Your responsibilities as an employer

As an employer you need to be aware of your legal responsibilities towards your employees. These include meeting minimum standards of pay and conditions – outlined in the Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standard and the relevant award − and abiding by other employment legislation.

Having good Human Resources (HR) policies and practices can help you meet these obligations. What’s more, good policies that meet the needs of your employees (eg flexible working) can help you get the best out of them. Remember having good policies is not enough – without applying them well they are just a piece of paper.

Employee Entitlements

  • The Australian Governmentsbusiness.gov.auwebsite includes a range of information about your employer responsibilities and employee entitlements. Keeping your employees satisfied and productive can sometimes come down to ensuring that their entitlements are being met. As an employer, it's your duty to understand the entitlements of your staff, and the impact on your business if you neglect them.
    There are three main areas of entitlement:
  • Wages & conditions
  • Awards & agreements
  • Employee leave & holiday entitlements

Note that the information contained on theNSW Government’s Small Business NSW websitecites this website information largely as their source of information.

  • Use the Fair Work website'sAward Finderonline tool to check the correct award. You can search awards by code, title, industry and modern award.
  • In most workplaces how much people are paid is now governed by modern awards. TheAustralian Government’s Fair Work Ombudsman websiteincludes all the information you require about pay, awards, and employment conditions.
  • Other sources of information include employer and industry associations, unions for your specific business type and some private employment websites.

Legal responsibilities

  • The NSW Office of Industrial Relations provides information aboutemployer and employee rights and responsibilities. The department also provides workshops and leaflets on work-related issues including: recruitment, employing people in NSW, pay rates, award conditions and leave entitlements, pay slips, long service leave, parental leave, and maternity at work. You can download these from this website
  • Fortax informationlook at the NSW Small Business website
  • The Australian Tax Office website provides guidance to employers about their responsibilities towards employees. Start with theEmployer Essentialssection which includes a tax calculator, and advice on your taxation and superannuation obligations for employees, contractors and labour hire workers.
  • Occupational health and safety is an important responsibility of employers, and workers' compensation insurance is compulsory. TheNSW WorkCover Authoritywebsite provides advice to employers. As small business owners in NSW are now required to do more on preventing injuries, there isdedicated assistancefor them, including a safety incentive.
  • Business Victoria has a useful section on theRights and Responsibilities of Employers– including leave entitlements, awards and wages, taxation, superannuation, flexible working arrangements and a range of other key legal responsibilities.
  • Employers in NSW have certain obligations to provide workplaces that are free from unlawful discrimination and harassment. TheAnti-Discrimination Boardwebsite provides you with information on your obligations and help.

Develop people

Your business environment is constantly changing, so you need to ensure that the knowledge and skills of your staff keep pace with those changes. Investing in professional development and training can benefit both your staff and your business.

There are three main ways to get skills into your business:

  • You can buy in people with the skills that you need.
  • You can recruit someone who has potential and thendevelopthem, or
  • you candevelopexisting staff with the skills that youneed.

This means making sure that the skills you invest in are relevant to your business and are used and fostered in the workplace:

  • Can you identify what types of skills could make a difference to business performance? Do you know the profile of your current employees’ skills?
  • Do you know what type of training will work best to develop the skills you need?
  • Are you getting the most out of training? How will you know if it's working?
  • Do you know where to get help with training?

Developing your staff is essential for a skilled, knowledgeable, and effective workforce. Professional development means more than simply providing education and training. While formal training is a vital part of the ‘mix’ it is by no means sufficient to address the full range of worker and business needs.

Developing your people can include activities such as:

  • Mentoring & coaching
  • Shadowing more experienced staff
  • Cross-organisational exchanges
  • Online learning & discussion groups
  • Site visits
  • Professional / industry association memberships
  • Staff retreats
  • Education and training.

To ensure that professional development activities deliver real organisational benefits we need to make sure that they:

  • Target areas of greatest need or priority
  • Are relevant and applicable to work practice
  • Have a significant impact on work practice.

Linking skills to business performance

  • Use thisinformation sheetto help you analyse a business opportunity or problem to work out where and when skills could make a difference.
  • Use this template to definethe business outcomes of trainingand identify what's needed to support your staff so they can use the skills they have learned. This is a good way to prepare for discussions with internal and external trainers, staff and managers.

Help

  • To see how the vocational training industry operates in NSW go to the NSW State Training Services (STS) siteTraining Information.
  • Your local State Training Service Centre can help you with training issues. You can contact your localState Training Servicesrepresentative for support. STS have managers and staff experienced in industry engagement to give you information and advice on workforce development and training options, and bring together experts from other sources into an effective partnership- see the above link for your local office contact or phone13 28 11to be put through.
  • TAFE NSW's Employer Servicesinformation lets you click through to the TAFE Institute in your area.
  • TheNational Training Information Servicelets you search for Registered Training Organisations in NSW by course