Human Resource Management

Staffing

^{Image: ALRC Staff Members — (left to right) Kate Nielson (Intern), Tina O’Brien, Maria Zacharia, Jared Boorer, Sara Peel, Sabina Wynn, Khanh Hoang, Justine Clarke, Professor Rosalind Croucher, Virginia Marshall, Amanda Alford, Marie-Claire Muir, Bruce Alston, Professor Terry Flew, Carolyn Kearney, Trisha Manning, Krista Lee-Jones, Michele Reddy (on secondment from AGD), Greg Diggs (absent), Dimitra Zinonos (absent)}

Employees of the ALRC are appointed under s 43 of the ALRC Act. At the close of the reporting period, on 30 June 2011, the ALRC’s full-time equivalent staffing level was 14.44 FTE. This figure does not include Commissioners.

Since 1996, all staff appointed under s 43 have been appointed on a fixed term basis, in accordance with the ALRC Union Collective Agreement 2007–10.

Table 8: Staffing Profile, as at 30 June 2011

Table 9: ALRC Staff 2010–11

Employment conditions

All ALRC staff members, other than the Executive Director, are covered by the ALRC Union Collective Agreement 2007–2010. This Agreement provides for annual salary increases of 4.2%, as well as a range of measures intended to facilitate retention of older employees and employees with family and/or carer responsibilities. These include:

• an extension of paid maternity leave from 12 to 14 weeks;
• an extension of paid parental leave from one to two weeks;
• eligibility for parental leave in relation to long-term foster care placements;
• introduction of paid adoption leave;
• provision for older workers to sacrifice up to 100% of salary into superannuation; and
• a Work From Home Policy to assist staff to balance work and personal responsibilities.

A new Enterprise Agreement is currently being negotiated which takes into account the ALRC’s move into the Australian Public Service framework and the requirements of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth).

Performance rewards and bonuses

The ALRC Union Collective Agreement 2007–2010 includes a salary scale, with each pay point in the scale representing a 3% increase in salary. The performance appraisal provisions of the Agreement allow for strong performance to be rewarded through a mixture of movement up the salary scale and one-off bonuses, as summarised below.

Table 10: Performance Rewards and Bonuses

When an employee reaches the maximum pay point for his or her position, the President has the discretion of granting a bonus of up to 3% of annual salary based on a performance appraisal. During 2010–11, 6 employees were awarded a performance bonus, amounting to a total bonus payment for the year of $21,878.

Details of total remuneration expenditure in 2010–11 are provided in the financial statements.

Staff development

The performance appraisal process is the main mechanism for determining professional development needs of employees, but the ALRC also considers requests for education and training as they arise. The ALRC budgets for professional development at a whole-of-organisation level as well as for individual employees. Where appropriate, the ALRC organises tailored training for groups of employees with similar needs. In addition, the ALRC considers attendance at relevant conferences and professional seminars to contribute to the professional development of staff.

During 2010 all ALRC staff attended fraud training, OH&S training and cross cultural communication training.

The following staff received professional development opportunities:

• Information Manager, Carolyn Kearney, attended the Australian Law Librarians’ Association (ALLA) and the New Zealand Law Librarians’ Association (NZLLA) joint conference at the Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne on 29 September–1 October 2010.
• Legal Officer, Sara Peel, represents the ALRC as an observer at the Family Law Council and has attended meetings on 11–12 October 2010 and 24–25 February 2011.
• Legal Officer, Amanda Alford, was a speaker at the Kingsford Legal Centre Diverse Legal Careers Forum, on 20 October 2010, and presented at the 7th Annual Indigenous Family Violence Prevention Legal Forum in Mackay on 30–31 May 2011. As the ALRC CPSU delegate, Ms Alford also attended CPSU Bargaining Representative Training in March 2011.
• Finance Manager, Maria Zacharia, attended the Attorney-General’s Portfolio Agencies Conference on 22 October 2010, Fringe Benefits Tax training on 22 February 2011, Financial Statements seminar on 28 March 2011 and CBMS Training on 1 June 2011.
• Website Manager, Marie-Claire Muir, attended the Web Industry Professionals Association (WIPA) seminar, ARIA & HTML5, on 25 October 2010 and presented papers at three conferences: ALRAC, Brisbane, September 2010; Cebit Australia Gov 2, November 2010; and at the Law and Justice Foundation training day (NSW Legal Aid), Sydney, December 2010.
• Senior Legal Officers, Bruce Alston and Isabella Cosenza, participated in the Family Court of Australia, Family Law Forum (by telephone) on 19 November 2010.
• Legal Officer, Sara Peel, attended the Child Support National Stakeholders Engagement Group with President, Professor Rosalind Croucher, on 9 February 2011, the Child Support Stakeholders Engagement Group with Legal Officer, Khanh Hoang, on 3 May 2011, and the Chief Justice’s Family Law Forum with President, Professor Rosalind Croucher, on 9 May 2011.
• Senior Legal Officer, Justine Clarke, attended the Blue Sky: Future Directions in Copyright Law conference on 25 February 2011 with President, Professor Rosalind Croucher.
• Website Manager, Marie-Claire Muir, and Officer Services Coordinator, Trisha Manning, attended the PDF Accessibility Education Session for the Australian Government, 2 March 2011.
• Senor Legal Officers, Bruce Alston and Justine Clarke, attended the AGD’s Classification Enforcement Contacts Forum 2011 on 7 June 2011 with Commissioner, Professor Terry Flew.

