With the passing of the Crimes Amendment (bullying) Bill 201 in Victoria (Australia) also known as Brodies Law the definition of stalking has been broadened to include workplace bullying with up to 10 years imprisonment as punishment for the worst offender , turning workplace bullying from an organisational problem to a criminal act.

Here are the actions that could lead to court.

(CRIMES ACT 1958)

Stalking Making threats to the victim includes:

• using abusive or offensive words to or in the presence of the victim
• performing abusive or offensive acts in the presence of the victim
• directing abusive or offensive acts towards the victim
• acting in any other way that could reasonably be expected
• to cause physical or mental harm to the victim, including self-harm; or
• to arouse apprehension or fear in the victim for his or her own safety or that of any other person.
• The intention of causing physical or mental harm to the victim including self harm

Mental harm includes:

• psychological harm
• suicidal thoughts

It was also mentioned that it would be a good idea to train all staff on the amended law to ensure that everyone was now aware of their rights and responsibilities in the new paradigm.

Christmas is not only dead but having it’s lifeless body jumped on from a great height.

This article which was published in the Industrysearch.com.au website is proof that money cannot buy you love or labour on Christmas day.

The Maryvale Mill in Gippsland East is shooting it’s self in the foot through their high handed actions. It is not so much that they need people to work on Christmas day to keep the factory ticking over, people can understand that – even the people who work in the factory understand that.

It is the fact that they have asked for volunteers. They have received 207 of them in all but they need more volunteers for a particular area of the factory.

Now I’m not sure that the management or owners of this factory have read a dictionary or fully understand the nature of the word volunteer and what it means. “A person who freely offers to do something” is the first entry in the Oxford dictionary.

To disguise their intentions by using the word volunteer is a low act which in the end will cost the organisation much more in dollar terms and in productivity, as an unhappy workforce is a slow workforce.

The Ebenezer Scrooge award for 2010 goes to The Maryvale Mill in Gippsland East.

VIC mill workers face fines failing to volunteer on Xmas

7/12/2010 – Workers at a Victorian paper mill who have failed to volunteer to work Christmas Day face fines of up to $6,000 if they don’t turn up.Their union is now seeking legal advice in an effort to keep the men at home so they can enjoy the day with the families.

Fair Work Australia has ruled that it would be regarded as an illegal strike if workers failed to work on Christmas Day and Boxing Day at the Maryvale Mill in Gippsland East which is run by Australian Paper.

Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union secretary Alex Millar said the men were angry with the decision and those who had volunteered now don’t want to do the work.

Read the full article from Industrysearch.com.au.

As a subscriber to the industry search website I receive their daily newsletter each day, below is the one of the articles from their daily newsletter published on Friday 3rd December. This article appalled me on several levels.

The first being that for a single country, albeit a big country, the disparity of IR laws and rules across different states.

The second reason was how any employer or employer group can justify their augments centred around Christmas costing business small or otherwise more money by paying penalty rates. If they thought about this for more than a second surly they would realise that unhappy employees have very low productivity, their customer service levels are practically zero and they will find new employment at the earliest opportunity.

On a social level Christmas is the main festival celebrated in Australia which still purports to be a country steeped in the Christian tradition. By not recognising the people who need to work on this day and rewarding them appropriately we devalue the Christian tradition – in particular the tradition of Christmas which (for all those who have forgotten or do not know) is one of good will to all men. Have these people never read or seen the Dickens classic “A Christmas Carol”? Scrooge meets with Christmas future and finds it to be a lonely experience. Is that the kind of employer you wish to be? All the money in the world will not buy you love, happiness or a soul.

Australia is not a soulless society and neither should be aspire to become one. Leave Christmas alone not just for the sake of religion or humanity but for your own well being if nothing else! Could you imagine what would happen to the retail sector without Christmas?

Original Industrial Relations website article from Industrysearch.com.au follows below.

