Dialogue is a duty, not an activity
Step 1 / 2·Three situations that require dialogue
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Learning objectives — after this module you will:
- Tell statutory dialogue apart from an internal engagement event
- Know the frequency and the situations that trigger dialogue
- Know which records evidence that the duty was met
Three situations that require dialogue
Miss none of them.
Many employers read workplace dialogue as a staff gathering with refreshments and an open floor. That is an engagement activity. Dialogue as the law defines it is a duty with a frequency, mandatory content, a defined composition and written minutes.
When an inspector asks to see the minutes of the last twelve months of periodic dialogue, photographs of a team-building day are not a substitute.
Events that trigger dialogue when they occur
- Before issuing or amending the pay regulation, salary scale, pay table or labour norms
- When drawing up a labour-use plan on restructuring, technological change or economic grounds
- When building the salary scale, pay table and the bonus regulation
- When handling any other matter the law requires be discussed with the employee representative organisation
The trigger-event dialogue is the one most often skipped
Employers remember the annual session but then amend a pay regulation or draw up a labour-use plan without any dialogue beforehand. That is exactly what makes the resulting decision procedurally defective.