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As the owner of a fashion and beauty business, a core part of your job involves managing employees. This can include fashion designers, models, hairdressers and other workers, each with their own entitlements and responsibilities. You will also need to implement contracts that are specific to your industry. The employment law that applies to fashion and beauty businesses is very similar to that of other industries. Most of your obligations as an employer can be found in the:
- Fair Work Act 2009;
- national employment standards; and
- applicable modern awards.
This article will highlight the crucial employment obligations these laws place on beauty and fashion businesses.
Employee Entitlements
By law, you owe your employees a set of minimum entitlements along with their base pay. You should first find out what kind of employee you want to hire or have already hired. Are they full-time, part-time or casual? Someone full-time must be offered an average of 38 hours per week, while someone part-time can be offered anything less. If your business has fluctuating demand, which is common in the fashion and beauty industry, casual employees will provide you with the most flexibility. Your employees are casuals if you:
- offer them shifts, which they then accept or reject;
- employ them according to your changing business needs, rather than on a fixed number of hours; and
- pay them casual loading along with their hourly wage.
The protections for each employment level are slightly different, but full-time and part-time employees have access to paid leave entitlements. Instead of paid leave, you must provide casual employees with casual loading.
You must inform your employees of the entitlements available to them based on their type of employment. Upon hiring them, you may choose to provide them with the:
- Fair Work Information Statement, if they are permanent; or
- Casual Employment Information Statement, if they are casual.
Payment
The next obligation you should consider is the required payments for your employees. This includes pay rates and associated entitlements
Firstly, you need to consider whether there is an applicable modern award and comply with the terms and conditions stipulated in the award. An award typically contains:
- minimum rates of pay;
- maximum work hours;
- leave entitlements;
- public holidays;
- bonus payments and allowances; and
- flexible working arrangements.
If you wish to negotiate pay using an individual contract or registered enterprise agreement, you must ensure that the applicable terms comply with the minimum entitlements in the relevant award.
There are over 100 awards, so you must select the right one for your organisation’s circumstances. Three retail awards that may apply to the fashion and beauty sector are the:
- Textile, Clothing, Footwear and Associated Industries Award: This award covers workers such as designers, store workers, textile workers and sewing mechanics.
- Hair and Beauty Industry Award: This will apple to workers such as hairdressers, barbers, beauticians and nail technicians.
- Mannequins and Models Award:This will cover workers such as models for trade shows and parades.
If you are a small business, you may find it helpful to engage a lawyer to assist with interpretation and application due to the complexity of modern awards.
Continue reading this article below the formWork Health and Safety
The courts have consistently decided that you, as an employer, have a duty of care to take precautions to avoid exposing your employees to unreasonable risks of injury. Fortunately, most states and territories have enacted harmonised laws that set your work health and safety responsibilities.
The steps to ensure work health and safety vary based on the circumstances. It is crucial to consider the:
- likelihood of a hazard; and
- degree of harm, including psychological harm, that may result from it.
A high magnitude of harm typically calls for a more robust protective response.
Injuries sometimes arise from improper use of salon equipment. To provide a workplace free of health and safety incidents:
- implement adequate training and hire qualified staff;
- conduct a regular safety audit and promptly rectify identified risks;
- consult regularly with staff to help mitigate against threats;
- check that your complaints procedure is adequate to detect problems.
Discrimination Policies
Your workplace should be entirely free of discrimination. This applies to, where applicable:
- recruitment;
- onboarding;
- disciplinary action;
- promotion; and
- termination.
Discrimination based on protected attributes such as race, age, or sexuality is generally not allowed. For example, you cannot take ‘adverse action’ based on age unless age is a necessary job requirement.
Adverse action includes, but is not limited to:
- firing an employee;
- changing an employee’s job to their disadvantage; and
- not hiring someone.
One way to prevent discrimination is to establish processes and criteria for hiring, evaluating, and making career decisions. This ensures that decisions are based on merit rather than personal biases. Education programs help staff understand the importance of merit-based choices and the negative impacts of discrimination.
Key Takeaways
As an employer, it is important to ensure that all employees in your fashion and beauty business are treated fairly and receive their legal entitlements. This means that you must provide them with their entitlements and correct pay rate depending on what:
- type of employee they are; and
- modern award or agreement they are covered by.
You must also protect them from hazards in your workplace and discriminatory practices.
Developing internal policies in advance will ensure that risk management strategies are in place.
If you have any questions regarding your employment obligations or relevant laws, our experienced employment lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents. Call us today on 1300 544 755 or visit our membership page.
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