A new law recently passed by the Federal Government will protect small businesses from unfair contact terms in standard form contracts. The new law will come into force on 12 November 2016 following a 12 month transition period. A small business is defined as employing less than 20 people, including casual employees employed on a […]
Federal Parliament resumes next week, with the Government and Opposition both looking to finalise their pitches to voters ahead of the election due later this year. To coincide with the resumption of Parliament, a delegation from the NRA will be in Canberra for meetings with the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, as well as a range […]
As part of its commitment to improving safety for Queenslanders at work, the Palaszcuk Government has passed a new Bill, which introduces a number of changes to the State’s work health and safety (WHS) laws. The WHS Bill aims to restore elements of the original Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld), which were altered […]
FINALLY… there is an event that manages to bring all three events together to form Australia’s BIGGEST combined expo for retail, ecommerce, payments and engagement. Clients have been crying out for ONE (total) event. Now we’ve got the recipe right! The National Retail Association is proud to support the: Total Retail & Payments EXPO 201611 […]
The Office of Industrial Relations, Workplace Health and Safety Queensland are running free workshops to cover a range of work health and safety topics, including:• Basic safety management system• Risk management• Safe work procedures• Safe work method statements (for high risk construction work)• Basic risk management for manual tasks• Incident and emergency response• Hazardous chemicals• Health and wellbeing• Injury management and return to work• Monitor […]
The Federal Circuit Court has found The Monitoring Centre (TMC) took adverse action against their general manager who had made a workplace complaint when the company asked employees to provide negative feedback about the general manager and ultimately used this feedback to terminate her. The former employee made a formal complaint against the director’s wife, […]
Safe Work Australia has published the Second Annual National Statement which identifies emerging trends in psychosocial health, safety and bullying in Australian workplaces. The data in the statement is based on data from accepted worker’s compensation claims involving mental stress. The statement highlights some interesting workplace trends:• the median direct cost of bullying-related workers’ compensation claims […]
The recent case of Hail Creek Coal Pty Ltd v Haylett & Anor [2015] QCA 259 (4 December 2015) has provided guidance on the limitations of an employer seeking health information from an employee. The employee began as a Drill Rig Operator at the Hail Creek Mine and in 2010 was left unfit for work […]
Scholarship funding available to female leaders in the VET sector The National Excellence in Educational Leadership Initiative (NEELI) recently announced that $3,500 scholarships are now available to women in the Vocational Education & Training sector to assist them to participate in the Advanced Leadership Program (ALP) Created to provide tailored development and support to Australia’s […]
In a recent decision before the Fair Work Commission, it has been held that volunteers are unable to make anti-bullying claims against their employers, as they do not satisfy the definition of “worker” under s 789FC of the Fair Work Act 2010 (Cth). In the facts of this case, a volunteer had brought an application for […]
‘Drip pricing’ is a practice used by some retailers during online purchasing, where a headline price is advertised up-front, but other fees and charges are added throughout the purchasing process. Often the extra fees and charges are unavoidable or are applied in most transactions, making it difficult for consumers to compare offers. The Federal Court […]
While retailers grapple with offering multichannel shopping experiences, the industry’s next big hurdle emerges: data deluge. “Retail has an opportunity to completely transform itself using data. It’s all about understanding your business and making decisions that are better,” claims 2016 NRF Big Show headlining speaker, Steve Brown from Intel. Brown’s Big Ideas: • A New Retail Brand […]
News this week of Woolworths’ decision to abandon its failing Masters chain has come as no surprise to the retail and business community, after widely-publicised losses. Post-Christmas is a time that traditionally sees retailers assessing their performance, with similar announcements having occurred in January in previous years. While we now add Masters to a shortlist of […]
Fresh from New York, 2016 NRF Big Show Exhibitor and National Retail Association (NRA) Event Partner, CloudFirst, are pleased to bring you the big insights from retail’s largest global conference at the next round of Innovation and Technology Committee (ITC) breakfasts across Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Interested in: Delivering a dynamic platform that enables innovation on […]
The jobs figures released yesterday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics were very welcome news for the economy, and for the retail sector. The ABS reported that 312,000 more Australians were in work in December compared with the same time 12 months ago, with most of those people finding full-time work. Additional Australians in work […]
Article by Workplace Advisor – F.Dunstone In this article, National Retail Association’s Workplace Advisor, Felicity Dunstone, debunks some common misconceptions and highlights a few tricky entitlements in the Clerks – Private Sector Award 2010 [MA000002] (Clerks Award) and the Storage Services and Wholesale Award 2010 [MA000084] (Storage Services Award). CLERKS AWARD Myth 1: Employees doing […]
In February of this year, nine out of ten Agreement approval applications will be subject to “triage” model. Practically, this means that the applications will be sorted into groups or categories to streamline the approval process. This anticipated change was born from an independent review in May 2015 that found the triage process fostered greater […]
The National Retail Association is pleased to partner with innovation gurus CloudFirst to deliver our quarterly Innovation and Technology Breakfasts in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Insights from the New York NRF Big Show will be presented at the next breakfast meetings at the Microsoft Experience Centres on: Tuesday the 8th of March in Brisbane Wednesday […]
The recent release of the November 2015 retail trade figures by the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed continued growth in the Household Goods sector. As indicated in the graph below, the retail sector grew by 3.8 per cent nationally, with Victoria (5.5 per cent), Tasmania (4.3 per cent) and New South Wales (3.9 per cent), […]
Happy New Year. I trust you have had a prosperous end to 2015 and a positive start to 2016. Anecdotal feedback from members suggests to us that the Christmas and Boxing Day sales periods were generally strong. Based on the November sales data released by the Bureau of Statistics today, and the modelling done by the […]