HRM and Employment Relations: An Australian Banking Perspective

This report examines the evolving landscape of Human Resource Management (HRM) and employment relations in Australia, with a specific focus on the banking sector. It addresses the challenges and adjustments faced by a bank manager transitioning from the United Kingdom to Australia, highlighting key differences in employment laws, workplace culture, and regulatory requirements. The report details the work-life dynamics in the Australian banking industry, emphasizing the impact of legislation such as the Fair Work Act of 2009 and the role of the Royal Commission in overseeing financial entities. It further explores the changing trends in HRM, including the decline of union influence and the rise of individual workplace agreements. Ultimately, the report assesses the implications of these factors on the bank manager's role, emphasizing the need to adapt to new standards, policies, and ethical considerations within the Australian context. Desklib provides access to similar reports and study tools for students.

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HRM IN AUSTRALIA
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Executive Summary
The field of Human Resource Management is very diverse in nature and in order to ensure that
the organizations in the complex business environment are able to survive, the firms need to
make themselves aware of these changing trends. The report is based on the changing trends of
employment relations and Human resource Management in Australia. A manager in a bank has
recently joined the firm in Australia and his prior workplace was the United Kingdom. Hence,
for this reason, the report highlights these trends and assesses the impact of these changing trends
on the bank manager’s employment in Australia.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Work life in the banking Industry in Australia................................................................................4
Employment relations in Australia..................................................................................................6
Changing Trends of Human resource management in Australia.....................................................7
Impact on life of the bank manager in Australia.............................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References List..............................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
Human resource management can be rightfully defined as a field of knowledge which
deals with the management of different people in an organization. The human resource
management is primarily concerned with ensuring that the employees working in an organization
are easily able to work in their work environment and that all legal aspects are taken care of. In
this regard it can be states that the employment laws in different parts of the globe are quite
different from one another and due to globalization, it is necessary for the employee to ensure
that he is aware of these laws to make his expatriate life better (Ausbanking.org.au ,2018). When
an expatriate decides to shift to another country for work, the expatriate needs to ensure that he is
well covered with knowledge in areas like regulations, formalities and the etiquettes followed in
the country. Moreover, it also lies the duty of the employer or the HR manager in the new
country to see to it that the employees which have been shifting from one country to another are
able to adjust well into the system.
The report aims to state an underlying background for a recently employed manager in a
bank in Australia. The newly recruited employee was working in a bank in the United Kingdom
and now that his place of employment has shifted, he might be faced by certain issues (Shaw,
McPhail & Ressia, 2018). Hence, in order to avoid these issues, the new employee needs to be
made aware of the present human resource issues in the country and employment relations in
Australia. The report shall highlight these issues and measure its impact.

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Work life in the banking Industry in Australia
According to Homeaffairs.gov.au. (2018), Australia has evolved greatly as a country into
a federal state under its colonization under the British. With this in mind, it can be rightfully
stated that the Human resource function in Australia has undergone certain changes and has
shifted its focus to aspects like employment, termination, management of the performance,
reviving the policies and ensuring that new strategies are developed so that a cordial work and
corporate ambience structure can be fostered. Since the beginning of the 20th century there have
been various changes in the trends related to human resource management and the employment
relations which need to be understood by any expatriate employee working in the country or
planning to join a company in Australia (Wilkins & Wooden, 2014).
Australia has a concentrated banking industry which comprises of a large number of
banks carrying out their business under the banking act of 1950. The industry is well refined with
the banking system having been well developed, competitive and flexible in nature. The first
commonwealth bank was established in the country in the year 1981 and the different foreign
banks who wish to conduct business here need to abide by the guidelines laid down by the
ARPA (Royalcommission.gov.au, 2018). With respect to the terms of employment and other
relevant human resource rules and legislatives, any currently recruited manager in the banks of
Australia will be required to take some time to adjust with the different banking culture of
Australia. In the given scenario, the newly recruited employee was a bank employee in the
United Kingdom and hence, when coming to Australia, he will be required to keep in mind that
Australia currently tends to work as a sovereign state (Hewitt, 2018). The Royal commission is
largely responsible for making enquiries into the financial entities of Australia and ensure that all
the ethical connotations are taken into consideration or not. Moreover, the Royal commission is

