Work life in the banking Industry in Australia

Answer:

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.

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 20^th 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 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.

Employment relations in Australia

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 (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 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.

References

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