Xmas Day should be holiday with penalty rates awarded

3/12/2010 – Unions have renewed calls for Victoria and South Australia to declare Christmas Day a public holiday so workers can be awarded penalty rates, after the industrial umpire ruled against it.
- by Andrea Hayward

read the full article

Workers in Western Australia, Queensland, the Northern Territory, Tasmania, NSW and the ACT will receive penalty rates because the governments have declared Christmas Day a public holiday. Unions including the Liquor, Manufacturing and Hospitality Union and the Australian Nursing Federation applied to Fair Work Australia to allow penalty rates for people working on Christmas Day in states where it was not a public holiday.

But the national workplace relations tribunal said the penalty rate was not a prevailing standard in a number of modern awards.

LHMU national secretary Louise Tarrant said Christmas Day was a special day for which employees should be compensated for working on. “It’s a time when family come together in a way that happens at no other time for most people and yet if you work on that day what this decision is saying is that for people in those states where the state governments haven’t stepped up and done the right thing today they are going to be penalised,” Tarrant told reporters.

Workers in Victoria and South Australia would be treated as if they were working any ordinary Saturday on Christmas Day this year.

“The reality is this is not a normal Saturday, this is a special day in the community and if anybody’s got to work they should be given the appropriate compensation for that.” The South Australian and Victorian governments should step up to make sure workers were appropriately compensated for being taken away from their Christmas roast or whatever it was they were doing, Tarrant said.

“It’s about common decency, this is about acknowledging that this is a special day and that workers working on that day should get.”

Fair Work Australia deleted a clause of the Manufacturing Award which the Australian Industry Group sought to change to say where Christmas Day falls on a Saturday, then December 27 is the recognised holiday.

The ACTU, CFMEU, Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union and other unions were successful in calling for Fair Work to delete the clause which they said was ambiguous and created uncertainty on the issue.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Heather Ridout said the decision to remove the contested holiday clause was regrettable.

“The clause has been in the award system for many years and had the effect of preventing double dipping of public holiday penalties when Christmas New Year holidays fell on a weekend and additional days were proclaimed,” Ridout said.

The decision increased the importance of state and territory governments agreeing on a consistent and fair approach to proclaiming holidays, Ridout said.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry workplace policy director David Gregory said business would be lumbered with doubled up penalty rates because states had moved away from substituting the days when Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Years Day fall on a weekend.

“This is an irrational doubling up of public holiday entitlements that will hit many small businesses hard,” Gregory said.

WA employers would be the hardest hit with six public holidays over the festive season and many other states would have at least five, Gregory said. Hospitals, aged care facilities, tourist and resort operators, retailers and catering businesses would now face unbudgeted additional costs, he said.

Published in the November issue of Human Capital Magazine

Throughout 2009, as the GFC was at its height and fear of unemployment was looming, employees kept their heads down and were pleased to hang onto their jobs.

With recent low unemployment figures (5.1%, September 2010), it has become clear Australia is not heading into recession. In fact, our strength has been accompanied by a skills shortage and has provided people with new opportunities to seek fresh employment.

But what is really driving employees to seek greener pastures, and why? Where does management stand in employees’ decisions to flee one company for another? The answers lie in what employers and managers can do to slow the rate of attrition from their organisations.

Having conducted many exit interviews for organisations over the years, I can say with confidence that most people do not change jobs simply to gain more money. Sure, more money is always gratefully received, but this is not the prime motivator for leaving a job.

The deciding factor for changing jobs is often related to the way people are treated by their management and leadership teams, which affects their sense of self worth in relation to how and where they spend the majority of their waking lives. Things often start to go awry on the very first day of a new job.

A lot of focus is given to the task of recruiting new staff members, right from the moment the current incumbent hands in their resignation. Selection panels are created, job descriptions are written, HR and senior management become involved – and there is a rush of action to select the right candidate.

Once the position is filled, however, everything comes to an abrupt halt. It’s almost as if no one needs to think about that position or person any more. A sense of ‘mission accomplished’ sweeps through the recruitment team and everyone on it melts away to focus on core activities.