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largely concerned with examining the nature of the financial services and check whether any of
the services having been made are against the law or illegal in nature. A drawback of this
examination is that it infers with the privacy of the bank employees. With respect to the case
scenario, it can be stated that any manager who has been recruited newly into the sector, may
have to submit his personal details of investments, financial standings and other confidential
information to the bank which may not be the case in another country (Royalcommission.gov.au,
2018). Hence, the first change which shall be witnessed by an employee who is shifting to
Australia is that they cannot keep their personal details confidential and will have to undergo a
thorough inspection about the previous working ethics and background of the employee which
will then assist them to comply by regulations but then the manager will be required to give out
his personal details even if they cost him losing out on his privacy. In the given section, the work
life scenario of the corporate industry of Australia shall be discussed in order to understand the
working environment of the Australian companies.
There have been numerous changes in the Australian banking sector and there will be
more changes in the future as well. The system has been refined in a manner such that it has
become technologically advanced and the nature of the operations has become more focused.
These transformed processes were a result of the critiques which took place in the year 2007. In
this regard, various state and federal laws have been designed in order to cover the relevant
aspect of employment relations, compensation of the workers, annual leaves and health
conditions including working hours (Bray et al., 2014). The legislation states that the working
hours need to be around 38 hours in a week and in case of any overtime, the payment shall be
made more than 1 and a half times of the normal pay for the first 3 hours and become double in
case it is more than that. With respect to the new policies and legislative aspects, the managers of

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a bank enjoy various benefits. There has been an inclusion of various incentives as well as
remuneration schemes which would then help in motivating them to perform better, Moreover,
there have been a backup of various legislative securities to them which would safeguard their
tenure (Wiblen & McDonnell, 2018). With the revised design, the banking Industry in Australia
has ensured that the workers enjoy various benefits in terms of bonus, legal protection, work
hours and tenure backup. With respect to this it can be stated that the banks in Australia, have
stated down a healthy work environment for the managers and other employees.
Employment relations in Australia
There had been a rise in the number of Australian republics which was quite beneficial
for the different banks in Australia. One drawback to the banks have been the increased
expenditures by the government for which the state financial health has suffered a blow.
However, the scenario changed considerably in the year 2011, where the labour force in
Australia increased and helped the nation to come at par with other developed countries around
the globe (Hewitt, 2018). The employment relations system in the state of Australia is considered
to be a combination of the agreements, legally bound remunerations, legislation and laws. The
employment relations in Australia are deeply impacted by the presence of trade unions (Wright
& Lansbury, 2016). However, this can be considered to have a positive impact with respect to
the fact that as this system of unions began to establish, there came onto surface a law based
system of employment. This has had a profound impact on the manner in which the employer
and employee relations are managed, hereby having an impact on the workplace bargaining and
fair work.
Moreover, recently, the businesses were privatised, and this privatisation, bought about
immense competition and necessary growth in the employment rate. Moreover, the rise in the

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different generational employees and women in general also increased. Employee engagement
became a crucial aspect of concern and the labour`s voice was also to be heard before making
any crucial decisions for the economy at large. Their voice was taken for various aspects like
strategy formulation, determination of the investments and others (Murray, 2018). However, in
this aspect the voice of the managers becomes limited at a bank because, others view has to be
incorporated but he still possesses a liberty to suggest and implement strategies which will
ensure the growth of the bank at large.
The employment relations are highly characterised by the policies under the Fair Work
Act of 2009 and hence, the banks are required to follow this and apply the minimum
employment conditions. With respect to the life of a manager in a bank, he must comply by all
the National Employment standards and the wage policies (Bray & Waring, 2014). As per the
standards, the different employees are entitled to 10 provisions to part time and full time
permanent employees but the causal employees are not entitled to these rules. Moreover, these
standards comprise of rules with respect to the leave policies, working hours, public holidays,
incentives and working arrangements. Hence, a manager in the banking sector in Australia is
entitled to these laws which protect him from any mal practices in the hands of the employers
(Taherparvar, Esmaeilpour & Dostar, 2014). Moreover, the manager will also be protected from
the different dismissal which is considered to be unlawful. It is considered to be unlawful
because, it may be based on ethnicity, sexual orientation, marital status and political opinion.
However, these employees may be dismissed on the basis of fair grounds which may be
unacceptable conduct, sacking a person if the employee has been involved in certain theft,
violence, breach of policies and other safety processes.

