Are you prepared for the extraordinary additional workload a slew of legislative reforms will create for your already-under-the-pump HR team this year?

Or perhaps they’re already buckling under the strain, as they strive to implement those reforms while continuing to perform the bread and butter HR tasks that keep your workforce and business humming along?

If you answered in the affirmative, you’re far from alone. Australia’s industrial relations landscape is in a state of flux, with major changes either just implemented or on their way.

Unpacking the new

Chief among them are key provisions in the Closing Loopholes legislation. There are new rules for casual employees and independent contractors, including an updated definition of the former and the introduction of minimum standards for employee-like workers.

Right to disconnect provisions now constrain businesses from contacting eligible employees outside of their normal working hours, while labour hire employees can apply to receive protected rates of pay that are no less than they would receive if working directly for a host employer.

Franchisees and their employees can opt to bargain together for similar enterprise agreements, when they carry out similar activities under the same franchise, rather than bargaining separately.

And, come 1 January 2025, the intentional underpayment of wages by employers will become a criminal offence – a powerful incentive for leaders to ensure they’re not short changing their staff, if ever there was one.

Annual updates

And then, of course, there are the regular changes, the ones that roll around each July.

The National Minimum Wage rose to $24.10 an hour, for workers not covered by Awards or Enterprise Agreements.

This year also saw the Stage 2 tax cuts come into effect, with reductions in personal tax rates and threshold increases for the 37 and 45 per cent tax rates.

The Superannuation Guarantee Contribution went up to 11.5 per cent – and will rise again to 12 per cent in FY2026 – while Parental Leave Pay increased from 20 to 22 weeks.

Strengthening processes and practices

All up, there’s a lot for HR departments to contend with – and the stakes are high.

Getting things wrong on the industrial relations front can result in a host of repercussions, ranging from criminal and civil penalties to the reputational damage that inevitably ensues when news breaks that an organisation has been found guilty of serious or repeated breaches.

That’s why it pays to get things right from the outset. Doing so can, however, be challenging, particularly for small and mid-sized organisations whose HR professionals struggle to block out the time they need to get up to speed.

Very often, hiring additional resources to lighten the load is not an option, while seeking third party support can be a stop-gap measure, rather than a long term solution.

Inviting intelligent virtual assistants to join the HR team

Fortunately, there’s an affordable way to get more firepower on your HR team, one that doesn’t entail an unwelcome increase in overheads.

Intelligent virtual assistants (IVAs) powered by Conversational AI can perform many of the functions of their human counterparts, including sorting out routine enquiries from staff.

Their sophisticated natural language processing capability makes it possible for them to ‘understand’ context, participate in dynamic conversations in natural language and provide appropriate, useful responses to workers’ questions and requests.

IVAs can be deployed to support human HR personnel with tasks such as finding information and documents and responding to simple requests for salary or holiday information.

Businesses that have put them to work attending to such tasks have reduced their HR request response times down to as little as seven seconds.

It’s a clever, cost effective strategy for organisations that want their HR personnel to focus on higher value work, such as compliance, performance management and the provision of support to employees experiencing personal issues that are affecting their ability to work.

Supporting a stronger future

An efficient, high performing HR department is the bedrock of every successful organisation. If ensuring yours has the resources it needs to do its job properly is a priority in FY2025, harnessing the power of IVAs is likely to prove a very smart move.