Effectively Navigating Laws Affecting Employment Relations

Employee relations, sometimes also called industrial relations, addresses the need to successfully balance corporate management with taking care of employee needs to gain commitment and optimum performance which would in the end be beneficial to both employer and employee.

This field involves many issues and a number of laws and procedures that can be quite complex and thus requires expertise, education and experience. To effectively navigate laws affecting employment relations, you need to understand that there are three main parties involved in these issues: your company, your employees and their trade unions or representatives and the state or federal government through existing laws and the tribunals where complaints or suits are heard.

Their interactions, conflicts and resolutions, often in issues such as collective bargaining or enterprise agreement, carer’s leave, personal leaves, annual leaves and parental leaves, termination of employment, redundancy, maximum hours, among others is what industrial relations is all about.


This field requires knowledge in the latest developments and latest laws on enterprise agreement, health and safety, equal opportunities, recruitment and hiring, work conditions; as well as topnotch skills in communication and knowledge on the changes in the organization and the workforce and on industrial relations management and reforms.

There should be an understanding of the provisions and processes involved in far-reaching laws such as the Fair Work Act 2009. An aggregation of several of the Australian federal government’s workplace relations laws, Fair Work Act covers many aspects of business processes and activities. You should also be aware that several industrial relations laws have also been affected by the Fair Work Act and this affects union rights of entry, good faith bargaining, disputes and representation, and among others.

One of the key ideas in industrial relations is effectively handling conflicts not just by resolving them but also by preventing them. For this, training plays an important factor. You need to have a training program in place. If you don’t have one and your in-house team can’t prepare and handle a comprehensive program, consider outsourcing. There are a number of HR services providers that offer the expertise and flexible training programs.

The goal of the training should be to empower and encourage both the employer and employees to understand their rights, obligations and responsibilities and to encourage compliance in the day to day operations. The training program should at the very least have an overview of relevant employment laws, explanations, case studies and solutions; as well as discussions on specific topics like discrimination, termination, onboarding, illness and injury among workers, and the like. You should have training courses that can be held either on site or off site and are flexible and easy to customize.

Given the complex issues and processes involved, most companies prefer outsourcing the management of employment relations. There are a number HR services providers or consultancies that offer this kind of service. Whether you are hiring an HR service provider or having industrial relations handled by an in house team, remember that the goals remain the same – to manage liability, maintain compliance and protect both the company and the employees.