When the candidate arrives for their first day at work they find that all the excitement and camaraderie present at the interview has ‘left the building’, and after a brief walk around the office (the half hour of “this is your desk” and “here’s the kitchen – we have a great coffee maker” and “this is Jo, see her if you need to order stationery”), they are left to fend for themselves – sometimes without an induction session.

So begin the feelings of abandonment, being lied to, conned into yet just another job in another company that promises the earth and delivers little except a cubicle and a pay packet. Within a week the new employee starts to plot their escape, deciding how long they will have to stay so the move doesn’t look too bad on their resume.

It’s time to reverse this trend across the board so employees want to stay within their current place of employment. Begin by EQUALising the relationships between staff, management and leadership teams.

Empathise … see things from the employee’s point of view.

As a manager it is very easy to be caught up with the day-to-day activities of your role, but your real function is to lead and manage the wellbeing of your teams. To do this, you need to empathise.

Stepping out of your own situation and empathising creates a positive and constructive team dynamic, as you connect with your team members at a human level – not just about work, but about motivations, life goals and workplace aspirations.

The reality is that many managers merely go through the motions of empathising, which can do more harm than good as it falsely sets up your employees with the warm and fuzzies. When your insincerity is discovered (which it inevitably will be), it will send your staff members running for the nearest exit.

To be a great manager or leader you must empathise with emotional intelligence, honesty and integrity.

Question … ask and answer questions to engage in two-way conversations

The days of management being aloof and dictatorial are gone. Collaboration and mutual respect creates engagement, which in turn creates loyalty – to the team, the manager and the company. A company is a living, breathing entity made up of the people within it, and like all living creatures it requires regular attention to maintain good health.

Ask relevant questions, listen to responses and ask for clarification if at first you don’t understand. By questioning openly and honestly a leader will, in a very short period of time, train their subordinates to do likewise.

Understanding … the people are the culture and the culture is the people

Organisational culture is created by people’s interactions. It is not tangible, but more like the olfactory sense, felt by people around and within it – bypassing the body and going straight to the brain, evoking immediate reaction: ‘I like it here’, or ‘I don’t like it here’. So when a manager understands their people, they understand the culture of their team and the organisation.

Understanding culture is key to shaping it, and this cannot be done in an HR office or boardroom. Working with people, shaping attitudes and behaviours and understanding what makes the workplace tick will in turn shape the culture.

Action … the action you take now is your past and creates your future

Something I often heard as a child was that ‘actions speak louder than words’, so saying what you mean and meaning what you do are paramount to the success of any relationship. This is true of staff expectations in relation to your leadership and communications.

Leading and communicating is a moment-by-moment activity, so team members require ongoing nurturing to become responsible contributors to the culture. Your staff members will evaluate your actions and in return, they will contribute to the company culture, as culture is everyones’ responsibility.

Leadership … and management are activities not titles

In my view, many managers have a misplaced feeling of self-importance and believe their staff is there to serve them. I believe the reverse of this; the leader or manager is there to serve the team, not the other way around. In fact I am rather fond of saying ‘all managers are dogs’. Yes, dogs.

Like dogs, managers need to be trained and cared for by team members, and in return, their role is to defend the team from attack, sniff out problems and battle other dogs to bring back bones/resources.

Managers must also use their keen hearing to listen acutely, always be pleased to see team members, plus have boundless energy to stay or fetch as required.

By utilising EQUAL as a whole, you will create a balanced, loyal and productive team that enjoys coming to work. So minimise staff turnover by being the dog that everyone wants to be around.

(Published in the October/November issue of Local Government Managers Australia)

Leadership and culture and how they interrelate has been a hot topic of discussion in many of today’s local government circles. As I have worked in this sector for 16 years as a trainer and facilitator I have, during that time, seen leaders crippled by negative organisational cultures and other leaders turn negative cultures into positive, productive ones.

So what are the differences in leadership style that cause some to thrive while others struggle?

