The Latest from Kristy-Lee

In the ultra-connected ‘always contactable’ world, the lines between work and personal time have been becoming increasingly blurred, and for some maintaining a healthy work-life balance has become increasingly challenging.

The constant accessibility and expectation to be available outside of work hours can take a toll on employees' well-being and personal lives. However, a new legislation called “The Right to Disconnect” aims to address this issue by granting employees the right to disconnect from work-related communications outside of their designated work hours.

Understanding the Right to Disconnect

The Right to Disconnect legislation is designed to protect employees from unreasonable out-of-hours contact from employers, suppliers, contractors, and customers.

It does not prohibit employers from sending emails or messages outside of work hours, but it grants employees the right not to read or respond to them.

This legislation acknowledges the importance of work-life b...

Hello and welcome to Episode 283 of the People Powered Business Podcast.

I have a bit of a theme going at the moment which I’m calling ‘Compliance Quarter’ and today we’re taking a look at the recent changes to casual employment.

We discuss what changed and when, the new definition of a casual that was inserted into the Fair Work Act last year, an update to Casual Conversion pathways and why the onus is on you as the employer to get it right.

In  August 2024 a new definition of what constitutes a casual was inserted into the FWA (so it’s law). From this point of time onwards, employers had a legal obligation to ensure that if they engaged someone as a casual employee, they had to meet this definition.

The casual definition requires that an employment relationship must:

1. Have no firm advance commitment to continuing and indefinite work (like a guaranteed weekly roster); and

2. Entitle the worker to casual loading or a specific casual rate under a modern award, enterprise agreeme...

Were you like me, and one of those kids who would ask ‘why?’ all… the… time?

My parents must have lost count of the number of times I said ‘but why’ and kept asking and asking and asking until I had a satisfactory answer, and I quite often didn’t.

Our Natural Curiosity

As young ones we are naturally curious, some more than others, but we all have a natural curiosity, and it seems that as we grow older, wiser, more experienced, we stop leaning into that curiosity. We become quicker to make assumptions, to assume we know the answer, to make educated guesses. That serves us well some of the time, but a lack of curiosity can also have its downside – we miss things, we miss the truth, we make false assumptions, and we make decisions based off half-baked information.

The Decline in Our Curiosity

I first witnessed this fading in true curiosity when completing a major research paper for my university studies, when I was studying criminology and forensic psychology. We were looki...

Hello and welcome to Episode 282 of the People Powered Business Podcast.

Today I’m sharing a conversation I recently had with Juliet Robinson over on the Grow Your Influence Podcast.

So often when we are recruiting new people into our teams, we are doing it under pressure. We need someone NOW and it can be tempting to just fill the job that has been created, rather than thinking strategically about the skills we need in our team.

When we’re recruiting we often bring in people like us. People we can relate to in interviews so we think they will fit in the team and we can train them up for the job. Sometimes that works. Often it doesn’t. And either way, it takes a lot more time and energy that taking a skills-based approach in the beginning.

In this episode Juliet and Kristy-Lee talk about the challenges of recruiting for a skills-based team that also ‘works’. That is, the new joiners ‘fit’ with the team culture and have the skills to contribute immediately, even if the way they work...

Managing a team shouldn’t feel like never-ending fire-fighting. Yet for many business owners, the dream of having a high-performing, self-sufficient team quickly turns into a cycle of micromanaging, reactivity, and frustration.

I’ve heard everything from ‘it’s like herding cats’ to likening team leadership to a game of Whak-a-Mole. And we all find ourselves there at some point or another.

The good news? You don’t need to burn everything down and start again to make things better.

Small shifts in how you lead can lead to big transformations. Forget about complete restructures or chasing unicorn hires. Focus on these three simple but powerful habits to move from chaos to clarity-and watch your team rise with you.

Why Big Change Isn’t the Answer

When things start to feel stuck, many business owners assume the solution is to tear it all down: hire new staff, adopt new systems, or overhaul the structure entirely.

