Employers are hoping high-level meetings with Victoria's new-look State Government will this week confirm that it will significantly amend a work-from-home bill to assuage concerns over OHS liabilities, "stacking" and an unrealistic timeframe.
A federal authority's concerns that a dispute resolution specialist will miss out on face-to-face connections by working from home 100% of the time while looking after his child are among reasonable business grounds for refusing his request, the FWC has held.
Recognising rostering as skilled labour should be a reform priority for the public health system, according to a newly-released report, as the NSWNMA urges the Minns Government to collaborate on recommendations aimed at delivering "good flex" and improving retention.
The Victorian working from home legislation "aims to strike a balance" between making remote work available to more workers and the "operational realities" of businesses, partly by creating a comprehensive "reasonableness" test, Premier Jacinta Allan told State Parliament today.
Employers should consider broadening the definition of "family" in flexible work policies to reflect Indigenous kinship networks, according to the Centre for Indigenous People and Work, while unions are calling for a similar change to the NES leave entitlements, along with a new cultural leave entitlement.
UK employers might have to pay workers up to eight weeks compensation if they unreasonably refuse a flexible work request, under changes proposed by the Starmer Government.
The need for legislation to enshrine two days a week of working from home for all employees is "not clear", as many employers and workers have now found a hybrid "sweet spot" without any government intervention, according to the Productivity Commission.
The FWC's approach to assessing flexible work disputes is potentially undermining workers' rights to plan ahead, an academic has warned, after the tribunal held that a Sydney Water employee could not make such a request in the lead-up to his 55th birthday, and found a father ineligible until he finalised his custody arrangement.
