Making Sense of Your Enterprise Agreements: Trading “Legalese” for Common Sense

Employee Agreement negotiations can be time consuming and complex process, and one that requires careful attention to detail. Traditionally, interpreting Enterprise Agreements (EAs) has been done using large documents written in “legalese.” While this approach may have worked in the past, it is no longer effective for several reasons.

Difficult to See Relationships and Dependencies

These comprehensive documents make it difficult to see the relationships and dependencies between each clause. As a result, it is challenging to see the full impact of revisions and additional clauses. This means that even the slightest change could have unintended consequences that was not immediately apparent (eg. making changes difficult to implement operationally).

Interpretation is Hard

Interpreting EAs using legalese requires years of experience and familiarity with agreements to reliably and accurately interpret a given scenario. This makes it difficult for employees, external negotiating parties or HR professionals who lack this level of experience to navigate through the document effectively. This can also lead to under or over payment of employee salary and wages.

Lack of Flexibility to Understand Clauses

Legal jargon makes it impossible to easily switch between the broader context of an agreement and focusing on specific, detailed clauses. This lack of flexibility hinders negotiations as parties often struggle to find a common ground. Changes then become a series of trade-offs between both parties.

Identifying Patterns is Almost Impossible

Consolidating EAs the old way is tedious because you can’t easily identify patterns and commonalities due to complexities caused by inconsistent legalese language used in drafting agreements. This leaves many organisations struggling with multiple versions of similar agreements across different parts of their business. On top of this, you cannot see where the blockages and issues are until the EA is fully implemented.

So, what now?

Hello Agreement Visualisation (AV)! Out with the Old, In with the New

The old ways of interpreting EAs is no longer effective. With Agreement Visualisation, there is now an opportunity for negotiators and HR professionals alike to streamline their EA negotiation processes by leveraging a modern tool that helps navigate complex agreements more efficiently than ever before. With AV, it is possible to streamline your negotiations and gain deeper insights into potential risks and opportunities associated with different clauses in the agreement.

We all know that finalising your new EA can be a challenging process. Despite everyone’s best intentions, negotiations often become drawn out due to disagreements and misunderstandings. Agreement Visualisation is a solution designed to provide clarity and help reach agreement with all parties. The end result making it easier to communicate changes to all employees. Whether you’re working with new or existing agreements, Workforce Management, Payroll and Time & Attendance systems, our tool is flexible and adaptable to ensure compliance but also validate these systems have captured the correct information.

With its intuitive visual mapping and design features, Agreement Visualisation makes it easy to map, document, and gain consistent understanding of the details of your agreements. Our visual representation of your agreements allows you to pinpoint areas of concern and make better decisions about your workforce.

With AV, our Payroll Experts partner with you to ensure that your EA is accurately interpreted and applied. Say goodbye to the hassle of deciphering complex legal documents. Agreement Visualisation simplifies the process for all stakeholders.

Contact us on 1300 287 213 or discover more here.

Businesses can email contactus@payrollexpertsaustralia.com.au or call 1300 287 213 for free first-step advice on how to ensure your Payroll processes can safeguard your Payroll compliance. Follow us on LinkedIn or sign up here to receive our articles direct to your email inbox.