For many of us, it’s the most anticipated event of the work calendar. The annual office Christmas party. The firm’s way of saying ‘thanks for all the hard work: Let your hair down on us’.

Vaccination will become mandatory for a huge list of occupations including teachers and those in hospitality and construction, Premier Mark McGowan has revealed — or risk a $20,000 fine.

The new rules will apply to roughly 75 per cent of WA’s workforce.

By some estimates, your career will take up around 80,000 hours of your adult life—and, whichever way you look at it, that’s an enormous amount of time. Little wonder then that most of us are preoccupied with figuring out the right career: how can we invest our own 80,000 hours in a way that feels meaningful, leads us toward our goals, and taps into our natural interests and talents?

Unfortunately, there’s no straightforward answer to these questions.

Minimum Wages Increase
↑2.5%

Federal Minimum Wage and Award wage rates increase by 2.5%

The new adult minimum wage is $20.33 per hour (FT/PT) and or $25.42 per hour (casuals)

Mostly Award rates increase from 1 July. However, the General Retail Award rise starts on 1 September and some specific awards (related largely to travel, tourism & covid19 affected industries) are delayed until 1 November.

The dynamics of organisations tend to promote the development of silos.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it’s the very thing we encourage when we set up departments with specialist roles. Almost every company above a certain size relies on these teams to carry out key functions.

Daniel Goleman’s 1995 bestseller, ‘Emotional Intelligence’, attributes a range of exceptionally positive qualities to people with high EI. These include better social skills, leadership qualities and negotiating abilities, among other things.

Having high EI is also found to predict better job performance and greater career success.

If you want to live a happy and healthy life (and who doesn’t?) eating well is an essential ingredient.

A study recently found that people who eat well are significantly happier than those who eat a diet high in processed foods. The authors concluded that “fruit and vegetable consumption has beneficial effects on different indicators of well-being, such as happiness or general life satisfaction”.

Over the long term, the stakes are even higher.

Ask people who the most important person in a company is and a large majority will tell you it’s the CEO.

But ask CEOs from the world’s leading companies and many will give you a different answer – it’s the customer, of course!

How customers think about your brand – or more accurately, how they feel about it – is now recognised as the greatest predictor of future business growth.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Act (formerly known as the Trade Practices Act) governs how Australian businesses deal with their competitors, suppliers and customers.

That is, pretty much every aspect of commercial life. It therefore pays to have at least a working understanding of this area of law.

For many of us, it’s the most anticipated event of the work calendar. The annual office Christmas party. The firm’s way of saying ‘thanks for all the hard work: Let your hair down on us’.

But should you?  

Some live to regret it. In fact, more than a few careers have ended on that fateful night in December.