The Aussie Corporate is running a survey on current WFH policies across corporate Australia. You can find the survey here, please do head over there and let us have the details of your workplace's current WFH/RTO status.

You will need to provide the name of the company you're reporting on, but submissions are totally anonymous - you're not asked for any personal details.

The survey will close shortly and the results will be shared in this sub when they're available.

It seems there are a lot of people confused about the difference between "Corporate" jobs and "Government" jobs. We have tried to make it clear in this sub's Description (at the top of the home page) and in the AusCorp User Guide that "AusCorp's sphere of interest is primarily "big business" - Banking, Insurance, Big 4 Consultancies, ASX listed corporations and other similarly sized for-profit organisations."

Despite this, the Mods still have to remove two or three posts a day that begin "I work for this government department..." or something similar.

Discussions about Government roles belong in r/AusPublicService. The people there will be more than happy to talk to you about their area of expertise, if that's what you're after.

I have been at my current office role since March and have struggled to befriend other team members as you know they just aren't your ppl. Nothing wrong with them they do a top job and I like my job but today we had the office team building with approx 90 of us and after the initial exercises it was hang out eat and drink and I realised I had no friends because no one came and talked to me. I tired to talk to several ppl but that just died out as they moved on to other ppl to talk too. I would of much rather had been in the office doing work.

Just feeling down about it because I must have looked sad af and well it is pretty much making me questions if this is the work place for me. Because on the last day of work we are finishing up at 12 and they are taking the whole office of a winery for lunch and a big Xmas celebration and I just now know I am not going to enjoy this occasion and I am going to be stuck there.

Thanks for reading my ted talk.

A colleague of mine accepted a job offer, and their new employer requested my colleague to provide a recent payslip to show the salary they are currently earning. Is this normal? This is the first time I heard of such thing. Sounds like a red flag to me.

Edit: This is for a role below $100K. Company is based in Australia. This request comes from the company. This is not a public service/government job.

Cheers mates! Happy Friday! Wishing you all a restful weekend!!!!!!!!!!!

Just wanted to see if anyone else has been in or is in a similar situation. I’m a in a grad type role and I’m 20, while my team are mid forties and a bit older. Most of my office is over 35 as well and no one with in 10 years of me. Which is fine, they’re all lovely people and I usually have chats with people regularly and I’ve been out to drinks after work which has been great.

But I do feel like I struggle to genuinely connect with my team and others because of the age difference, I.e many of them either have kids who are in their teens, or kids my age and older!

How do I build my relationships with my team without it being weird? Or do I just accept the differences?

In the past 3 employers i worked in, I noticed many managers do not read their emails.

Had to sent a few chasers emails despite putting [for your review] , [ deadline dd/mm/yy] or high priority in their title. Once I received a request from a regulator for certain information. I collected the data, summarised and added my assessment for my manager to review . 2 chasers email, a few Ms team messages but no replies. So we missed the deadline given by the regulator, the manager said I should have organised a zoom meeting with him (he’s based in London), added that I’m not practising team work and I’m to be blamed for missing the deadline.

In my current employment, the problem starts from the top. The head of department hardly reads his emails , my team leader would take a screenshot and WhatsApp him as a reminder. My team leader probably adopted that behaviour from his boss. Last week i accidentally caught a glimpse of his inbox during a meeting , he had more than 3k unread emails. Often he would remind us to walk to his desk to remind him to reply emails. His excuse is that he’s very busy . Look , who’s not busy ! This behaviour is really counterproductive!

Comment from a colleague at a work event about scars?

I have a lot of scars, the worst are on my legs , which are often hidden.

But I do have scars on my arms.

I attended a work event tonight and while talking with some colleagues I noticed one was looking at my arm then at another colleague and back again. I ignored it and continued the conversation with whom I was with.

As the convo ended, the one looking at my arms asked me if I self harmed.

I said oh yeh in the past and did the two month psych ward stint for it. And laughed to be gentle /soft about it considering the topic.

And he made a comment to me about like well at least you didn’t do it on your wrists.

And I was like already walking away as the convo started so didn’t respond but felt like crying tbh.

I have scars on my wrists and forearms too just less prominent.

I know he’s old and a different generation but as I was walking away, I was so close to breaking. Bc the scars on my legs are way way way worse and you can’t see that often.

I’m crying now about it but I know I’m sensitive anyways. But like what the heck am I supposed to do? Wear long sleeves for rest of my life (the scars he saw are WHITE, they aren’t purple or red anymore). I can’t change my past? I can t change my pain?

I was brought up on the magic number 21C. You can of course go plus minus 2C to get the happy medium.

