People Dynamics Newsletter - People Matters
Issue 69, November 2010 | Back to Newsletters Index
PD News
Hi everyone, we have some very existing news to update you on… our lovely
HR Assistant Ruth has recently become engaged!! We are thrilled for her
and wish her all the best.
A reminder to pre register your business with CentreLink for the Paid
Parental Leave which comes into force as of January 1 2011. Payments will
be paid as a social security payment and will not affect wages, however
your payroll will need to be set up accordingly. Visit the Centrelink
Business Webpage for more details.
Monkey Management
A ‘monkey’ is a metaphor for an idea, task or problem, and the management of these can be one of the greatest reasons managers become overwhelmed.
As a manager, when someone on your team has a problem they want to talk to you about, they quite obviously have a monkey on their back. If you take on their problem, the monkey will be jumping onto your back. After a while if you keep taking on other people’s monkeys you will have so many monkeys on your back that you may find you are struggling.
If you are constantly having to ‘look after’ your employees’ monkeys you will also have to ‘feed’ and ‘care for’ the monkeys which can take up a lot of your time and effort.
It is not ideal to be caring for everyone else’s monkeys, so how can you avoid this?
The first step is to recognise that you are carrying other people’s monkeys around. You should then have a think about how often you say such things as “I’ll get back to you on that” or “leave it with me” when an employee comes to you with a problem?
Don’t get trapped into trying to fix everyone else’s problems. It is much more beneficial to teach or coach someone else to work through their own problem, so in the long run they will become more independent and you will have more time on your hands to deal with your own monkeys.
If you are delegating the monkey back to your employee to look after then you should remember a couple of things:
1. Make it clear how much authority and autonomy that employee has over the monkey.
2. Arrange a date for them to get back to you with a status report. This will ensure that they will be working on the monkey, rather than letting other monkeys jump the queue and become more important.
3. Make sure that they have the resources, knowledge and time available to deal with the monkey.
Source: www.nationallearning.com.au
Legal Update
Fair Work Australia ruled that a company unfairly dismissed their Accountant after making him redundant. After the redundancy, many of the Accountant’s duties were being carried out by a new “Assistant Accountant” position. Fair Work Australia awarded the Accountant $25,000 in compensation, because the company did not consider redeploying him to the more junior position.
If there is a lower paid or lower status position available it would be reasonable in the circumstances to redeploy the employee into the role. This is a reminder to carefully consider an employee’s skills and experience when making them redundant, and to not assume the employee will refuse redeployment to a lower status role.