award fair work, publish pay guides for each award and they keep them updated regularly, so if you're always going for the copy that's on their website, you'll always get the most current version, which is important.

Susan: 2:00

Yes, it is, because they're often changing. But yeah, that's a really great reference point because it will give you all the different rates, including all the allowances and all the different add-ons and things. So, first and foremost, check your award. The second thing is think about when a person's working and what sort of duties that they're doing. If a person's working evenings or weekends or, you know, they're acting up in higher duties or there's all sorts of different things in some awards, like the Building Construction Award, oh, yeah, so you're talking about allowances for different duties?

Susan: 2:35

Yes, but then there might be overtime, overtimes, another one, yep. So you've got penalty rates for certain times that the person's working, so whether it's, you know, evening or a broken shift or whatever it is but then you've also got overtime. So if a person works over a certain amount in a day or over a certain amount in a week, then their class was a different amount of pay then. So, yeah, look, that can become quite complex, but if you're just aware that it's all sitting there in the award and you're curious about that, you'll go and find the right information and there are tools that can help you.

Susan: 3:08

So if you're using some systems like we're an advocate for deputy, that's a really great one that links with your award and it's just a time sheet software, but it will integrate with the award and it will tell you oh well, if a person clocked in here and clocked out there, this is what you're up for.

Angela: 3:23

Yeah, so there's technology that can help you Absolutely. What other things do you need to?

Susan: 3:29

Well, don't forget about.

Angela: 3:31

Super Right.

Susan: 3:32

That's a big one, so we don't need to pay that until every quarter. You can certainly pay it more frequently if you want to. And other things of course, like payroll or PAYG withholding tax. Often people that I've spoken to before kind of go, why is that now appearing on my bass? Oh yeah, I don't have to pay this extra amount, so start to think I'm paying a certain amount to my employee in their bank.

Angela: 3:58

Good on me, that's great, I need to do that.

Susan: 4:01

But the little portion that I've withheld, that's not your money. That needs to go to the ATO, and the way that they do that is through the bass.

Angela: 4:10

Yeah, ato would have a different opinion about whether it's your money or not. But, yes, that's a good point. You do need to think of it that way. Yeah, it was never your money. No, well, it was before you got an employee and then pay them.

Susan: 4:24

Well, it's similar to GST, isn't it? Yeah, exactly when you're invoicing someone, you're collecting it, yeah, and then passing it on. You're doing the job for the ATO, yeah. Basically what it comes down to.

Angela: 4:35

So I mentioned that you need to consider all these costs from the perspective of your budget going forward. Now, of course, when you put on an employee, you've also taken on obligations for paid leave, including long service leave.

Susan: 4:50

Yes.

Angela: 4:51

As well as rec leave and personal leave, and now the paid domestic and family violence leave. So how do we keep track of that?

Susan: 5:02

That's a really good question, and a lot of the different softwares haven't really shown us yet, like Xero and Marabin, those sorts of things.

Susan: 5:09

They haven't shown us yet a really great system to track the family and domestic violence leave because it's so much different than any of the others and if you don't know what I'm talking about, I'd recommend going back and having a listen to our early episode. That was just on that one. But yeah, there's no sort of difference in their systems yet that I'm seeing of how to track that. But when it comes to annual leave and personal leave or sick leave, that can be tracked through your payroll system because they're a cruel base.

Susan: 5:36

So every time you pay someone, ie every time they work they accrue a little bit more and usually those systems are sophisticated enough for you to deduct that when someone wants to be paid that type of leave and go from there. But I'm recommending for the family and domestic violence leave to keep a spreadsheet probably. It would be the best thing to do, unless you're using a sophisticated HRIS system or something, and of course that's restarting every 12 months.

Susan: 6:02

So the entitlement is 10 days 10 days, and it's based upon a person's commencement, so if they started on such and such a day every 12 months, it goes back to 10 on the anniversary of their start date. So that's what makes it a bit more complex, and it also doesn't accumulate. Yeah, but when it comes to long service leave, that's a tricky one because it's not very frequent. It's usually only 10 or five years past that it's not happening all the time, but it can be sort of a hidden cost for a business.

Angela: 6:33

It can be a big chunk of change if you haven't taken that into account. Let's take that aside.

