As in, actually training them?
The Fair Work Commission has recently criticised an employer for its ‘tick and flick’ approach to workplace policy training, in ordering the reinstatement and backpay of an employee who was sacked for sharing an image of a naked woman to a private Facebook group of current and former colleagues.
It was argued that the employer provided its employees with little or no training on workplace policies, so the employees did not understand the employer’s expectations or “the meaning of appropriate workplace behaviour”.
The Fair Work Commission stated that “the training practices of the employer appear to be along the lines of a self-taught, tick and flick approach – which is simply not appropriate and lacks the educational rigour and outcomes of face-to-face training”.
The Commission also described the employer’s training program as “at best, unnecessarily haphazard” and found it difficult to understand how the employer could not facilitate regular training.
Essentially, the effectiveness of (and the ability for employers to rely upon) workplace policies depends mostly on how well the policies are communicated to the workforce and the adequacy of associated training.
In all workplaces, workplace policy training should:
- be regular;
- be accessible;
- be adequate and properly educational;
- ideally, be done face to face; and
- result in a written record of the training and who attended.
Is your business ticking all of these boxes? No? We can help with that.
