People Dynamics Newsletter - People Matters
Issue 42, August 2008 | Back to Newsletters Index
PD News
Welcome Caroline!
We would like to welcome Caroline as the newest addition to our team! Her main role is to assist the HR Admin side of People Dynamics and will include helping clients with their HR needs. Her main hours are Thursdays and Fridays from 8:30am-4pm. Check out our website for her profile.
EPMS Update – This is in its final stages and will be ready for distribution soon!
Empowering Staff
People want to feel empowered at work. We all know that, but how do we go about it? We know many of us contribute to areas outside of work that have a lot of meaning to us. Most people want to have that in their workplace as well. This includes the ability for people to make their own decisions, be accountable for their results and have the ability to solve issues, whether they be in a leadership position or not.
One of the first steps is for Managers to look at the way they are actually managing their staff—is there trust in the relationship or is it built on mistrust? Managers need to be able to step back and understand that their people like to be able to think for themselves, rather than be told what to do, and that they have the power to exercise initiative.
One of the best ways to allow people to take imitative is to set them outcomes that are to be achieved for the role, inform them on how they will be measured on success of these outcomes and give guidance and leadership.
We do this for our clients through our unique, one page documents called Job Outcome Definitions, or JODs®.
Please contact us for further information.
Legal Update
The Australian Industrial Relations Commission has ordered the reinstatement of a truck driver after he was dismissed due to his refusal to take a Drug and Alcohol test.
Although there was a company Drug and Alcohol policy in place, there was no documentation to show that training had taken place on the policy. The commissioner judged that in this case the employee has not been offered a “fair go all round” and the penalty of termination had been disproportionate.
This highlights the importance of not just having a policy, but also to train staff on what the policy is about and document the training as having taken place.