There’s been a fair bit of speculation about the future of JobKeeper payments, but this morning the Government made their decision. When JobKeeper was initially announced in March, it was set to run until September at a rate of $1500 per eligible employee.
As the year has unfolded, many employees and businesses have been anxiously awaiting the potential extension of JobKeeper payments and wondering what will happen come September. Well, today we found out.
Instead of ending in September, JobKeeper will extend for another six months into March 2021 at a reduced rate of $1200 for fulltime and $750 for part-time staff. As of March, they will be reduced again to $1000 for full-time and $650 for part-time.
The eligibility and turnover-loss requirements remain the same, at 50% for those with an aggregated turnover of more than $1bn and 30% for those with an aggregated turnover of $1bn or less.
Ultimately this means that in eight weeks, you’re going to be receiving less financial assistance and you need to get clear on how you’ll manage this and what this means for your team’s wages.
Your team is going to have questions, and be facing a lot of uncertainty around their income and finances. You may not have all the answers yet, but just keep the communication open let them know you’ll be hard at work getting clarity for them.
This is all happening in the context of a spike of COVID infections in numerous major Australian cities – notably Melbourne and Sydney. Last time we faced this many cases, most practices were limited to emergency-only services with staff stood down.
It would be wise to factor in two different situations; reduced Job Keeper with business as usual, and reduced JobKeeper with additional revenue lost from service restrictions. That way you have a plan to deploy in either situation and you’re not caught off-guard with more changes to your operations.
All in all, my advice to you is the following:
- Touch base with your team, answer questions, and be prepared for anxiety and uncertainty on their end.
- Work with your bookkeeper to find out what this means for your bottom line and your staff’s wages.
- Plan and you will prevail – better to make preparations for the worst-case scenario then be caught off guard.
Let me know in the comments what you would want to know from your leader if you were a team member in this situation – awesome activity for connecting and communicating effectively.
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