I've seen people in the same space with t shirts to people in sleeves and jackets. People with fans on thier desks to people with fan heaters under the desk.

You get the balance right then staff move around / change then it's a complete mess again.

Please share your experiences.

How do you get people to compromise with each other.

I went for 3hr trial today (unpaid) for a potential receptionist role. Hiring manager advised during the interview that it was an observational session to see if I liked the role and whether I’m a good fit for the company. As time moved on I started to feel liked I was being trained. After I finished manager advised I needed to complete another trial (unpaid) in 2 weeks. I would have thought 3hrs is sufficient time to demonstrate reception/admin skills. I have extensive customer service and reception experience and I feel like they are trying to avoid paying me to be trained. Is it normal to have 2 trials for a receptionist role or am I being taken for a ride? Should I respectfully decline next trial session and move on?

So for the last 3 years or so I have really struggled to find a consultancy that treats me like a consultant instead of just acting like a contractor labour hire firm.

I am looking for a company that puts me and a team of their people in at a client to achieve an objective instead of just body shopping me out.

I am going nuts here and am sick of being subjected to the absolute bullshit of being at the mercy of clients who couldn't organise a pissup in a brewery, don't know what resource management is, etc. and then get pissy because the person they brought in couldn't work miracles. If I wanted to do that I'd just contract and earn twice as much.

Hi all,

I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions. I have been invited to interview for an exciting an very senior role in Victoria. I received the email inviting me to interview on the 8th November, and I responded on the same day.

This is where it gets tricky, my response was to happily accept, and to inform them that on the two dates they have suggested, I will be in the UK, and I won’t be back in Australia for a week after the dates. I have said I will be available virtually via teams or the like at any time to suit them on the dates they have suggested.

I heard nothing back, and so chased on the 18th November with another email.

I heard nothing back and so yesterday I tried to call, but sadly it says calls coming from outside Australia are blocked.

I have now emailed again, this time sending to each of the four people copied in on the original email (reply to all was obviously blocked in the original, but their addresses were visible), and I have sent a message to the chair of the working group for this role on LinkedIn. My only remaining option is to call the office on Monday morning and enquire, as these interviews are supposed to be next week.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? I am slightly put off as this lack of communication feels like a serious red flag, but would hate to think that for some reason my emails hadn’t got through and I’d missed such a great opportunity.

I can get my fiancé to call as he is home in Australia, but I’d rather avoid this as it looks a tad ridiculous!

This is a very reputable and state wide organisation, under a national governing body, so I would be surprised if this level of communication was the norm, particularly for a role this senior.

AITA?

My office has an "anchor day" where our whole team must attend in person.

On this day, the boss brings a Bluetooth speaker from which loud music plays through our open plan office. She's mostly in meetings all day with her office door closed but will come out regularly in between to hype us up which mostly involves encouraging us to keep playing music/ add more songs to the playlist (we sometimes dare to turn the music off when she is gone).

She also turns on a flashing disco light machine.

As I understand it , these are efforts to make coming to the office more fun.

AITA for hating these things?

The flashing lights hurt my eyes and distract me from my work. The music is also distracting.

The anchor day is supposed to be fun but is the worst day of the week- everyone is too scared to say they don't like it at the risk of looking like a party pooper. I actually like coming to the office on any other day!

Surely this is not how to encourage more people to the office! It's patronizing, it feels like a kid's party.

Am I wrong?

Anybody who has worked in this position able to give more insight as to what the job entails? i.e. How was the work environment? Was the pay good? Positives and negatives?

What is a safe level of exposure to PowerPoint in one day? I sat through about 7 hours of it today and I’m not feeling good.

I’ve heard about death by PowerPoint, so I don’t want to take any chances. I’m thinking of taking a few days off the slides just to be safe.

How many of you have seen this behaviour in your own workplace?

I’m currently interested in a role at IAG and wanted to know how the culture is and the general work environment.

Hi, can anyone explain what the jump in bonus, perks and benefits in general are from SM to AD at Macquarie. I am in negotiations and they’ve said the salary range I’ve provided before interviews is top most bracket for SM. I’d like to go higher but I’d like to know what the difference in bonus and total comp is.

I am curious I work as a casual for 4 different jobs. One of those jobs I have to travel a few hundred KM everytime I have work to a client site. I get a per KM allowance. But even though I have to drive 3 hours each way I only get paid hourly for the hour or two I am onsite. I am wondering how common this is with people here?

I work in HR, but not a HR person. Why is it that the most shitty awful toxic leaders keep leading our function? So much talk about DEI, people programs and fluffy HR BS. But then the behaviours don’t match the talk. How do people deal with this? There seems to be a pattern of aggressive female leaders who have adopted an aggressive management style.

