Workout: site puts the bullies in the cloud

A former air-crash investigator has launched a cloud-based journal for companies and employees on dealing with workplace bullies.

Margo Atkinson.

A former air-crash investigator has launched a cloud-based journal site for companies and employees on dealing with workplace bullies, after learning to deal with bullying herself.

Commercial pilot Margo Atkinson has created My Work Fair, which allows human resources staff, employees and corporations to operate a time-stamped private journal detailing bullying issues and other experiences, as well as information on poor behaviour.

Atkinson says the site is designed to minimise the time destructive behaviours continue unchecked at work.

“The psychological and health hazards of workplace bullying can seem intangible and far removed from everyday business activity,” Atkinson says.

“But when you consider reduced productivity, increased absenteeism, recruiting and retaining employees, loss of skills, intellectual property and institutional knowledge, amassing and implementing reports, investigations, legal costs, payouts and fines, medical costs, increased insurance premiums … it’s easy to see how this is a multi-billion-dollar issue.”

Hire expectations

Recruitment firm Hudson’s latest quarterly report shows net hiring intentions remain at their highest level since 2012, with a net 17.1 per cent of employers looking to increase permanent staffing levels between April and June this year.

Despite confidence dropping from the first quarter of this year, when 18.7 per cent of employers were preparing to hire, the figure is a significant increase compared with the same period last year, when 11.2 per cent of businesses were looking to hire.

Hudson Australia executive general manager Dean Davidson says a net 31.5 per cent of employers and hiring managers in professional services are looking to hire in the second quarter of this year, 27 per cent are looking to hire information technology workers, and 25.2 per cent are looking for workers in the financial services and insurance industries.

Employers dig in

Adecco’s employment and talent report for this year has found the temporary market continues to grow despite the nation’s high unemployment rate.

Adecco Group chief executive Neil Jones says the report highlights the growing gulf between what employers are offering and what employees want, including in areas such as permanent jobs, salary increases, flexible hours and childcare provisions.

The report found fewer businesses will offer wage increases this year, at 42.6 per cent compared with 46.5 per cent last year, and of those who will, only 10 per cent plan to offer increases of 3 per cent to 5 per cent or higher than the consumer price index, compared with 77.3 per cent last year.

The report found 58.1 per cent of employers offered paid maternity leave and 40.2 per cent flexible working hours for parents, but only 1.7 per cent offered childcare contributions or care in the workplace.

A further 11.7 per cent of employees argued organisations should provide a childcare contribution and 10.9 per cent would like work-based care.

Flexible working hours for parents was seen as more important by almost half of the workforce, at 49.1 per cent, than paid maternity leave at 28.7 per cent.

“There is a growing disconnect between what workers want and what the market is willing to offer,” Jones says. “Salary increases are down this year and there is a reduction in many workplace benefits such as flexible working hours, but these are what is most important to the workforce.”