Workplace mental health is costing Australian businesses billions of dollars each year - yes, every business needs to do something to address this! As we finish recent World Mental Health Day celebrations, and with Queensland Mental Health Week now also in full swing, it is pertinent to evaluate the impact on mental health over the past year, with HR Daily recently publishing some sobering findings.
A majority High Court has upheld the appeal and overturned the ruling handed down by the Full Federal Court in August 2019. This now means that employers can revert to the historic way of calculating personal/carer’s leave: full-time employees are entitled to 10 days per annum and part-time employees receive a pro-rated amount based on their ordinary hours of work.
Even with all the opportunities for virtual face-to-face meetings, it is easy to miss visual cues in body language and facial expressions that could be telling you an employee is not coping well. Although some people may have thought working from home was their dream job, the reality is it can feel isolating and can prove more challenging than working from an office.
A human resources magazine, Human Resources Director (HRD), recently released an article on the most effective COVID-19 communications, reporting that interactive messages via messaging apps such as Slack, Teams or WhatsApp have a 72 – 88% effective response rate over e-mails. It was found that e-mails have only a 15% open rate and less than 2% response rate.
On Monday 13 April, the Queensland Government announced that students will operate under a home-based learning model for at least the first five weeks of Term 2, up until Friday 22 May. A further decision will be made regarding the second half of Term 2 by mid-May. During this period, ALL students except for vulnerable students and children of essential workers are to be supervised at home.
