This week's top HR stories in brief

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Australia and New Zealand are unlikely to experience widespread jobs and salary growth in 2020, but Robert Walters suggests "cautious optimism". In the HR sector, business partner, coordinator and talent acquisition specialist are the top jobs in demand.

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Organisations have made great strides with early interventions to tackle mental ill health, but they are still failing to address the workplace root causes, says Jennifer Cameron, injury prevention manager at Icare. "It's one thing to say, 'let's educate our people, let's reduce the stigma'. But can we be brave enough and bold enough to change the way work gets done?" she asks.

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Employers are botching procedural fairness requirements when it comes to providing employees an opportunity to respond to allegations before they're dismissed. This is one of the key failings that cause an otherwise valid termination to be ruled unfair, says HWL Ebsworth partner Brad Swebeck.

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An employer, a supervisor, and an HR consultant committed unlawful adverse action when they sacked an employee who questioned her pay, a court has ruled. The termination, as portrayed by the supervisor and HR consultant, was "implausible", and the "glowing praise" in the lead-up "entirely inconsistent" with the claims of poor performance.

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Certain Fair Work Commission rulings from 2019 will have a lasting impact on employers' defence of unfair dismissal claims. HWL Ebsworth partner Brad Swebeck and associate Lily Schafer-Gardiner set out 11 FWC rulings involving dismissal for misconduct, poor performance, and forced resignations; how to mitigate and prevent risks; handling jurisdictional objections; remedies; and more.

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Digital transformation is a "load of nonsense", and employers should instead focus their energies on innovation, says Deloitte's Centre for the Edge boss Peter Williams. Echoing this point, Medibank's GM of performance, reward and people services Marc Cefai says simplification can be more beneficial than automation.

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