CER Employment
Law Symposium 2026

Master the legal, strategic and practical skills needed to lead in today’s complex workplace environment

📅 Friday 18 September 2026

📍 The Amora, Sydney NSW | In-person event

🎟️ Limited places available

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Event overview

The CER Employment Law Symposium 2026 brings together leaders, HR professionals and employment law specialists to explore the realities of modern workplace leadership. This year’s theme, “Wearing every hat: Leadership in Employment Law,” focuses on equipping organisations with the tools to manage increasingly complex responsibilities - from psychosocial risk and workplace culture through to enterprise bargaining, investigations and emerging technologies.

Designed for those at the forefront of workplace decision-making, this symposium delivers practical insights, real-world strategies and expert guidance to help you stay ahead of legal risk and lead with confidence.

Why attend?

  • Gain practical strategies to manage employment law risk

  • Strengthen your approach to enterprise bargaining and negotiations

  • Build confidence in handling complex workplace issues

  • Learn how to create psychologically safe and respectful workplaces

  • Understand emerging challenges, including AI in employment decisions

  • Hear from experts working at the forefront of employment law

This year’s program is structured around the evolving roles leaders must play

  • The Strategist – proactive compliance in a changing legal landscape

  • The Negotiator – leading enterprise bargaining with confidence

  • The Culture Shaper – embedding psychosocial safety in workplaces

  • The Decision Maker – managing unfair dismissal and procedural fairness

  • The Risk Manager – navigating high-risk employment decisions

  • The Investigator – conducting fair and defensible investigations

  • The Communicator – handling difficult workplace conversations

  • The Technologist – managing AI and emerging workplace risks

Who should attend?

  • HR and People & Culture professionals

  • Employment and workplace relations practitioners

  • School and organisational leaders

  • Executives and senior managers

  • Compliance and risk professionals

Program

This is a draft program and is subject to change - speakers TBC

  • Human flourishing, dignity, well-being and psychosocial safety in Catholic workplaces. Reflections on how ethical leadership and catholic social teaching can build healthy and fair human person centric workplaces.

  • What psychosocial risk management looks like in practice: Learn a practical framework for building a psychosocially safe culture through systems, leadership behaviours and governance practices that prevent harm, promote accountability, and enable high performance. This session will include guidance on how to encourage and respond to reports of risk and harm.

  • Enterprise Bargaining on the front foot - lead bargaining strategically and confidently. Gain practical insights into current bargaining trends, industrial strategy and preparation, workforce communications, expectation management and the effective management of risk throughout the bargaining process.

  • Item descriptionStrengthen your approach to complaints and misconduct by learning how to conduct fair, trauma-informed and legally defensible investigations, apply procedural fairness, and make disciplined decisions that minimise unfair dismissal and other employment law risks.

  • AI in employment decision-making. Leverage AI responsibly while managing legal and ethical exposure. Examine the use of AI in recruitment and performance management, including bias and discrimination risks, requirements for transparency and explainability, the development of robust governance frameworks, and key emerging regulatory trends.

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