For organisations of all shapes and sizes, the role of a Human Resources Executive generally encompasses many different tasks - from payroll processing, scheduling, award and entitlement calculations, absence management, not to mention keeping track of mobile and flexi workers.
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By introducing an automated Human Resource Management System, you can lower administrative costs while giving your HR team the time to work on more productive activities and projects.
Here's how:
Award Interpretation: Easily calculate base and overtime pay, weekend and public holiday penalties, as well as leave loading and shift penalties, ensuring consistent application of your business rules and compliance with workplace legislation.
A direct interface to your external payroll application further reduces payroll administration and the potential for costly payroll errors.
Employee Self Service functionality: enables your employees to directly view any leave accrued, requests for time-off can be requested or approved automatically.
Employee Scheduling: Assign resources based on predefined budgets and skill sets, keeping operating costs as low as possible. In addition, ensure you have sufficient staff on board to cover the holiday period by limiting how many employees can be off on a given day or time period. Once the limit has been reached no further employees can request leave.
Absence Management: Real-time reports allow you to analyse any particular attendance trends or unplanned absences, as well as the commercial impact of schedules, overtime, absence and stockpiled leave.
Comprehensive Reporting: All of your employee data, files and correspondence are centrally stored, making the filing and retrieving of vital information quick and easy to manage. The stored information can be used to run reports on past and present data, such as training and development requirements.
To find out how you can improve efficiency in your HR and Payroll Department contact Mitrefinch today on +61 2 9762 7888 or visit www.mitrefinch.com.au
Hundreds of cleaners across Australia are sharing in a $242,000 pay out after investigations by the Fair Work Ombudsman found they were being underpaid, reports the Canberra Times.
A total of 621 cleaners in Australia were rewarded back pay after Fair Work investigators looked into 315 companies as part of a nationwide campaign.
Of those 315 companies, 117 were found to have breached workplace law, with the most common breaches being underpayment of penalty rates and inadequate record-keeping practices.
United Voice branch secretary, Lyndal Ryan commended Fair Work Australia but said the issue went beyond the 11 employees.
''The problem of underpayment is probably not reflected in the figures because it is more widespread,'' she said.
Fair Work Ombudsman Nicholas Wilson advised that they were alerted to a potential issue within cleaning services when records between March 2006 and April 2010 showed it was generating the fourth-highest number of complaints.
So how can you safeguard your organisation from a potential underpayment case?
Ensuring that you are compliant with penalty rates and modern awards can represent a major headache for many organisations, with recent workplace cases such as Toys 'R' Us having to pay back up to $1 million to more than 1000 young employees, highlighting the importance of effective Award Interpretation and Time Management processes.
An automated Time and Attendance System can take the stress out of employee allowances and entitlement calculations via an in-built, fully customisable Award Interpreter.
Easily calculate base and overtime pay, weekend and public holiday penalties, as well as leave loading and shift penalties, ensuring consistent application of your business rules. A direct interface to your external payroll application further reduces payroll administration and the potential for costly payroll errors.
Visit our website to find out more about effective Award Interpretation and automated Time and Attendance Systems or feel free to call us on 1300 884 831 (Aus) or 09 363 9557 (NZ).
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook, or join our Linkedin group for updates on employee time management solutions.
Can you afford not to?
Some companies still aren't getting the message, with two call centre service providers set to face court after the Fair Work Ombudsman accused them of breaking "sham contracting" guidelines.
The organisations in question are being accused of breaching a number of workplace laws, by employing 10,000 call centre workers and door-to-door sales people as contractors, resulting in "massive underpayments".
The Ombudsman defines sham contracting as an employer disguising or misrepresenting an employment relationship as an independent contracting arrangement, thereby avoiding employee entitlements such as minimum pay rates and leave entitlements.
Speaking at the Australian Industry Group's workplace conference earlier this week, Fair Work Ombudsman Nicholas Wilson, stressed that while hiring independent contractors is not illegal, if an organisation sets out to evade their workplace relations responsibilities, by using commercial processes to find a business partner who will undercut established minimum wage rates, then that may be considered unlawful.
"The pretence that commercial negotiations can procure below award wages or that the cover of an ABN can avoid an employment arrangement are merely that – pretences. And they are pretences that can have significant consequences," he added.
In March, the Ombudsman warned that it would be cracking down on sham contracting in the health and beauty, cleaning, and call centre industries.
That same month, a Brisbane call centre company and its director were fined $214,500 for sham contracting and underpayments while the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union also threatened industrial action against developers and builders that engage staff as ''sham contractors'', which is believed to account for up to 168,000 workers (See Blog Post: Employers shirk Employee Obligations).
Read the full story: http://www.smartcompany.com.au/industrial-relations/20110503-fair-work-ombudsman-claims-two-companies-labelled-10-000-workers-as-sham-contractors.html
Avoid your business being branded a sham
Ensuring that you are compliant with penalty rates and modern awards can represent a major headache for many organisations, but you don't need to evade the law to avoid the stresses of Award Interpretation and Employee Time Management processes.
An effective Employee Time Management System can do all the hard work for you via an in-built, fully customisable Award Interpreter.
Calculate base and overtime pay, weekend and public holiday penalties, as well as leave loading and shift penalties, ensuring consistent application of your business rules. A direct interface to your external payroll application further reduces payroll administration and the potential for costly payroll errors.
If you would like discover how your organisation can benefit from more efficient Award Interpretation and effective Employee Time Management download our Free Guide on How to Choose a Time and Attendance System.
Alternatively feel free to contact Mitrefinch today on 1300 884 831 or email sales@mitrefinch.com.au
As per an article in the latest online edition of the HR Leader, a Brisbane call centre has been ordered to pay a total of $214,500 after being found guilty of underpaying its staff by using “sham contracts”.