But in reality, these large-scale changes often create mo...

Hello and welcome to Episode 281 of the People Powered Business Podcast.

Today we’re tackling a topic which I can’t believe we haven’t discussed before in isolation on the podcast – productivity.

I’ve been having a lot of conversations recently about team productivity – and a lot of business owners seem to have busy confused with productive.

In addition there is a lot of chatter more broadly about productivity declining, ways we can improve it and why it matters.

So in this episode we will look at what productivity actually means, why it’s important to monitor it, and how you might go about measuring (and improving) productivity in your business.

If you’d like to connect with other businesses who are also juggling the challenges of teams, I’d love you to join us inside our free Facebook Group, The People Powered Community, so I can learn more about what’s working for you and any challenges you might be having.

Join Here - https://www.facebook.com/groups/hrsupportaustralia

We’ve come through a whirlwind few years in Australian Industrial Relations, with businesses grappling with some of the most extensive legislative changes since the Fair Work Act was introduced in 2009.

As the dust begins to settle, a natural question arises: are we in for another wave of change?

The short answer: yes - but not to the same extent. That’s the good news.

Still, for business owners and HR leaders, there are several important developments to watch, understand, and prepare for.

What’s Confirmed: Changes You Need to Know About

While the next few years might not bring quite the same scale of transformation, there are still several changes confirmed by the federal government. These are the things we know are happening (or are very likely to):

Minimum Wage Increases

The government is continuing its push to lift minimum wages in line with cost-of-living pressures. While annual reviews are nothing new, we can expect continued support for real wage growth. Fo...

Hello and welcome to Episode 280 of the People Powered Business Podcast.

In this episode we’re unpacking a recent Fair Work Commission decision that has seen a worker based in the Philippines being deemed to be an employee of an Australian based business, and what that means for those engaging offshore workers.

In the case, the worker, based in the Philippines, was working for a Brisbane based business. Her tasks were to work as a Paralegal. She worked from her home, and was required to work Australian hours – 8:30am to 5pm QLD time.

Her engagement was terminated by the business (because she allegedly copied company data onto a personal computer drive – an allegation she denies).

Upon termination she felt wronged and unprotected. She felt unprotected by Philippines workplace law because of how her engagement was set up, but also wasn’t sure she was covered by Australian workplace law, but because she felt like she was acting just like an employee – she would make an unfair dismissa...

As winter grips much of Australia and the new financial year kicks off, a sense of fatigue seems to settle over many workplaces.

That early-year buzz has worn off, deadlines have drained us, and the enthusiasm we once had might feel like a distant memory. If this sounds familiar, you're not alone - and more importantly, it’s entirely normal. But that doesn’t mean you have to sit in the slump. Now is the perfect moment for a reset.

The Mid-Year Slump: Why It Happens

The beginning of the year often comes with energy, clarity, and drive.

Teams return from their Christmas breaks ready to tackle new goals, strategies, and visions. Q1 feels fun, energetic, light, clear.

But then April hits. With its patchwork of Public Holidays, school breaks, and long weekends, April throws off the rhythm that you had going. By the time May and June roll around, that once-high energy is sputtering. Even if business is booming, internal motivation often dips.

Winter doesn’t help either. ...

Hello and welcome to Episode 279 of the People Powered Business Podcast.

In this episode we’re talking about workplace relations changes and what’s on the horizon.

Recently HRM Online shared an article where they interviewed the Federal Workplace Relations Minister, Amanda Rishworth, on what we can expect and what’s on the Governments agenda when it comes to Industrial Relations law changes over the next few years.

You can read the full article here: https://www.hrmonline.com.au/organisational-enablement/new-workplace-relations-minister-governments-upcoming-agenda

Today we look at what we know is changing, what we don’t yet know, and what you need to do to be prepared.

I also shared that the best way to ensure you are up to date with all the changes is to get support, which we can offer you through People Powered HR - This simple membership gives you everything you need to handle HR the right way. From compliant plug and play resources to expert answers, you’ll have the tools and ...