Study assistance in the form of discretionary leave or reduction of work hours is available to staff undertaking tertiary studies at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. One employee sought approval for study leave in 2010–11.

Equal employment opportunity (EEO)

The ALRC is committed to equal opportunity in employment. EEO principles are applied in recruitment practices, and by providing equality of opportunity for training and development for all employees.

The ALRC has an EEO Policy and Reasonable Adjustment Guidelines. The EEO Policy is a statement of the ALRC’s commitment to the goals of equal opportunity and affirmative action in employment, and aims to provide a work environment for staff, contractors and interns that fosters fairness, equity and respect for social and cultural diversity, and that is free from unlawful discrimination, harassment or vilification. The EEO Policy also sets out procedures to ensure concerns and complaints are dealt with in a prompt and appropriate manner.

The Reasonable Adjustment Guidelines are designed to assist in fulfilling the ALRC’s legal and organisational responsibilities for providing a workplace that allows employees, contractors and interns with a disability to compete for vacancies and pursue careers as effectively as people who do not have a disability. The Guidelines require management to consider whether it is necessary and reasonable to make an adjustment to remove a barrier to enable a person with a disability to achieve equal opportunity, equal participation or equal performance at work.

The ALRC invites all new staff to participate in a voluntary EEO survey that allows the organisation to track the number of staff who are from groups or communities that are specifically identified in the EEO Policy. All information collected through the survey is treated as confidential and is used only for reporting in a de-identified manner.

As at 30 June 2011, 12 of the ALRC’s 16 staff were female. There were 6 new appointments made during 2010–11 and 5 of these new appointments fell within categories recognised in the EEO policy (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people with a disability, people from a non-English speaking background, and women). A breakdown of staff by gender and classification is provided in Table 8.

Work/life balance

The ALRC is strongly committed to providing a work environment that recognises the need for a work/life balance and that enables its staff to be employed, as far as possible, in a way that is consistent with family and other personal responsibilities.

The ALRC Union Collective Agreement 2007–2010 contains a number of conditions that are intended to ensure work/life balance practices. These include:

• formal flextime arrangements for most categories of employees and a discretionary time-in-lieu system for senior staff;
• the ability to ‘purchase’ additional annual leave;
• flexibility in the use of personal leave to care for family members;
• generous maternity, adoption and parental leave provisions; and
• provision to work from home in particular circumstances.

In 2010–11, three members of staff were permitted to work from home or part-time in order to meet family or personal commitments.

Occupational health & safety (OH&S)

The ALRC is committed to providing and maintaining the highest degree of health, safety and welfare of all employees by aiming to prevent all injury and illness potentially caused by working conditions. The ALRC recognises its responsibility to provide a healthy and safe workplace for employees and to provide employees with workplace-based, easily accessible information on health and safety matters.

The ALRC’s Health and Safety Management Arrangements (HSMAs) establish the framework for ensuring the health, safety and welfare of all employees of the ALRC and establish the mechanisms for ongoing and effective cooperation between the Commission and its employees with regards to developing, monitoring and evaluating the ALRC’s OH&S arrangements.

The ALRC has a commitment to consult with staff on OH&S issues and to work together to ensure a safe work environment. The ALRC shares relevant information about occupational health, safety and welfare with employees and ensures that employees are given the opportunity to express their views and to contribute in a timely fashion to the resolution of occupational health, safety and welfare issues.

