mbt
Managing the employment relations records of 34 staff has become a whole lot easier at mbt - a chartered accountancy and financial planning firm based in St Leonard’s, Sydney.
And it’s all thanks to Workforce Guardian, a comprehensive employment relations service that provides clients with up-to-date employment relations legislation, information and advice via a secure online service.
"In today’s employment relations legislative climate businesses are far more vulnerable than ever before. They desperately need access to accurate information to ensure their documents and contracts are fully compliant and that they operate within employment law at all times", says mbt CEO Ashleigh Swayn.
mbt originally signed up to the service as it was working through the firm’s first ever staff redundancy and wanted to ensure it did the right thing by the employee and the business. Following the process outlined in Workforce Guardian and using the template documentation provided mbt successfully managing the redundancy with both parties satisfied with the outcome.
Since then mbt has used the service on a daily basis to help fine-tune the myriad of management and administrative tasks associated with managing staff in a business.
"Workforce Guardian is a brilliant service as it provides top of the line employment relations information, tools and guidance in a highly cost effective manner which makes it invaluable to any SMB", says Ashleigh. "Best still it’s a fraction of the cost businesses would pay for lawyers to provide similar advice and guidance which is a major advantage for cost-conscious businesses."
mbt has been so impressed with Workforce Guardian that it sees it as a valuable adjunct to the mix of professional services it offers its clients. As such mbt’s accountants and financial advisors are quick to tell their clients about the service and its value.
"It’s essential that mbt’s clients keep in step with the changes occurring to employment law to ensure they remain compliant. Our employment laws are complex and it’s often hard to grasp the small print so businesses need a service like Workforce Guardian - it’s an HR and ER manager all rolled into one", says Ashleigh.
At mbt Louise Harris uses the service on a day-to-day basis and is quick to enthuse about the efficiencies it has helped create. As she says, when managing and administering staff records, it’s easy to become bogged down in the paperwork. She believes Workforce Guardian has made the ‘paperwork’ a whole lot easier as it recommends streamlined and highly efficient approaches to daily staff management tasks while also providing critical advice and templates for the business end of management and administration.
As an example she cites the annual review process that mbt now has in place for staff. Using the Workforce Guardian-recommended processes Louise now has a far more efficient and streamlined (and a far less time consuming) process in place and everyone is happy!
Louise is also a fan of how easy the system is to use to produce great results. Recently she updated mbt’s staff members’ contracts, using a simple question and answer format to generate 34 fully complaint contracts complete with mbt’s Code of Conduct, online in record time. Indeed each contract took only a matter of minutes to complete using the system’s intuitive format.
"Workforce Guardian does the hard yards - which is why it is so efficient and thorough - nothing can slip through the cracks as the system is across all aspects of employment law," says Louise.
She is also a firm fan of the enormous range of ER processes and procedures housed within the system and has referred to them to guide her in various employment management situations.
"Workforce Guardian spells out in black and white what you need to do to act in a compliant manner for all sorts of staff and management issues. There is no room for error as the system guides you to stay on the right side of employment law. Thanks to Workforce Guardian we now have a comprehensive online employment management system in place that is wholly secure, wholly efficient and wholly effective!" says Louise.
