Updated contracts coming soon
The Workplace Relations Team has kick started the New Year with a legal review of our Contracts of Employment templates to ensure they are up-to-date.
With a review and update by the legal team underway now is a great time to think about the risk level of your practice and the steps to take to keep your workplace risk low.
An employment contract is a written agreement between the practice and your team member and is designed to protect both the practice and the employee. The most common contractual disputes can occur because of termination, resignation and redundancy where the terms and conditions of the contract are often put under the microscope. Without a contractual agreement in place, this is difficult to navigate when dealing with employees in the event any of these situations occur.
There are a couple of questions you need to answer to determine which contract you need to issue to your new staff member.
- Is the role covered by an award such as the Health Professional Support Services (HPSS) or Nurses Award? This will affect various minimum entitlements as is set out in the relevant award.
- Is the role full-time, part-time or casual? There are significant legislative differences between permanent employment and casual employment, so the contract needs to make these distinctions.
- Is the role fixed-term? You may wish to employ someone for a specific period e.g. to cover maternity leave. The contract must reflect the fixed nature of the employment.
Navigating employment contracts may seem like a minefield, however, ensuring they are up-to-date, compliant and agreed upon will lower the workplace risk for the practice and make it easier to navigate when things go wrong.
If you are interested in updating your contracts, please send an expression of interest to workplacerelations@amaq.com.au to ensure you are notified when they are available to purchase or to learn more about the new updates. If you are a Toolkit subscriber, you will automatically receive the new updated contract packs and accompanying documents as part of your Toolkit subscription.
For more information on the Workplace Relations Toolkit Product please contact us on workplacerelations@amaq.com.au or refer our webpage. Workplace Relations | Australian Medical Association