Occupational health and safety is overseen by the OH&S Consultative Committee (OH&SCC), comprised of the Executive Director, Sabina Wynn; Legal Officer, Amanda Alford (staff union representative from Dec 2010); Office Services Coordinator, Trisha Manning (safety officer); Payroll Officer, Greg Diggs; and Executive Assistant/Project Coordinator, Tina O’Brien. ALRC staff and management have a responsibility to report to the OH&SCC any situation that could constitute a hazard to the health, safety or welfare of any ALRC employee. Any accident or injury that occurs while a staff member is undertaking ALRC work—either at the ALRC’s offices, at a home based office, or while on external consultations—must be reported immediately to the OH&SCC.

The Occupational Health and Safety Act 1991 (Cth), requires employers to do everything that is reasonably practicable to protect the health and safety of their employees at work. The ALRC supports the use of a risk management approach to occupational health and safety. The ALRC identifies any potential risks to the health and safety of ALRC employees and puts in place strategies to minimise any potential hazards or risks to the health and safety of employees. The ALRC’s risk management strategy forms part of the ALRC’s HSMAs.

OH&S policies are accessible to staff on the ALRC’s file server and new staff are provided with information on occupational health and safety as part of the induction process.

One of the objectives of the OH&SCC is to assist the ALRC in disseminating information about OH&S throughout the ALRC, for example:

• the ALRC’s OH&S Policy will be included in the induction of all new staff to the ALRC;
• the ALRC will ensure that all staff have OH&S training and workstation assessments at least every two years;
• the ALRC will ensure that all managers are aware of their responsibilities under the Act through regular updates and annual refresher OH&S training; and
• each Commission and/or Board of Management meeting will include an item ‘Occupational Health & Safety’ and the OH&SCC and/or individuals will be encouraged to raise and discuss any issues of concern at that time.

During 2010–11 there were no OH&S issues reported, and no accidents nor any dangerous occurrences during the year that required the giving of notice under section 68 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 1991.

OH&S training was delivered in November 2010 for all staff and included safe workstation ergonomic training and stress management in times of workplace change.

The ALRC makes every effort to ensure that staff have the equipment that they require to fulfil the requirements of their work without risk to their health. With the move to new office premises in May 2011, a professional work station assessment was conducted in the new offices and specialist equipment was provided including footrests, document holders and monitor rises on an assessment of need.

As a workplace health initiative under the Certified Agreement, the ALRC provides free and voluntary influenza vaccinations to staff in autumn each year. In 2010–11, 10 members of staff took advantage of a free vaccination. All staff have access to a confidential counselling service that provides up to three free sessions per year.

Purchasing

Purchasing within the ALRC is guided by the Purchasing Policy and Procedures, which are consistent with the Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines (January 2005). As an agency expending public money, the ALRC must be accountable for its resources and expenditure. The Government requires the ALRC to promote the proper use of resources within the framework of policies that the Government has set for itself and its agencies. These policies aim to achieve efficient, effective and ethical procurement outcomes with a focus on value for money and provide guidelines as to how these outcomes may be realised when undertaking procurement.

The ALRC’s Procurement and Purchasing Policy was updated in May 2009 and sets ‘value for money’ as the core principle in procurement decisions. ‘Value for money’ is determined with reference to efficiency, effectiveness, accountability, transparency, ethics, Australian Government policies and environmental considerations. In a procurement process this principle requires a comparative analysis of all relevant costs and benefits of each proposal throughout the whole procurement cycle (whole-of-life costing) making decisions in an accountable and transparent manner.

The ALRC’s Procurement and Purchasing Policy recognises that ‘value for money’ also involves adopting processes that reflect the scale and risk profile of a particular procurement and that simple procurements should be undertaken using simple processes.

Risk management is built into the ALRC’s procurement processes and the extent of risk management required will vary from following routine procurement processes, to a significant undertaking involving the highest level of planning, analysis and documentation.

Where the Government establishes a coordinated procurement contract for a particular property or service, the ALRC will use the government contract established for that property or service, unless an exemption has been provided.

The ALRC has an Environmental Management Policy that commits the ALRC to consider the environmental impact of any purchases and to seek to minimise the ecological footprint of the ALRC’s activities. Reference to this policy is made whenever the ALRC seeks to purchase major office equipment, office supplies, printing and publishing services, and other consumables and services that might impact on the environment in a negative way.

The ALRC publishes an Annual Procurement Plan on the Austender website. During 2010–11, the ALRC had no planned purchases.

Consultancies

The ALRC did not employ any consultants during 2010–11. Information about consultancies will be made available on the AusTender website when required.

Advertising and market research

As required under Section 311A of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, the ALRC reports that, during 2010–11, it did not undertake any advertising or market research with advertising agencies, market research organisations, polling organisations, direct mail organisations, or media advertising organisations.