Better get a lawyer

Stop right there. Are you planning in the near future to let anyone go, make someone redundant or have a discussion with an employee on flexible work arrangements? You might want to check first with your lawyer.

In two days time, all managers and owners who sack staff and make redundancies need to change their procedures. There will be more paperwork, more boxes to tick and more procedures around these basic business functions. Failure to follow the new rules, and bosses could find themselves caught out by the changes in the Fair Work Act.

But it is astonishing how little information has been provided for such a major shift in workplace practices. In fact there is so little information about the new rules that COSBOA has warned people not to fire or hire from July 1 without getting legal advice.

This is a ridiculous situation. With just two days to go, there is no website or phone line for people to seek information on how the laws have changed, especially given the new rules will have such an impact on the lives of employees and employers.

It is understandable why the Government has not wanted to interrupt its dream run by providing education campaigns about how to sack staff legally. It also does not want to alert small business that they are actually affected by the changing rules after making such a big deal about small business being exempted.

Unfortunately, the Opposition is completely distracted by the email fiasco, bad poll results and internal turmoil in a week where they could be making a running on this.

But in the end this could backfire on the Government as we see hard luck stories about companies under pressure, forced to restructure and then finding themselves in trouble with laws they did not know had changed.