Straight answers, before you commit to anything

We provide industrial relations and HR support to Australian employers in two forms. Alliance is ongoing support in two levels: Alliance Light for written advice on the everyday questions that come up when you manage people, and Alliance Plus, where we do the hands-on work with you. Project work covers matters carrying real financial exposure: workplace investigations, wage and award compliance, payroll remediation, formal performance processes, restructures, workplace reviews and enterprise bargaining. Plenty of clients start with Alliance and move into project support when something escalates.

We're an IR and HR advisory practice. We interpret regulations, Modern Awards and industrial standards, and we build the frameworks and documentation that sit underneath your people decisions. When a matter moves past advisory scope, we'll say so early and work alongside whoever you engage, rather than duplicating them.

Most SMEs handle the bulk of it internally, and we'd rather you keep control of your own decisions. The difficulty is that people matters carry costs that aren't obvious at the time. A classification error sits quietly on your payroll for four years before anyone questions it. A dismissal that was entirely reasonable on the facts falls over because the process behind it was thin. We're the check that catches that before it compounds.

Traditional HR models push employers into high-cost subscriptions that deliver limited, generic advice, or into paying significant hourly rates for minor questions that never warranted project work. We've split those apart. Everyday advice sits in a low-cost written membership, hands-on help is available every month through Alliance Plus, and specialist matters are scoped and quoted at a fixed fee only when a matter genuinely calls for it. You keep control of the HR budget and reserve spend for investigations, case management and the complex matters that need expert oversight.

Alliance Light is built for employers who want to keep making their own calls with a professional resource to test them against. Alliance Plus and project work run differently. There we can act as the HR function for the business and manage issues end to end, which is what most employers want when something's emotionally charged or technically difficult. If you've got an HR manager, we back them. If you haven't, we become the resource your managers escalate to.

We work across small to mid-sized businesses and not-for-profits through to large organisations and enterprise environments. Smaller and growing workplaces usually come to us when a matter escalates past what they can handle internally. Larger clients engage us for specialist work, most often high-risk investigations, complex employee relations matters and enterprise bargaining. By sector, we're in childcare, hospitality, retail, community and disability services, and other areas carrying difficult award structures.

We support organisations across Australia. Alliance Light runs by email, Alliance Plus meetings are held in person in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast and online elsewhere, and most project work, investigations included, can be conducted remotely by video and phone where that suits the matter. Where something benefits from being handled in person, we'll raise it with you upfront so travel is a decision you make rather than a cost you discover.

IndustrialHR is led by Rhiannon, who's spent 20 years across HR and industrial relations. Her background covers complex award interpretation, wage compliance, high-risk investigations and large-scale organisational change. Serious risks get managed commercially and decisively, so matters reach a defensible outcome instead of sitting open for months while everyone hopes they resolve themselves.

Alliance Light includes unlimited written HR advice, award and entitlement interpretation, policy guidance, access to professionally developed templates, letters and documents, and proactive risk alerts when compliance changes land that affect your business. Alliance Plus adds a named practitioner who drafts contracts, letters and meeting scripts, runs the difficult meetings with you and prepares you for Fair Work conciliation. Partner includes 15 hours of hands-on work each quarter, and Premium covers your everyday HR work for one flat monthly fee.

For the advisory questions the service is built around, yes. Ask as often as you need to and there's no per-question charge. What unlimited doesn't stretch to is scope. A multi-witness investigation or a payroll remediation project isn't an email question, and no membership can responsibly carry work of that size. Those matters sit in project services, and we're clear about that boundary from day one.

Alliance Light is a fixed monthly fee set by your headcount: $295 a month under 15 staff, $595 for 15 to 50 staff and $750 over 50 staff, plus GST. Alliance Plus is $1,450 a month for Partner or $3,250 a month for Premium, plus GST. We'll walk you through how casual and part-time staff are counted for your particular workforce during setup, so you know what you're paying and why. There's no hourly billing for the work your plan covers.

Complex disputes, workplace investigations, wage non-compliance and payroll remediation, restructures and redundancies, and enterprise bargaining. Each of these needs structured case management and dedicated time, so they're scoped and quoted as project work. Formal performance and capacity processes are quoted as projects for Alliance Light members and covered by Alliance Plus. Alliance members moving into project support come with a practitioner who already knows their business, which usually shortens the runway and the bill.

Prompt written responses are the point of the service. We'll confirm expected turnaround during setup, and we'll flag when a question needs longer because it requires award research or a considered written position. If something's time-critical, a stand-down decision or an immediate safety concern, say so and we'll treat it that way.

No. There is no minimum term on any plan. Alliance is billed monthly. Alliance Light can be cancelled at any time by written notice, and Alliance Plus with 30 days' written notice, as set out in our Terms of Service. It's designed as a long-term relationship, and it should hold because it's useful to you.

Because written advice is documentation. If a decision gets questioned later by an employee, a regulator or the Fair Work Commission, you can show what you were advised, when, and on what basis. Verbal advice leaves you with nothing to produce. Written advice becomes part of a defensible file, which is worth something on the day it's tested.

Sometimes it isn't, and we'll tell you so. If your questions are genuinely infrequent, ad hoc project support may suit you better. Alliance earns its place where managers face people decisions regularly, and where one mishandled exit or one classification error would cost more than several years of membership. Talk to us and we'll work out the honest fit.