The first thing I would say is that leadership is not simply the function of the top tier of management, but the function of everyone in a supervisory role – from the CEO to team leaders working with just one or two staff members.

In my view, team leaders and coordinators are vitally important in shaping an organisation’s culture, as it is this tier of management that is the most hands on with staff members and it is their attitudes and actions that shape the behaviours and mindset of the people in their teams. This group of managers too often receives little or no training and is rarely privy to the senior management team’s organisational objectives.

By providing adequate, targeted training to this leadership group, while clearly outlining and conveying the CEO’s cultural vision, the opportunity is created to gain maximum buy in to the vision and maximum support for the organisational goals and objectives. This, in turn, is passed along to the wider staff within the council, the people with whom this group has the most daily contact. The next area for attention is middle management and high-banded staff members. Although there are many good staff members within this group of employees, there are also some who have become “seat warmers” or the “attending retired”. As both names would suggest, these are people who are no longer engaged with the organisation and are simply showing up each day to gain their fortnightly pay cheque.

Negativity and despondency accompany the seat-warmer types – a vibe that can often be physically felt when encountering them. Everything is too much trouble, too difficult or too much like hard work. Additionally, initiatives created by the executive can be – and usually are – deliberately scuttled by these people, especially if they are required to take action or if the initiative will in some way expose their lacklustre work ethic.

There are several reasons that people acquire a “seat-warmer” attitude. One is simply boredom. I mean, after working for 30 years in the same organisation and reaching a level of financial security and comfort, it can be all too easy to become stale in a job. Another might be to do with age. When nearing the age of retirement, the temptation to avoid all but the necessary components of a job can very alluring.

Lastly is organisational fatigue. After working in the same role with many different executive managers and/or CEOs who each arrive on a relatively short-term contract of, say three or five years, want to change the world, but leave instead, the culture and organisation usually slip back to where they were before the new broom arrived.

“Seat warmers” and the “attending retired” need to be motivated to re-engage with the organisation or motivated to leave in search of a better way to spend their time. This task can be daunting but must be accomplished if the organisational culture is to move into the positive with positive leaders throughout the work place.

The last group I will talk about is the executive management team and the CEO. A thick skin is required to be a good CEO for any municipality, alongside the ability to be collaborative, responsible, firm and, above all, brave.

Absolutely nothing will change for the better without a brave CEO prepared to tackle a dysfunctional culture. In fact, a weak CEO, or one who gives up after a short space of time, will reinforce all the negative aspects of working within local government and actually empower those seeking to maintain the status quo or undermine a positive culture.

A well-balanced CEO with vision, tenacity, integrity, personality, a great physical presence and the fortitude to see things through will go a long way to addressing many cultural concerns within his or her organisation.

For the CEO to be successful it is imperative that they have an executive team to match. Imagine King Arthur without the Knights of the Round Table! Camelot would have been a very different place and the legend that grew up around Arthur would not have endured.

So to ensure your enduring legacy, work hard to create a team focused on the organisation’s objectives, engage all in meeting those objectives by creating real outcomes and turn the attitudes of the dead wood around or prune it off. You will then be able to create an organization of people who value each other as well as their leaders for their outstanding, positive leadership.

Image:Joonarkan – Fotolia.com

Indigo Training are thrilled to announce that the customer support team at Glen Eira City Council have received a coveted Honourary Mention at the recent Government Contact Centre Excellence Awards.

We have had the privilege of training the team at Glen Eira City Council in a range of skills over the years (including customer focus training) and we are thrilled that Glen Eira’s commitment to quality customer service has been acknowledged.

Congratulations to Greg and the team who took out the Honourary Mention in the “Best Government Contact Centre Operation (30 FTEs or Less)” category.

View the presentation photos.

A new report by VicHealth and Melbourne University has shed new light on the real cost of excessive pressure in the workplace. According to the report released today, “excessive pressure at work is costing Australia’s economy $730 million a year due to job-stress related depression”.

