Employer Associations & Modern Awards Essay

HMRC, Salary Sacrifice: An Overview for Employers.[internet]. Available at: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/paye/payroll/special-pay/salary-sacrifice.htm [last accessed 26th November 2010]

Gomez-Mejia, L., Balkin, D., & Cardy, R. (2012). Managing Human Resources (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

The awards system functions as “legal documents that outline the minimum pay rates and conditions of employment” (Fair Work Ombudsman, n.d.). The system could potentially cover both a centralized and a decentralized labour markets. In a centralized labour market, they use awards as the primary form of wages and conditions, while in a decentralised one they use the awards as a ‘safety net’, as the awards still sets the minimum wages (Wooden M., 2010). With the decentralised Australian labour market, it is easier to reach more tailored agreements, yet equitable wages and condition. This is because the enterprise agreement cannot undercut the award for the industry, as it can only negotiate ‘above’ the award. A case study concerning the luxury hotel sector in Australia, showed that the managers think that they could easier achieve their goals and focus on the needs of their individual workplace with the involvement of enterprise bargaining. The study also showed that enterprise bargaining in most cases increased permanent employment, job security, wages and flexibility (Knox A,

Prevent discrimination: support equality – This sector of the act explains where discrimination is most likely to occur in the workplace and how to stop it happening

* Equal opportunities – this sets out how the organisation ensures there is no discrimination in the work place

The report is based on responses collected from more than 1000 employers and 2000 employees, considered UK workforce only and was conducted in early January 2012. The report presents an in-depth view of the types of flexible working provisions offered by employers including part-time working, working from home, flexitime, compressed hours, career breaks/sabbaticals, mobile working, term-time working, secondments, annual hours and time off work in the community.

The Equality act 2010 provides a further effective legal framework for preventing discrimination. The act has brought together consistency in making the work place a fair environment. There are a lot of crucial

Gerhart, B., Hollenbeck, J., Noe, R., & Wright, P. (2009). Fundamentals of human resource management (3rd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

To promote equality , diversity and inclusion in policy and practice , my work place also compliant to other legislation like, Human right act 1998, sex discrimination (gender reassignment) regulations 1999, Employment equality (religion belief) regulations 2003 , Disability discrimination amended act 2005, Equality act 2006, Racial and religious hatred act 2006.

The Equality act 2010 provides a further effective legal framework that as an employer we must adhere to this is to prevent discrimination according to ACAS. The act has brought together consistency in making the work place a fair environment. There are a lot of crucial changes and new principles that it introduces, firstly it introduces protected “characteristics” ;

One of the biggest issues in the Australian business sector and workforce is the relationship between employees and employers. The Fair Work Amendment Act 2013, aims to support workers

Awards are legal documents detailing the minimum terms and conditions of an employee’s job which involves wage rates, sick leave, holidays, overtime and other various minimum conditions. Employees are covered only by the award specific to their occupation or industry. If employees deem an award in their industry unfair, Fair Work Australia (FWA) are responsible for reviewing the award and if it is unfair, adjusting it.

There were a few main themes and ideas that recurred across most of the supporting documents (see appendices, p.6-X); one main theme is that it seems as though the NLW rise will benefit employees, when in fact several businesses, including B&Q, are finding ways, such as ‘cuts to employee benefits’ (Butler, S. 2016)3, in order to fund the increased NLW, and thus defeating one of the reasons for the new NLW’s enforcement, being to benefit the recipients, employees over 25 years of age. Another main theme is that the NLW will have future affects as well, due to the aim being for ‘the NLW to rise to more than £9 an hour by 2020’ and ‘the independent Office for Budget Responsibility has warned that 60,000 jobs could go as a result’ (BBC News, 2016)1. As they believe that ‘firms [will] recruit more under-25s, who will be on a lower rate.’ (BBC News, 2016)4.

In order to attract workers and to retain the best performers, employers need to have a compensation system that will achieve these objectives. Furthermore, employers need to comply, with the relevant law which relate to payment systems and hours of work. Payment systems and quantum of payment play a significant role not only for individual employers, but also at the level of society.

One of the first incentives to work for the company where reduced work hours and health benefits (Sharplin, 1985, p. 2). This was then followed by a system that would allow workers to get a bonus based on the rate of completion, and then a pension plan that was introduced towards the end of the second World War (Sharplin, 1985, p. 2). This brings to light that the company was interested in hearing from their workers as some of these incentives came to be due to the feedback from the workers (Sharplin, 1985, p. 2). Each employee was evaluated on a regular basis and there was a clear and easy to understand system in place that each worker could follow (Sharplin, 1985, p.