When allegations are serious, when the people involved are senior, when internal relationships make impartiality contestable, or when the outcome could end someone's employment. Employers rarely come unstuck because the conduct wasn't real. They come unstuck because the process used to establish it wouldn't survive examination. If you're weighing up whether a matter's serious enough to warrant an external investigator, that hesitation is usually your answer.

That's the standard we work to. Investigations run as structured, evidence-based processes: allegations properly particularised, procedural fairness afforded to the respondent, evidence tested rather than assumed, and findings made on the balance of probabilities with the reasoning documented. What you get is a report you can act on and defend, with the risks in it assessed openly rather than smoothed over.

That depends on how many allegations there are, how many participants need to be interviewed, and how available they are. A single allegation with few participants moves quickly. A matter spanning several years and a dozen witnesses takes considerably longer. We'll give you a realistic timeframe after scoping and tell you promptly if new information shifts it, because investigations that drift create their own exposure.

We do. That covers misconduct, bullying, harassment and inappropriate behaviour, along with psychosocial hazards, meaning the behaviours, workloads and practices affecting psychological health at work. These matters need handling in a way that protects everyone involved, including the person who raised the concern and the person responding to it. Holding that balance is much of the work.

We provide a confidential and technically accurate response framework for protected disclosures. These carry specific obligations around confidentiality and protection from detriment, and mishandling them creates exposure entirely separate from the original allegation. If you've received a disclosure and you're not certain of your obligations, treat it as urgent and contact us before you respond to the discloser.

Yes, and confidentiality obligations are set out in our engagement terms. Within an investigation, some information has to be shared with participants so they get a fair opportunity to respond. We'll explain exactly how that works before anything starts, so nobody's caught off guard.

Yes. Workplace reviews and culture diagnostics look at how teams actually operate, where behaviours are affecting performance, and which patterns carry risk if they continue. Employers usually commission one after a run of complaints, ahead of a restructure, or when turnover in a particular team is telling them something they can't quite pin down.

Act, and resist the urge to move before you know the number. The first step is establishing facts: which award applies, how roles are classified, which entitlements were affected and across what period. Announcing a figure before the analysis is finished tends to make the position worse. We conduct classification reviews, award interpretation and payroll assessments to quantify it accurately, then guide you through corrective action and what goes to employees.

Rarely through anything deliberate. Far more often it's a classification set years ago and never revisited, an annualised salary that's stopped passing a better-off-overall comparison, allowances that were never applied, or an award interpretation that's been wrong from the start. Small errors compound quietly across a workforce and several years, so by the time anyone notices, the number's substantial.

Yes. Award coverage and classification is the most common error we see and among the cheapest to correct before it turns into a remediation project. A classification review tests the duties actually performed against the award structure and tells you where you stand.

You correct it. We help you calculate what's owed, structure the remediation, prepare what goes to affected employees, and put controls in place so it doesn't recur. Employers who identify and fix underpayments proactively sit in a materially better position than those who wait to be found. Where exposure is significant, we'll recommend you take external advice alongside our work.

By working out what the actual problem is. Performance, conduct and capacity are three different issues requiring three different processes, and running the wrong one is a common reason employers lose matters they should have won. We help you identify which applies, structure the process, prepare the documentation and guide you through the meetings.

Yes, and the earlier you bring us in, the better the position. Most terminations that fail do so on process. The reason was sound, but the employee wasn't given a proper opportunity to respond, the warnings weren't clear, or the organisation didn't follow its own policy. We work through the sequence with you so the decision is fair, properly documented and able to withstand examination.

Contact us straight away, because these matters run to short statutory timeframes. We can help you assemble and assess the evidence, work out what the process file actually shows, and prepare the material needed to respond. If the matter requires external representation, we'll be direct about that and work alongside whoever you engage.

Genuine consultation, proper redeployment consideration, accurate entitlement calculations, and communication handled with dignity. A redundancy that isn't genuine, or a consultation that happened after the decision was already made, turns a legitimate commercial decision into a claim. We provide planning, consultation support, documentation and communication guidance across the process.

We do, including preparation, the bargaining process itself and the technical requirements that have to be satisfied along the way.

Contact us and describe the situation. We'll tell you whether it's an Alliance question, a project matter, or something you can reasonably handle internally with a bit of direction. Initial conversations about complex matters are confidential.

Project work is scoped first and then quoted at a fixed fee, so you know the cost before any work starts and you're only paying for specialist time when a matter genuinely needs it, rather than carrying an inflated HR cost year round. If the scope shifts materially, say additional allegations surface or a payroll review uncovers a wider issue, we'll tell you and agree any change to the quote before we do the extra work.

Say so when you make contact and we'll respond accordingly. Suspensions, safety concerns, disclosures and claims with statutory deadlines can't wait, and what gets decided in the first forty-eight hours often shapes how the whole matter runs.

Yes, and it usually produces a better result. We work with existing advisers regularly, particularly on wage remediation where payroll data and regulatory exposure meet.

Our HR Compliance Checklist covers the key compliance requirements across awards, pay, documentation, safety and behaviour management. It's a practical way to find the obvious gaps before they turn into expensive ones.