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Changing Trends of Human resource management in Australia
After the reforms of the year 1990, the Australian economy had to change its approach
towards business and hence, the union membership decreased considerably during this point of
time as the collective arguments needed to be restructured (Hewitt, 2018). Moreover, it was at
this point of time that the wages improved for the different members of the member of unions
and took out new opportunities for them. In this context, it can be stated that the act of
Australian workplace agreement made it possible to avoid thee unions which allowed employees
to override agreements and were free in their will to take decisions. In 2008, the Fair Work Bill
was formed and new legislatives and relations were formed. The bill was friendly and came with
easy provisions which were easy to understand (Maley, 2018). The Fair work gave rise to work
choices and this formed the roots of the current day human resource management in Australia.
This personnel management formula today has had a huge impact on the functioning of the large
scale organizations.
The transformation of the economy led to the decline of unions which may not be a good
decision in the long run specially in the case of banking where the higher powers can crush the
rights of the employees. Hence, this imposes the burden on a manger, to maintain a sense of
unity with the other colleagues to ensure harmony in the overall system. Moreover, there have
been various changing trends in the human resource management with the advent of the
digitalisation of the entire process. Moreover, a major portion of the work is now being
outsourced to locations where the work will be done in a comparatively cheaper value (Hewitt,
2018). This is because, human resource management has become cost centric in Australia and
this exposes the new managers to ensure that the decisions which have to be taken by them are

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cost effective and that in order to earn adequate profits, they can hire casual workers and
outsource the work so as to see to it that the work done supports the needs of the investors.
Impact on life of the bank manager in Australia
Having discussed the changing trends of employment relations and human resource
management in Australia, the given section will be discussing the impact of these changing laws
and systems on the life of a bank manager in Australia who is an expatriate from another
country:
 Invasion of privacy: Due to the new Royal Commission legislative policies, the privacy
of the bank manager might be compromised on the hands of the government and he will
be required to undergo strict procedures before being granted the employment and even
during the employment phase (Fsunion.org.au, 2018).
 Better work schemes: However, the working schemes for the different employees in the
banking industry in Australia have improved considerably due to the fact that, the
incentive schemes and other related measures have undergone a huge change (Beatty &
Liao 2014).
 Healthy environment: The business environment in the banks has become very healthy
in nature due to the transparent system of the banks. This way the employee perception is
respected and the competitive environment becomes less hostile.
 Women employees: There has been an increase in the number of women working in the
banking industry especially in the board and hence, this has brought about various
diversity opportunities for the industry at large.
 Generational diversity: At present, there have been varied generational diversity at the
banks in Australia. This is due to the reason, that young and talented people have been

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joining the industry and working under the experienced employees (Hossack, 2018). This
also leads to a gap in the workforce.
 Laws: The various laws have gone through a change and will have an impact on the daily
employment guidelines like working hours.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the given discussion it could be broadly understood that the banking
industry in Australia has observed a considerable shift in the past and due to this there have been
various changes in the employment relations and human resource management. The report
examined these changes through the perspective of HRM and the employment relations which
was then followed by an assessment on the impact on the life of a bank manager in Australia. It
can be stated that the manager needs to increase his awareness of the policies in order to ensure
that his tenure is a smooth one and he is able to settle well.

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References List
Ausbanking.org.au (2018). Media Releases. [online] Available at:
https://www.ausbanking.org.au/media/media-releases/ (Accessed on 11 Sept. 2018).
Beatty, A., & Liao, S. (2014). Financial accounting in the banking industry: A review of the
empirical literature. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 58(2-3), 339-383.
Bray, M & Waring, P (2014). ‘Chapter 5: Employment relations’, in R Kramar, T Bartram, H De
Cieri, RA Noe, JR Hollenbeck, B Gerhart & PM Wright, Human resource management
in Australia: strategy, people, performance, 5th edn, McGraw-Hill Education (Australia).
Bray, M, Waring, P, Cooper, R & Macneil, J (2014). Employment relations: Theory and
practice, 3rd edn, McGraw-Hill Education (Australia), North Ryde.
Fsunion.org.au ( 2018). Fsunion. [Online] Available at: http://www.fsunion.org.au/ (Accessed on
11 Sept. 2018).
Hewitt, J (2018). ‘Banks on trial: ScoMo pleads ignorance’, Australian Financial Review, 23
April, p. 2.
Hewitt, J (2018). ‘Another PR nightmare for the banks’, Australian Financial Review, 16 April,
p. 2.
Hewitt, J (2018). ‘CBA the latest deer in the headlights’, Australian Financial Review, 19 April,
p. 2.
Hewitt, J (2018). ‘Murray takes AMP back to the future’, Australian Financial Review, 14 May,
p. 2.