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Workplace culture

This Month

SafeWork is investigating UTS.

Safety investigation launched at UTS over KPMG’s job slashing plan

It’s unusual for the workplace safety watchdog to investigate white-collar workplaces, but staff anger is at boiling point.

Which emoji you should use to say ‘thank you’

Gen Z workers are ascendant, but research shows they find workplace communication a struggle. Are emojis the future of office comms?

More leaders are turning to tools like Claude and ChatGPT not just for productivity gains, but for provocation and perspective, using them to reframe in real time.

This is how CEOs are using AI to get ahead

It’s faster, cheaper and listens without judgement, but is artificial intelligence enough to shape smarter leaders?

One of 11 kids, KPMG executive says she ‘learnt to negotiate’

Dorothy Hisgrove, managing partner for people and inclusion, is the winner of the Professional services category of the Women in Leadership Awards.

Imagine learning via email that you’d been made redundant.

The brutal truth about being fired these days

Sacking people is sometimes necessary. But dismissing people by email or phone is still distressingly common and needs to stop.

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Top-tier firms expect long hours from their lawyers, but many are questioning whether the pay-off is worth it.

Why lawyers are overworked and (relatively) underpaid

Lawyers are employed to work 38 hours a week, but that is a fantasy at most of Australia’s top-tier law firms.

: Rest super CEO Vicki Doyle, James Merlino

Rest Super staff surveys suggest risk problems, poor staff morale

Nearly half the $93 billion superannuation fund’s investment governance team was considering quitting within two years, confidential data shows.

May

‘Nowhere to hide’: Why more CEOs are fronting videos

Executives are increasingly filming themselves for social media as a way to talk directly to staff, customers and shareholders.

The Salesforce Tower in Sydney’s CBD.

S--- happens: Salesforce Tower suffers sewage leak

Building manager Lendlease must have been secretly relieved people don’t go to the office on Fridays when the foyer filled with sewage.

Why it pays to use AI on the sly at work

Research shows staff are likely to be downgraded for owning up to using AI, highlighting the need for office guidelines to encourage workers to use it openly.

Students in the masters of advanced cybernetics course at ANU have an unusually high rate of scoring high distinctions.

Whistleblower raises alarm over high distinctions being awarded in ANU course

More than 90pc of the grades in the university’s cybernetics course were at the highest possible level, which the whistleblower claimed was “highly unusual”.

Working hours often become extreme as deadlines approach.

Top-tier firms ‘exploiting young lawyers over long hours’

The legal profession is renowned for its damagingly long hours, but new laws are putting “reasonable additional hours” clauses under new scrutiny.

Macquarie’s Andrew Gillies with WiseTech CEO, sorry, executive chairman Richard White.

What’s Richard White’s title at WiseTech, anyway?

The returned executive chairman should dispense with politeness and call himself something more reflective of his station.

The lawyer was forced to work two 24-hour days and sleep with the office manager in a hotel room.

Law firm fined for forcing junior to work 24-hour days

The lawyer worked 225 hours in just three weeks and was even forced to watch an ice hockey movie at 1am so she could understand her boss’s philosophical position.

Jane Stanton, partner for risk consulting at Grant Thornton, says training and awareness is an important line of defence for all organisations.

Cultural resilience key to dealing with crisis

Massive digital disruptions have driven home the need for training and systems to ensure businesses – and all their staff – can instantly respond to outages.

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Rest Super plays into its leakers’ hands

A ‘confidential email’ telling staff to stop leaking to the media naturally resulted in more of that very activity.

Alex cartoon.

Farewell, Alex: conceited, boomer (cartoon) banker

After 38 years, the comic strip is bowing out. Both sharply satirical and acutely anthropological, it got right inside the pinstriped world of high finance.

Former Super Retail Group chief legal officer Rebecca Farrell (left), former company secretary Amelia Berczelly (centre) and their lawyer Michael Harmer are locked in a legal battle with the retailer.

Super Retail executives dragged into alleged CEO affair stoush

One senior manager, according to new claims filed with the Federal Court, witnessed an intimate moment at an offsite work meeting three years ago.

April

‘Kill them’: Why Jamie Dimon is right about meetings

The JPMorgan boss struck a nerve. Plenty of workers share his frustration with endless gatherings and dreary discussion that could be covered in an email.

Cristina and Chris Reid with children Xavier, 8, and Tyler 5.

Work from home or bring home to work? New trend brings ‘day of relief’

More companies are offering staff the option to bring their children into the office during the school holidays, saving them money and, in some cases, their sanity.

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/workplace-culture-1mtt