In this special episode of The HR Leader Podcast, produced in partnership with Danny King Legal, we explore the increasing prevalence of employment disputes and how businesses must put culture, care, and communication at the centre of the employee experience.

Host Jerome Doraisamy speaks with Danny King Legal principal Danny King about her passion for employment law, the most common disputes being lodged at the moment, what gives rise to such disputes, avoiding black-and-white approaches to managing staff, building the right kind of culture, employer mistakes when terminating employment, the place for employee benefits, putting in place proper documentation, policies, and processes, and how best to optimise the employee benefits approach as part of broader considerations around workplace experience.

To learn more about Danny King Legal, click here.

Ensuring workers can meaningfully engage with colleagues and understand how best to communicate under pressure is a critical but oft-overlooked skill that HR must be on top of.

In this episode of The HR Leader Podcast, host Jerome Doraisamy speaks with communications and leadership specialist Leah Mether about what constitutes high school-like behaviour or communication at work, how and why it occurs, whether the frequency of such conduct is increasing, the steps that HR must take to ensure professional, mature conduct across the workplace, and how best HR can manage such a priority amid myriad competing priorities in a tech-driven professional landscape.

In this special episode of The HR Leader Podcast, produced in partnership with DLPA, we explore the fundamentals of building workplaces that are psychologically safe, cater to employees' holistic wellness needs, and understand that "if people don't want to be your employee, then the benefits [offered] are pretty meaningless".

Host Jerome Doraisamy speaks with Dynamic Leadership Programs Australia (DLPA) chief executive Karlie Cremin about the work of DLPA across Australian businesses, the difference between proactivity and reactivity in embedding psychosocial risk prevention into everyday work practices, the role of leaders in better managing psychosocial risks, going beyond baseline initiatives, what workers expect from their employers right now, why it "starts with strategy", and how DLPA supports businesses in navigating such matters.

To learn more about DLPA, click here.

With advocates pushing for reproductive health to have its own leave entitlements, businesses and their HR functions must consider both the benefits and trade-offs inherent with the potential introduction of such allowances for workers.

In this episode of The HR Leader Podcast, host Jerome Doraisamy speaks with Probiotec Limited chief people officer Annalinde Nickisch about the push from unions and other stakeholders for the National Employment Standards to include leave entitlements for reproductive health, why this push is happening, the existing concerns and unintended consequences of such entitlements, the possibility for unconscious bias, the broader place for gender-based entitlements, how HR can interpret the current state of affairs and advise their workplaces accordingly, and broader best practice for HR on this issue.

In this special episode of The HR Leader Podcast, produced in partnership with Dynamic Leadership Programs Australia (DLPA), we explore the new and emerging risks and hazards for workplaces to contend with in times of technological change and what the HR function can do about them.

Host Jerome Doraisamy speaks with DLPA chief executive Karlie Cremin about AI adoption-inspired psychosocial risks and what HR needs to observe, the extent to which businesses are on top of such issues right now and the need to be proactive, what regulators will be looking for, the nexus between these issues and burnout and overwork, best practice steps for HR and leadership to take, and opportunities for leaders and HR to step up in challenging times.

To learn more about DLPA, click here.

Redesigning traditional workplace structures to better accommodate idiosyncratic worker needs is nuanced, with no one-size-fits-all solution available. However, in an evolving professional and technological landscape, HR has a real opportunity to make a difference and ensure workers can focus on what truly matters.

In this episode of The HR Leader Podcast, host Jerome Doraisamy speaks with GumGum director of people and culture, Emma Mani,about:

• Why she loves working with humans.
• What practical work design means.
• How certain trends have accelerated in recent years.
• Lingering issues to be addressed by resigned work practices, and cultural and economic hurdles to overcome.
• Implementing mindset shifts alongside structural changes.
• The place for microshifting.
• How HR can get started in redesigning work practices.
• Practical steps to take in enacting new measures, and bringing the business along for the ride.

Longer negotiations, harder lines, and a new arbitration pathway offering relief from prolonged industrial deadlock – but not without cost. Once a rarely used mechanism, intractable bargaining workplace determinations are now arising more frequently where enterprise bargaining stalls and agreement proves elusive, bringing protected industrial action to a halt while transferring control over the remaining contested issues to the Fair Work Commission.

In this special episode of The Legal Brief, produced in partnership with Kingston Reid, host Jerome Doraisamy speaks with Kingston Reid partner Lucy Shanahan about how intractable bargaining workplace determinations are reshaping enterprise bargaining strategy, and what organisations need to be thinking about to manage their exposure, right from the beginning.

In an industrial relations landscape that is becoming more complex and contested, organisations that recognise the implications of these shifts and proactively manage bargaining risk before positions become entrenched will be better positioned to retain control over outcomes. Those that do not may find that the endgame is decided for them.

To learn more about Kingston Reid, click here.

With nearly one in two workplace leaders experiencing severe stress week to week, there is an urgent need to build leaders' sense of self and have them embrace self-care, so they are better placed to identify and support workers who are struggling themselves.

In this episode of The HR Leader Podcast, host Jerome Doraisamy speaks with R U OK? founding director and author Graeme Cowan about what his career has taught him about leadership and wellness, the urgent need to improve leaders' health in the workplace, the prevalence of severe workplace stress, how difficult it is to be a manager right now, what leaders must be asking of themselves moving forward, what it means to care in the workplace, the three arms of care, and how HR teams can better support leaders' holistic wellbeing.