Susan: 6:39

Yeah, so you could talk to your accountant or bookkeeper about how best to do that and you can actually start to track it as a liability for your business in a bookkeeping sense, and so you can start to track how much that you potentially might have to pay if someone comes knocking to take their long service leave. You know, it depends. Talk to your accountant about what's going to work for you, but you could even set aside money for that. But yeah, that one can come out of nowhere sometimes if you're not tracking it. Mm, mm.

Angela: 7:07

So we've covered what you might have to pay an employee and we've talked about the award. But this is a question from an employer. Do I have to pay someone according to the award, can I pay them more, for example, or can I do something different?

Susan: 7:28

In a very simple sense yes is the answer More is the critical part.

Angela: 7:34

Yeah, exactly, yeah, not less. No, no, no, no, and definitely not less than the minimum wage.

Susan: 7:43

No, no, yes, I think you can absolutely choose to pay higher. I've worked with some clients who say oh well, I actually want to pay these people a little bit more than that. Can I choose that?

Angela: 7:53

And for many roles you need to at the moment Just to attract people.

Susan: 7:57

Yeah, but the principles still remain. So the overtime calculation, the formulas of that and penalty rates and all those sort of things still apply. So you'd still need to add the same formulas upon whatever you're choosing to pay on top of that Good point.

Angela: 8:15

So they're all going to be based on whatever the base rate is that you agree to?

Susan: 8:19

Yeah, yeah, but you can absolutely do that. The rule of thumb is they need to be better off. Yes, yeah so they can't be worse off, including every factor of the award.

Angela: 8:27

So all the conditions and the national employment standards, and you know there's more information about that in other episodes. So I'm thinking about one, about what you need to know before you employ somebody out there.

Susan: 8:40

Yeah, that was one of our first few episodes. I think it might even be two or three.

Angela: 8:44

Yeah, we'll put the links in the show notes anyway, to anything that might be relevant. Also relevant to this discussion is the SJBP.

Susan: 8:55

Yes, Stronger Jobs.

Angela: 8:57

Secure Jobs.

Susan: 8:58

I always say Stronger Jobs, yes, secure.

Angela: 9:00

Jobs Better Pay. I've almost started saying that all the time now too. Secure Jobs Better Pay yes, legislation and the various changes related to that, and contracts and casuals and all the rest of it yeah, so we've got a couple of earlier episodes related to that.

Susan: 9:17

Yes, you're right, susan. Series three, episode eight. And then again we did another in season four, episode nine. Yeah, check those out. Great. Well, here's a question for you, susan. That we've received you ready, go Shoot it at me. This particular employer is asking do I need an employee handbook?

Angela: 9:39

Well, carrying on from the conversation, which is sad, about all the new changes to rules, I think you'd be mad not to, wouldn't you?

Susan: 9:48

Oh yeah, but it does beg the question what do we consider to be an employee handbook?

Angela: 9:53

Yes, exactly, I've seen numerous different approaches, so you'll also be familiar, angela, with organisations who want everything in one big document, which makes it a nightmare to update. Can do, can do, or you could have a, obviously in other organisations that have like this is our welcome pack. So these are the core policies and procedures that you need to know and it's virtually a summary of what those things might be, and the important things in there would be kind of conduct, bullying, termination, grievance policy, work, health and safety, obviously.

Angela: 10:42

So that could be, that could be what you call your handbook, but then those things articulate into a whole lot of other policies that sit in the background, or there might be policies that you don't actually use very often, but you have there because you want something objective, something in black and white that you can refer to.

Susan: 11:03

And whistleblower policy is one example I can think of.

Angela: 11:06

That would be like that, when you might have someone who comes to you with a whistleblower. This could be a whole new episode.

Susan: 11:14

I just realised.

Angela: 11:17

Disclosure, and so it'd be very useful to have a policy that you can then refer to.

Susan: 11:24

So fundamentally, it's about, or the purpose of what we're talking about here is to have the policies, the standards, the procedures all in one place or accessible to people and making that known Particularly at the point of someone starting with you but also having something that people can refer back to, so you might call it a policy and procedure manual. You might call it an employee handbook, but fundamentally it's like those things that you were saying there of. This is the way we do things. This is our policy, exactly On these matters. Yeah.

Angela: 11:56

And although we're calling it a book and a manual, it may well be something that sits online.

Susan: 12:00

Of course, yeah.

Angela: 12:01

Yeah, A folder in your system where people know they can go to find various some folders related to certain aspects of employment, and in there they'll be able to find the policy that they're looking for. That makes it a lot easier to update it. Or, of course, there's various online systems that can do that for you.

