WISE Workplace

$270k for Breaching a Restraint...and the Appeal Just Failed

The Federal Court has dismissed an appeal by two former employees ordered to pay their ex-employer more than $270,000 in damages after breaching post-employment restraints, a result first reached in Monarch Advisory Group Pty Ltd v Puxty.

The facts are familiar to anyone who has watched a team member walk out the door and straight into competition. Two financial planners, bound by 12-month non-solicitation clauses, set up their own company and took clients with them. The court found the restraint reasonable (twelve months matched the annual renewal cycle of the client relationships it protected) and awarded damages for lost profits and the reduced value of the business, even though the employer's loss was, in part, hypothetical.

Two lessons for employers. First, well-drafted restraints are enforceable, and breaching them has real consequences. The clause survived because it was tailored: no longer, and no wider, than the legitimate interest it protected. Second, and this is the critical part that decides cases, outcomes like this are built on evidence. Suspicion that a departing employee is soliciting clients is not proof. Establishing what happened, preserving records, and documenting the conduct properly is what turns a grievance into a judgment.

Restraints protect the business you built. Investigate properly, and they hold. A properly conducted, independent investigation into complaints or allegations regarding breaches of restraint ensures the facts are established fairly and defensibly, before positions harden and options narrow. Dealing with concerns regarding employment contract clauses? Get WISE!

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When a Manager Becomes the Hazard: A Warning from the Fair Work Commission...

A decision reported by HR Daily this week should have every employer's attention. The Fair Work Commission upheld the dismissal of an aged care manager whose team members were frequently in tears, with colleagues described feeling as though they were "walking on eggshells".

Deputy President Tony Saunders found the employer had no real choice: it was required to act to meet its statutory obligation to ensure the health and safety of its employees. The termination grounds included creating a psychosocially unsafe environment for the team and failing to follow lawful and reasonable directions.
Three lessons stand out.

First, psychosocial safety is no longer an aspiration — it is an enforceable duty. A manager's conduct can itself be the workplace hazard, and regulators and tribunals now treat it that way.

Second, employers who tolerate harmful leadership behaviour are exposed in both directions: to the affected staff, and to their safety regulator.

Third (and this is where most employers stumble) acting decisively is only defensible if the process behind it is sound. Complaints must be handled properly, allegations put fairly, evidence tested, and findings documented. A justified dismissal executed badly becomes an unfair dismissal payout.

That engaging Wise Workplace when complaints and allegations arise is a sound decision. Independent, experienced investigators ensure the response is procedurally fair, legally defensible and handled with care for everyone involved, so that when action is required, the outcome stands. Getting it right protects your people. And it protects you. Dealing with HR matters involving senior management? Get WISE!

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Karl Stefanovic's abrupt exit from Nine following a podcast interview that triggered an advertiser and shareholder backlash has reignited conversations about the gravity of employment contract clauses barring employees from bringing their workplace into disrepute.

When an allegation of a contractual breach lands (especially one with reputational heat attached) the instinct is to move quickly and make the problem disappear. But decisions made under that pressure, without fact-finding, are exactly the ones that unravel later: contested terminations, disrepute and outside-work clauses tested in court, and what one employment lawyer predicted would become "a bit of a legal bunfight."

Proper investigation isn't a delay tactic. It establishes what actually happened, whether a clause was genuinely breached, and whether your response is defensible. It protects the organisation — and the fairness owed to the person involved.

Reputational risk is real. But reacting to it without establishing the legal facts simply trades one risk for another.
At WISE Workplace, independent investigation and fact-finding is what we do. Before you act, find out what you're acting on. Get WISE!

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Stefanovic exit tests limits of outside-work clauses Advertiser boycott risk shaped Nine's fast exit deal with Karl Stefanovic

The recent KPMG whistleblowing scandal should make every Australian organisation pause and reflect. A whistleblower raised serious concerns about the alleged misuse of a client's confidential information to chase work. In raising these concerns, they tried the internal routes first. When those went nowhere, they went to a federal senator...and within weeks, KPMG had lost its chief executive, its chair and its head of audit.

But the person who paid the highest price? The whistleblower. They resigned and carried a heavy personal and career cost, and told the parliamentary committee that, knowing what they know now, they would not do it again.
The failure here wasn't a missing reporting line. It was what happened after the report: an internal review later judged inadequate, and a serious matter reportedly treated more like a routine staff complaint than the audit problem it was.

This is exactly the gap an independent whistleblowing service is built to close. Wise Workplace's Grapevine is a confidential hotline, staffed 24/7, that lets people make anonymous disclosures to trusted, experienced operators, with expert, independent triage of every report. It sits outside the internal hierarchy — so concerns are heard and escalated without the conflicts that let problems fester.

A policy on paper isn't protection. Independent, trusted reporting is. If your people wouldn't feel safe speaking up tomorrow, that's the problem worth fixing today. Need to explore your workplace's whistleblowing capabilities? Get WISE!

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‘I would not do it again’: KPMG whistleblower reveals toll of going public The former consulting executive reported that the firm had used confidential information to win work, resulting in a major scandal.

Wise Workplace Training is pleased to present this upcoming professional development program.