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Individual & Enterprise Workplace agreements increase the emphasis on direct bargaining between you and your employees, allowing you to achieve greater productivity in the workplace.
Flexible work practices can deliver benefits to both employers and employees. They can lead to greater job satisfaction and help attract and retain skilled and valuable staff. Flexibility in the workplace may also improve productivity and efficiency by helping
maintain a motivated workforce with reduced staff turnover and absenteeism.
Individual Flexibility Arrangements (IFAs) allow for variations in the way that modern awards or enterprise agreements are applied in order to meet the genuine needs of employers and individual employees while ensuring minimum entitlements and protections are not undermined. Flexibility terms within modern awards will only allow IFAs to vary:
· arrangements for when work is performed such as working hours
· overtime rates
· penalty rates
· allowances, and
· leave loading.
Enterprise Bargaining Agreements (EBA) are collective agreements made at an enterprise level between employers and their employees. They cover the terms and conditions of employment of the employees involved. The terms of an enterprise agreement must not be less beneficial to an employee than the National Employment Standards and overall must be better than the relevant modern award.
For an agreement to pass the better off overall test, Fair Work Australia must be satisfied that each award-covered employee and
each prospective award-covered employee would be better off overall under the agreement than if the relevant modern award applied.
There are a number of terms that are mandatory and may be included in an enterprise agreement. These include terms relating to:
· dispute resolution term
· flexibility term
· consultation term
· nominal expiry date
· coverage term
· rates of pay
· penalty rates and overtime
· allowances
· standard hours
· personal and annual leave
· deductions from wages for any purpose that is authorised by the employee
· any matters pertaining to the relationship between the employer and the employees
· matters pertaining to the relationship between the employer and employee organisations covered by
· the agreement, and
· how the agreement will operate.
Contracts of employment or letters of offer (otherwise referred to as common law contracts) cannot override award terms and conditions – only registered workplace agreements can do that for you.
Make a list of all the things you find difficult, inflexible or downright unworkable in your Award and then make an appointment with one of our Workplace Relations Advisors to discuss the best options for your business in implementing a workplace agreement
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