The unfair fairwork regime
Consider this, a full time employee who does the bare minimum to keep their job, has been on performance review twice and is regularly ill so as to maintain accrued sick leave at close to zero takes two days sick leave, is paid the next day and resigns late that night by text message effective immediately, saying they have taken a job elsewhere and will not return to the business.
While I agree with the rules employers must follow to ensure fair employment conditions, for genuine fairness rules should be in place to ensure fairness from the employee to the employer.
There should be tougher consequences for full time employees who leave a job without a notice period. In the scenario outlined above the employee had two days accrued annual leave and no accused sick leave. This left the employer with little capacity to deal with the lack of notice as allowed for in the Award:
If an employee fails to give the required notice the employer may withhold from any monies due to the employee on termination under this award or the NES, an amount not exceeding the amount the employee would have been paid under this award in respect of the period of notice required by this clause less any period of notice actually given by the employee.
It is situations like the one above that encourage small business retailers to hire casuals rather than full time employees.
This also reinforces the importance of previous employment checking, beyond reference checking.