Susan: 12:21

About the other thing that I'm thinking of, that you might not necessarily need to have a policy for, or it might just be covered in a discussion, in your induction, for example, but you may put like uniforms If you have a particular dress code or maybe you do casual Friday every Friday and you want to welcome people that you're welcome to participate in that, or this is how we administer the payroll. Make sure you get this to so-and-so by such an situate.

Angela: 12:50

Get your time cheating on time.

Susan: 12:53

Yeah, it might just be a discussion, but you could put that in something like an employee handbook, which can be helpful, especially for those times when someone's brand new yeah, exactly, but also it means that there's consistency in clarity throughout your business.

Angela: 13:08

Yeah, so it's not relying on individuals' interpretation of what they thought you said when they first started seven years ago. Are you feeling overwhelmed by all the things that you need to do to manage people in your business? We've got changes to legislation, different generations in the workplace, managing the expectations of people that you employ. Why not hand all that over to the experts and get on with what you do best? The experienced team at Aster HR can quickly give you the advice that you need and get you headed in the right direction. Without HR support and coaching for you with managing people, it all becomes so much simpler. Should you have your free call today at AsterHRcomau? Now let's get back to the episode. So next up, we've got a couple of questions related to the recruitment side of things.

Susan: 14:04

Yeah, when I'm hiring.

Angela: 14:06

One thing that comes up fairly often is interviews Like what can I actually ask in an interview? Yeah, one example might be am I allowed to ask where somebody lives, for example? Yeah if they haven't disclosed that on their resume?

Susan: 14:22

I think what I would always recommend is to be really thoughtful and purposeful with your interview questions. It's probably a bit much to expect yourself to be able to determine everything about a person just in that hour that you might be able to spend with them.

Angela: 14:37

Sorry, I'm just thinking you're a superman if you can do that All women.

Susan: 14:43

But you can still be very purposeful. So you know something like location, sure, if it's relevant to your business, being respectful in the way that you ask that, sure, maybe travel is important to the job or something like that, that's okay. But you would never go in asking questions that aren't relevant really to the purpose of the job or the criteria of the job. So keep it to things that you know you need to know in order to make that decision and really purposeful questions that dig a little deeper in terms of you know, can a person really do this or do they fit into our culture and our drivers here, our purpose, really trying to understand the person more on a relational level, I think, which is a lot easier said than done. But yeah.

Angela: 15:31

So I think you get into great areas where you start getting to things like so what do you do in your private?

Susan: 15:40

in your personal life. What?

Angela: 15:41

do you do with your?

Susan: 15:42

leisure time. I probably avoid those. Yeah, there's definitely some big no-no's.

Angela: 15:49

Well, there's even bigger ones like that than that, and we've covered discrimination and discriminatory behaviours in season two, episode four.

Susan: 16:01

Yes, we did.

Angela: 16:02

And we also had a bit of fun with interview questions early on, quite early on which was in season one, episode six we did.

Angela: 16:12

So there, we certainly gave some examples of questions you shouldn't ask, but the main thing I guess to be aware of is not asking anything that could be perceived to be discriminatory, and under that might be things that, as Angela said, aren't particularly relevant to the role you might just be curious about, for example, the I think there's an example in that episode we just mentioned about. You know so, when you're going to start having kids, or something like that blatantly discriminatory.

Susan: 16:46

Oh, it's awful. Please don't ask that.

Angela: 16:49

But then there are others that, just you know, walk a very fine line like what school did you go to?

Susan: 16:55

Yes, yeah, or I bet you're from my generation, you know, or not from my generation, or things like that, yeah.

Angela: 17:05

I guess Just laughing. I wonder if anyone ever thought to ask me if you know I was familiar with the internet or something because of my gray hair.

Susan: 17:16

It's basic decency and respectfulness. You know, I think you wouldn't want to go into those spaces where you're creeping into something that might like don't presume is what I'm getting at. I think don't. Yeah exactly.

Angela: 17:27

I think, overall, the thing to keep in mind is the interview isn't just a one way street. So at the moment you're also trying to attract that person to come and work for you. So the interview is your opportunity to demonstrate the sort of culture you have. Or you're trying to create new business, yeah, so if you're asking questions that are a bit dodgy, that's probably not doing you any favours.

Susan: 17:51

And we're in a really unique position, susan, when we help our clients with recruitment, because we can talk to a candidate that they've just interviewed and talk to them and say how was it, how did you find it? What's your feeling afterward, how are you feeling about the job now? And that's a really unique place to be, because if an employer did that, the person might go huh, am I getting the job? Why are you asking the question this?