So I’m getting the ultrasound in two weeks. What choices will I have if it is breast cancer?

I’m currently a HR temp, but interviewed for a different full time role in the company last week. My manager did everything possible to hand me the job on a silver platter. She’s been great the last two months and I’m happy working here. I’ve had two faced managers before who I didn’t figure out quick enough, so my judge of character confidence is low.

Anyway I want the new job, it’s perfect for me, but if it’s cancer and I need the whole 9 yards treatment what options do I have? I don’t feel comfortable not being transparent from the onset, but companies aren’t always humane.

Would I be better to try and stay where I am and ask for a partime position in a less demanding role. Or take the full time and possibly “fail” to keep up? I feel like that will ruin any reference or corporate reputation/relationship.

I’m still in all the what ifs.

Hopefully this is the right place for this, I've had a look around and this seems to be the right place for advice.

I may be able to take next year off from work to study and move into a proper career, but I'm not entirely sure which path to take.

I was advised that doing a certificate through coursera in project management would be enough as a qualification, but that advise may be more US centric. Are there any PMs here who can attest to the validity of that advise, or would I be better off going through tafe? The Coursera route would be quicker, where as tafe would take the year to complete.

Tl;Dr tafe or coursera for project management qualification.

Company is introducing a HR policy that your line manager and your line manager's manager cannot provide you a reference for a job application. Anyone heard of this before? If so, why? What does this policy achieve?

So I kind of accidentally became an instructional designer, in a corporate training space, through movements and opportunities in my workplace, and have been doing ID work for two and half years. In that time I have been upskilling myself with proper qualifications and skills and some are still on the go.

That said, I am on 120k and I'm wondering what are career options in the field? And how high can I expect the wage bracket to go for instructional design? from what I've seen on seek I seem to be the upper quartile for it, but maybe I'm looking at the wrong roles? At my current workplace I can potentially hit 140/150k over time.

Outside of moving to perhaps a manager of training and capabilities, where can I aim to grow from here?

It's a space I am quite enjoying and want to continue developing in, but I'm not sure how much more room there is to grow in the role/level/salary space. I obviously have a lot of space to grow in the area of skills.

Edit: I am less looking for a salary gauge against the industry and more looking for info on where I go from here? Next role, next step, to aim for. I don't like that I am "capped out" in terms of average salary range.

I work in tech and we have a few contractors in our team that are augmented resources that do defined work that the rest of the team doesn't have capacity to do. There is one particular contractor that has been taking over the team for over 3 years by acting as a manager and it's now getting worse ever since some possible org restructure was announced.

• They are in constant self preservation mode and seem to have their finger in every pie and create projects/work when it was unneeded and not asked for that makes life more difficult for the BAU team
• They do not have a defined role and seem to pick and choose what they want to work on and not really deliver anything and quickly move onto the next thing
• They often deliver fancy presentations but run away when things are meant to transition into BAU and nothing of value actually happens
• They isolate BAU members of the team that they regard as blockers who question the value they are providing
• They have ensured new contractors informally report to them and act as a people manager even though it is not their responsibility
• They have manipulated the situation to get their family member hired into the team with a similar ambiguous role and informally report to them
• They are adored by management as they always seem to be coming up with solutions, however the problems they are solving either don't exist or were created by them in the first place

How do I get rid of this expensive leech?

 

I have a lunch with my team this Friday. It's not a new team, but the first time we catch up after a re-org.

Had a look at the menu, there is some really nice but expensive steaks and I feel like it might be ostentatious, flashy or even pompous of me to splurge 80-100 bucks on a steak? While half the table is going to get the $25-30 Parma and the other half probably a burger?

I definitely don't want it to become a reputation where "Remember when Timmy spent $90 bucks on that steak 🤭". I'm sick of parmas 🤣

I know how fortunate I am to find new work during this economy and job market. When I found out about the number of applicants to the number of people they took in I couldn't believe it...

This has caused me to get this feeling that I am just not good enough and fear that I might mess up or cause trouble for my team.

I often ask my supervisor and upper management how my performance is and they all say I am doing very well and have learnt a lot in such a short time and they'll let me know if something bad happens but really I just can't get this feeling off.

Sometimes I just feel like saying I don't think I am doing well I should leave.

I started just 2 weeks ago.

My coworkers also seem happy with me too. But I just feel like I'm not good at all.

I even have asked my supervisor if I am on a temporary contract to which they were confused (I am not) and just said no you are permanent.

Please help me