According to an article posted by the industry search website today, “The $730 million job strain price tag includes lost productive time, employee replacement costs, government-subsidised mental health services and medications for depression. It equates to $11.8 billion over the average working lifetime, with the biggest loss accruing to employers”.

The article goes on to quote Todd Harper, VicHealth CEO, who stated that “This report raises questions about the current workplace culture in Australia. We need to develop strategies that can be applied in all workplaces to make them healthier, happier and more productive environments that nurture good health rather than cause ill-health.”

Read the full article

On Wednesday 6th October SBS news reported that workplace stress was costing the Australian economy $730 million annually. To review the copy on the SBS website and to see the footage follow this link – www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1374121/-730m-job-stress-hit

Later that same evening I switched channels to the ABC where I viewed a news story on the under-representation of women at boardroom level in the top 200 companies. Here is the link to that story on the ABC website -www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/06/3030429.htm

This got me thinking, could the lack of women in senior positions have something to do with the amount of stress being experienced in the workplace? Is there some connection here? I think both issues go to organisational culture. It seems to me that boardrooms are the domain of men who have over many years fought their way to the top of the corporate ladder. For the most part these men would be over 50 years in age, from an Anglo-Saxon background, from middle or upper class backgrounds. They have been privately educated, and have become politically astute and aggressive to reach these positions.

As the leaders within their organisations they set the tone for the company culture. So, my question is this – are these the right people to be setting the culture of large organisations in the twenty first century?

Has anyone measured their Emotional Intelligence, their ability to empathise with women, people from different cultures or different socioeconomic backgrounds etc? Sure, technically, fiscally and politically they may be great, but how do they fare in their human to human communication and sociability?

In my last blog post I was commenting on the documentary “Stress – portrait of a killer” which looked at a troop of Baboons who had lost all the dominant and aggressive males to TB. This dramatically changed the culture within the troop. The female baboons now outnumbered the male baboons and the male baboons who had survived the TB outbreak were far less aggressive than the ones who had died. This created a much more relaxed and co operative culture within the troop far from being a negative the troop flourished.

I wonder what would happen if all the boardrooms of Australia lost their board members today and were replaced with an equal number of men and women – but not the same type of aggressive male but males who had high Emotional Intelligence, had not gone to private school (particularly not a single sex private school) and who had the ability to empathise with a wide range of people.

Would all the companies suddenly fall over? Would they be taken over by aggressive outsiders or would they, like the troop of baboons, flourish in this new paradigm?

Would workplace stress be greatly reduced or even be eradicated and seen as something that belonged to another age and time?  Just a thought.

Last night, I watched the most amazing documentary on ABC2 TV (Australia) called “Stress Portrait Of A Killer”.

In the documentary stress was examined on a cellular level within animals and humans. The researcher had been studying a troop of baboons over twenty years and had noticed some startling changes in the dynamics of this particular troop of baboons once a TB infection killed all the aggressive dominant males.

What followed was a fascinating insight into the effects of changes in organisational hierarchy.

It would seem that we as people working and living in hierarchical situations have much to learn from these clever baboons. The document is available on YouTube, here is the link its certainly worth viewing – view the video

My conclusion from the documentary is that we need to connect with each other, care for each other and lose the aggressive attitude if we are to have happy healthy lives and happy productive workplaces.

Congratulations to Lee-anne Graham of the City of Yarra!

Lee-anne has won the scholarship awarded by Indigo Training to develop her career and continue her stated mission of developing Access Yarra. Access Yarra is the business unit responsible for the customer contact centre within the council.

Lee-anne has demonstrated her commitment and drive to progress her career into a more senior management role.

We would like to thank the members of the judging panel, Ray Pincombe City of Unley; Linda Jenning City Of Warrnambool; Angela Hmenia City of Whitehorse; Margot Bell City of Maroondah and Sashaan Shapeshifter from Indigo Training. Each of them expressed how difficult it was to separate the candidates to find our eventual winner.