In Labor’s pre-election budget, Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced a ban on non-compete clauses for workers earning less than $175,000. Here, we unpack implications for businesses, workers, and the political climate, as well as the consequences not only for employment law but also for M&As and litigation.

In this episode of The HR Leader Show, host Jerome Doraisamy speaks to employment law partner Fay Calderone, from national law firm Hall & Wilcox, to discuss the announced ban on non-compete clauses for non-high-income workers in the 2025 budget, the response from businesses and employment lawyers, and the likely consequences for the M&A market and litigious climate.

Calderone also delves into the divide between political impressions of this announcement versus the business reality, striking the right balance between employee freedom and business protections, who employment lawyers will have to collaborate with moving forward, what constitutes best practice for lawyers looking ahead, and her broad guidance to businesses in the wake of the announced ban.

In this special episode of The HR Leader Podcast, produced in partnership with Avature, we unpack the revolutionary impact of artificial intelligence on the daily operations of human resources teams and how such professionals can and should take advantage.

Host Jerome Doraisamy speaks with Avature founder and chief executive officer Dimitri Boylan about the volume of change he has witnessed in the market in recent decades, how disruptive and transformative AI will be relative to past technological shifts such as the “dot-com boom” and the lessons to be gleaned, how HR teams can leverage it to address their unique challenges and tips for navigating setbacks when integrating AI.

Boylan also delves into “being on the leading edge versus the bleeding edge”, keeping pace with rapid advancements, ticking the right boxes when triaging urgent priorities, what’s working and not working out in the market, the regulatory state of affairs, and the questions HR needs to ask of itself at this critical juncture.

To learn more about Avature, click here.

When it comes to creating thriving workplaces, a more idiosyncratic approach to gendered needs may well be what businesses have long been missing.

In this episode of The HR Leader Podcast, host Jerome Doraisamy speaks with Dr Michelle McQuaid, an honorary fellow at Melbourne University’s Centre for Wellbeing Science, about the importance of speaking about gender in the workplace in non-traditional ways, why it is so difficult to have such conversations in the current climate, her two components to best practice when it comes to gender equality at work, and ensuring that such conversations are prioritised by the business and C-suite.

McQuaid also delves into the practical ways that HR teams can implement new frameworks, the commercial incentive for doing so, the first steps that HR must take, empowering the workforce to make such changes (against the backdrop of the rising tech oligarchs and sociocultural shifts), and why mental health is front and centre of this broader discussion.