Angela: 18:18

is my second round interview. What's going on here? Yeah, that's true, because we can get some insights and we can also provide a bit further context and explanation for the candidate as well. The second recruitment related question that we've come across is where you might have, for example, two business partners or people who are both senior managers in a business, who are both involved in a recruitment process and particularly in the interview. They both interview someone, they're both there, but they come to divergent views about whether that person should fit or should get the job. So what would you do in a situation like that, or how do you avoid that sort of situation?

Susan: 19:05

Roll the dice. Flipper coin.

Angela: 19:10

No, of course.

Susan: 19:10

I'm joking, we're being flippant.

Angela: 19:12

Please realise that was a joke. Oh.

Susan: 19:14

I'm definitely joking. No, I think, look, it can happen, because everybody has a different perception to how things went and a different perspective. They might have a different expectation of what they're looking for, and that's okay. You want that complexity in an interview panel or different people on interviewing somebody?

Angela: 19:34

But how much difference do you want in expectations, I mean? I would hope that you're both on the same page about what you're actually looking for. That's very true.

Susan: 19:43

But someone that might see something you don't might be advantageous. So be open to that. But you make a very good point. I think that's where you start. In that example, two business partners, if they're not quite agreeing, if they can both agree, to go back to the place of what are we expecting?

Angela: 19:59

What is it that we're actually after for this role?

Susan: 20:03

Yeah, I think that's a really sensible place to start, because it takes you back to something objective. If you've both agreed upon that beforehand, which is key, then that can be a good place to return to.

Angela: 20:13

So, basically, go forward by going back.

Susan: 20:16

Yes, yeah, but I think it can be a good way to just bring it back to something objective as opposed to. Well, I saw this, I think this, I feel this Constantly disagreeing on something.

Angela: 20:28

Yeah, so, angela, you and I get out and bow to bit, right yeah, and quite often the reaction we get when we talk to people about what we do is a bit of a like oh, it's such a, you know, it's so complicated employing style.

Susan: 20:44

Yeah.

Angela: 20:45

It's so hard and I'm all these changes in legislation. I'm so unsure a lot of the time of whether I'm doing the right thing. So how do I know if I'm doing the right thing?

Susan: 20:56

But yeah, that's a big one. Yeah, if you think and we were only talking the other day if you look at our profession in HR, there's so many parts to it, so we know what you mean. Lots of moving parts. Look, absolutely. You've got people like us that you can lean on for that expertise and help, and definitely listen to our podcast.

Susan: 21:13

We try to keep things fresh and current for you. So you know what's important. But you could go through the process of an audit, a HR audit. So just like you would audit your financials or you know work, health and safety things like that, you can audit your HR practices and someone you know. We support our clients with that to take them through that process. We do have a really handy little checklist on our website that encompasses all those changes you mentioned. So the secure jobs, better pay, the respected work, the family and domestic violence leave all of that.

Angela: 21:47

So go and check that on our website if you want that handy little downloadable, and that's a great starting point because you can just go through the list and go well, yep, yep, yep, yep and help Oops. Yes, yeah, I think. Give us a call, yeah.

Susan: 22:02

Yeah, but be kind to yourself because you know it's okay if there's some things on the list you go oh, we could be doing that better, or?

Angela: 22:06

we don't have that. Yeah, exactly, it's all part of business. Yeah, like you say, we're only human.

Susan: 22:11

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, but the idea is to stop and take stock of that. Yes, have a look through and understand, because there are some risks to not having things in place.

Angela: 22:21

It might take you time, but putting that time in now could save you a heap of time for the download rate.

Susan: 22:28

Well, I think that's all the questions we have for today's episodes.

Angela: 22:31

Yes, but remember, if you've got any questions, go to our website astreetahcomau, and there's a page there we can put in anything you want to ask or hit us up on our LinkedIn page.

Susan: 22:44

Yeah, please do, and I wonder if any of these questions were answered for you today. Maybe something you didn't know of and you were. It stood out for you today. Definitely jump on our LinkedIn page or contact us and let us know. We always love to hear what you got from the episode. Thanks for listening to the Work Wonders podcast brought to you by AsterHR. Hit the subscribe button now to never miss an episode, and if you'd like to continue the conversation with us, you can find us over at astreetahrcomau. See you in the next episode.