Education & Employment

Women WorkBusiness, Education & Employment

Team Building Ideas For Smaller Groups

Team Building Ideas For Smaller Groups

Whenever the word team is used in relation to team building ideas, the automatic assumption is that the activity is for a large number of people. However, it is very often the case that a team building activity will involve just a small group. Some team leaders, managers, and coaches find difficulty in trying to think of team building ideas for small groups, but there are plenty to choose from.

What is vitally important is not so much that any team building activity is specifically for small numbers of people, but that it solicits many of the key elements that all team building activities should have, regardless of the number of participants.

These include motivation, communication, collaboration, trust, and creativity. If your team activities do not provide opportunities for your team to display and use any of these, then it does not matter whether you have 2 or 200 participants, it is not going to benefit anyone in the way that you want it to.

Another thing we should point out is that the more variety that you can include in your team building ideas, the better. This means that you should include some which are done indoors, some which are outdoor physical activities, some that require certain skills, and others that are merely for fun and designed to help the group bond and build rapport.

If you are struggling to come up with team building ideas for a small group you are responsible for, here are some you might want to consider.

Axe Throwing

If you are looking for a physical activity that is a bit different, then an ideal choice is to take your team to an axe-throwing centre. Here they can bring out their native spirit, or dare we say, their aggressive side, by throwing axes at targets and seeing who has the most skill. This is great fun and a chance for the team to get to know each other better in an environment away from their usual surroundings.

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Women WorkBusiness, Education & Employment, Legal

What Should I Know About Employment Contracts?

Employment Contracts

As an employer, it’s important to ensure you’re familiar with the finer elements of employment contracts to ensure you’re able to draft them effectively. If you don’t have a lot of experience putting together new contracts, it could be a good idea to seek advice from a qualified employment lawyer.

As employers, we understand that drafting new contracts can be confusing, especially if your prospective employee is serious about negotiating the terms and conditions of said contract. With this in mind, we’ve put together the following list of important things you have to know:

Make Sure That All New Contracts are Clear and Concise

One of the most important things when drafting a new employment contract is ensuring that everything is clear and transparent. Make sure that you don’t include ambiguous clauses or conditions which could be interpreted differently by an employee or their lawyer.

It’s particularly important to be aware of this when it comes to things like bonuses, time off, and potential pay rises. Additionally, ensure you clearly outline the basis on which the employee will be paid – will you pay a salary, hourly wage, commission, or via a piece-rate agreement?

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Women WorkEducation & Employment, Family

Tips for Parenting Your Primary School Child

Parenting Your Primary School Child

Good parenting and child care encompasses many elements, from communicating to teaching and from showing love to keeping the child safe. The trouble is that few parents are actually taught how to be good parents; they simply have to wing it. And their own upbringing is usually a major factor in how they raise their child, whether they want it to be or not.

When all seems to go well, most parents cope and with the resilience that children have, they turn out okay in the end. That is not to say many adults could not have benefited in some way from their parents doing something different when they were young. However, if love is shown to a child, that is one of the main things to ensure they become steady and reliable adults, with much to give to society.

The trouble comes when something goes wrong and the parent does not really think that they need to address the issue. They believe that it is a temporary problem that will resolve itself. Or they may think this is the way their child is and nothing can be done. This is especially true when it comes to education, particularly if their own parents had a laid-back attitude to education.

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Women WorkEducation & Employment, Legal

Dispute Resolution in the Workplace

Dispute Resolution in the Workplace

Resolving disputes that arise in the workplace is essential if work is to get done and employees are to be treated fairly.  There can be many kinds of disputes, from safety issues through to unfair work practices, harassment and more. Such disputes can escalate from being between two people to dividing the whole staff into different camps and totally interfering with work, so the need for quick resolution is paramount.

However, reaching a resolution may not be that easy. There are several ways it can be done:

  1. Through negotiation between affected parties.
  2. Through mediation with a neutral third party, usually an independent mediator who helps to clarify issues so that the parties can reach an agreement both are happy with.
  3. Through arbitration where an independent arbiter such as a court or judge settles the matter the way they think fit and makes a binding legal decision to see it is carried out.

These days every award includes a clause which sets out how dispute resolution should be carried out. In most cases certain steps must be followed:

  1. Employees must meet with their supervisor to discuss the grievance.
  2. If that doesn’t resolve the matter, senior management must be called in.
  3. Failing resolution, the employer refers the problem to management at a higher or national level.
  4. If no resolution is forthcoming any or all of the parties may take the grievance to the Fair Work Commission.
  5. The employee or employer may appoint another person to be their representative at this point.

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Women WorkEducation & Employment

What To Do About Discrimination in the Workplace

Discrimination in the Workplace

Have you been discriminated against in your work place? First, let’s see what discrimination looks like.

  • Interference in doing your job
  • Making changes to your job in a way that is disadvantageous to you
  • Treatment that is different from everyone else
  • Refusal to employ you
  • Unfair dismissal
  • Being given different pay or conditions to others who are doing the same job.

So you can see that discrimination is not the same as harassment. It is basically when you are treated unfairly because of what you stand for or who you are. It could simply be because you are a female that you are subjected to different treatment, refused work that you are well qualified for, or paid less than your male counterparts.

The reality is that the two often go together because when you are treated differently the form it can take may be verbal or emotional abuse and sometimes even sexual harassment.

Any kind of discrimination in the workplace is illegal and there are laws to protect everyone from it, not just women. So whether it is your gender, race, physical attributes, religious or political belief or activity, sexual orientation, age, parental status or several other reasons that has caused it, there is no need to suffer in silence.

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Women WorkEducation & Employment

Mature Age Education Options for Women

Mature Age Education Options for Women

Most women agree that education opens more doors to a career that is satisfying and well-paid than anything else. To train for any career you need to go through high school and then do further training. But these days not everyone has to complete their year 12 certificate. If they have aptitude for certain other skills such as mechanics, they can go to TAFE and do an apprenticeship while they are still as school. This gives them a good In while they are still young enough to get by on an apprentice’s wages – for instance, they usually still live at home and they are not married.

However, many young people so hate school that they don’t do as well as they could and so their score is not high enough for university entrance. But once they get past all the hassle of being a teenager, they often settle down in a job they don’t like and start to wish they had done more while they were at school.

Some teenagers take a long time to come to this stage of their life. In fact, there are many middle age women that have raised their families and now desire to get back into the workplace, but don’t have the experience or the qualifications. What can these people do to get a better life?

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Women WorkEducation & Employment

Equal Pay for Women

According to the US Census Bureau, in 2005 women earned 77 cents for every $1 earned by men, statistically unchanged from 2004. The wage gap costs the average American full-time working woman between $700,000 and $2 million over the course of her lifetime, according to economist Evelyn Murphy, president of the WAGE Project

To fight this injustice, Women Work! strives to educate individuals about the wage gap, including how to work with employers to implement fair pay policies; fight the wage gap in their own lives; and advocate for equal pay legislation on both federal and state levels.

Women deserve to be paid according to their productivity and economic worth–not by their gender.

Capitol Hill Equal Pay Day Rally

Equal Pay Legislation

Fighting the Wage Gap Fact Sheet (pdf file, 91 kb)

Statistics and charts comparing age, gender, family type and other characteristics affecting wages.

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