Now is the time to review your employees’ rates of pay and conditions of service.
As an employer, are you confident that your employees are paid at least the Award oe Enterprise Agreement minimum rate of pay and conditions of employment?
Recently and during the past few years, the Fair Work Ombudsman, (FWO), has audited hundreds of small, medium and large businesses. As a result of their investigations, the FWO has prosecuted many companies in Court resulting in orders requiring the employer to meet any shortcomings in wages paid and also fined substantially for not paying their employees correctly in the first place. Quite often the fine imposed by the Court is greater than the underpayments. Furthermore, in the absence or in addition, companies are required to commit to enforceable undertakings. Recently, many large companies and institutions have also self-reported following their own internal review and audit.
The Fair Work Ombudsman may wish to review many aspects of your employment including but not limited to; wages, shift penalties, leave entitlements, notice and redundancy entitlements payments.
The Fair Work Ombudsman will audit or investigate your business if it receives a complaint from a past or present employee, or as a result of targeting an industry or region or a routine inspection.
Therefore, it is important and wise to perform a review or audit of our employees’ wages and conditions.
A detailed review will examine the following aspects of an employee’s employment.
Are your employees covered by the appropriate industrial instrument, i.e. Award or Enterprise Agreement? Some employers will say that their employee is covered by a Contract of Employment.
REMEMBER AN EMPLOYEE CAN NOT BE PAID LESS THAN AWARD RATE!!!
Or is the employee not an employee but an individual contractor?
If an employee, has the employee been correctly classified according to their skills performed?
Having established the appropriate Award or other basis of their employment, you will need to establish the status of the employee, i.e. full time or part time or casual or maximum term?
Next, is to compare their actual rate of pay with the relevant Award rate or as provided by an Enterprise Agreement. If so entitled, has the employee received appropriate wage increase as provide by their Award or Agreement?
A comparison of Award and/or Agreement entitlements will also include a review of ordinary hourly rates of pay, overtime, shift penalties, Public Holiday entitlements and Superannuation.
In addition to wages, etc, an audit should also a review of Leave entitlements, (Annual and Personal). Note an employee still accrues these entitlements whilst in receipt of Jobkeeper payments.
Furthermore, upon termination, there are employer obligations to make payments to employees regards to the amount of Notice given or paid out in lieu and redundancy entitlements as detailed in the Fair Work Act or relevant Enterprise Agreement or Contract of Employment.
At the time of a review of employment wages and conditions, it would also be prudent to review Workplace Policies and Procedures. When were they last written or reviewed?
Many companies, small, medium, or large, perform annual reviews and consequently sleep soundly, knowing that if there was a complaint or knock on the door, they are confident that their employees are correctly paid and receive all entitlements.
Craven and Associates is an experienced Workplace and Human Resource specialist able to assist companies in reviewing their wage rates and conditions of employment.
Contact Neil Craven on 0419 500 609 or email, neil@cravenco.com.au to arrange an appointment.
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