Contracting Plus Pty Ltd was found guilty of violating workplace laws by paying its workers less than the minimum hourly rate of pay, amounting to $46,000.
The former Brisbane CBD call centre attempted to classify workers as “independent contractors” rather than employees, and therefore avoided mandatory requirements relating to salary and benefits.
At the ruling, Federal Magistrate Michael Burnett said that, “Sham contracting is a serious matter because if workers are incorrectly classified as independent contractors, they can miss out on fundamental entitlements such as minimum pay rates, penalty rates and annual leave.”
Burnett ordered that the fines should go towards reimbursing the employees of Contracting Plus Pty Ltd, a large number of whom were under the age of 21.
“To purposely deny vulnerable and low-skilled workers these important employment entitlements by disguising them as contractors is particularly reprehensible,” he added. “As such, it is important that my agency mark its disapproval of such behaviour and deter others from doing the same.”
Michael Campbell, Fair Work Ombudsman Executive Director, praised the decision, advising that it sent out a very clear warning to other would-be employers looking to evade workplace legislation and their obligations to employees.
The HR Leader reports that the trend of so-called sham contracting appears to have spread into several sectors, with a recent investigation led by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) halting hundreds of illegal contracts at construction sites across Australia. Nationwide audits look set to continue, with well-known multi-nationals such as Bovis Lend Lease and Multiplex construction being questioned by the CFMEU.
Construction workers have teamed up with the union to create the ‘Stop the Sham’ campaign, in an effort to voice their anger against the growing practice of sham-contracting. They are also calling for co-ordinated Federal Government action.
CFMEU Construction National Secretary Dave Noonan said that he blamed authorities for turning a blind eye to the practice, and as well as treating workers unfairly, the organisations responsible were also evading business taxes.
“These companies are taking lucrative Federal Government construction contracts with one hand, and undermining Australia’s tax base with the other,” he said.
To read the full article see: http://www.humanresourcesmagazine.com.au/articles/27/0C06F927.aspThere is an easier way to comply with penalty rates and workplace legislation without resorting to Sham Contracts
Ensuring that you are compliant with penalty rates and modern awards can represent a major headache for many organisations, but you don't need to evade the law to elevate the stress of effective Award Interpretation and Time Management processes.
Mitrefinch's Employee Time Management System (TMS) can do all the hard work for you via an in-built, fully customisable Award Interpreter.
Calculate base and overtime pay, weekend and public holiday penalties, as well as leave loading and shift penalties, ensuring consistent application of your business rules. A direct interface to your external payroll application further reduces payroll administration and the potential for costly payroll errors.
If you would like discover how your organisation can benefit from more efficient Award Interpretation and effective Employee Time Management contact Mitrefinch today on 1300 884 931 or email sales@mitrefinch.com.au
You can't afford not to.
(Source: HR Leader)
A South Australian transport company has been forced to back pay almost $150,000 in penalty rates to 26 workers, it was reported today.
A random audit as part of the Fair Work Ombudsman's National Road Transport Industry Campaign found that the organisation had failed to pay some staff, mostly casual drivers and yard hands, penalty rates for weekend and public holiday work between March 2006 and January 2009.
The Fair Work Ombudsman said in a statement that it accepted the problem was due to ignorance rather than a deliberate failure to comply with the legislation.
The company has until late this year to make the back payments and write to affected current and former staff apologising for the error.
Ensuring that you are compliant with industrial awards and minimum terms and conditions can represent a major headache for many organisations.
Mitrefinch's Employee Time Management System (TMS) takes the stress out of employee allowances and entitlement calculations via an in-built, fully customisable Award Interpreter. Easily calculate base and overtime pay, weekend and public holiday penalties, as well as leave loading and shift penalties, ensuring consistent application of your business rules. A direct interface to your external payroll application further reduces payroll administration and the potential for costly payroll errors. If you would like discover how your organisation can benefit from more efficient Award Intrepretation and effective Employee Time Management contact Mitrefinch today on 1300 884 931 or email sales@mitrefinch.com.auRead the full story on ninemsn
Fair Work Australia, the national workplace relations tribunal, has made its first take-home pay order, ordering a women's fashion retailer to provide a female staff member with nine months of back pay.
This ruling serves as a warning to employers coming to grips with the Modern Awards process.
Susan Balog, a Victorian single mother, whose pay was cut by $6.72 an hour when her pay was shifted to a 'modern award' at the start of the year is the first person in Australia to get a “take home pay order”. Take-home pay orders were introduced as part of the Labor Government's Fair Work industrial relations regime.
While the Modern Awards, which came into effect on January 1, resulted in pay rates falling in some states, employers were not allowed to pay employees less than there were receiving under their previous award. If this occurred, Fair Work Australia could make a take-home pay order and effectively top-up the worker's pay.
Under the new Modern Award, Balog's hourly rate fell from $19.83 to $16.47. When a 200 per cent loading for Sunday work was taken into account, take-home hourly rate fell from $39.66 to $32.94.
While the employer said it was simply complying with the new Award, and had offered to give Balog more hours to make up for her lower pay, Senior Deputy President Kaufman stated in his judgement:
"While I accept that the employer did not wish to decrease the applicant's take-home pay, and thus offered her additional hours, I do not accept that the offer is acceptable as an alternative to a take-home pay order. The employer, in essence, is seeking that the employee work more hours for less pay."
While lower pay rates under the Modern Wards can be applied to new employees, existing employees must not be left worse off.
For more information on Modern Awards and Take Home Pay visit the Fair Work Australia site
To faciliate with the consistent application of an organisation's business rules and award payments, Mitrefinch's leading Time and Attendance System, TMS, comes with an extremely powerful “award interpreter”. To find out more contact Mitrefinch Sales on 1300 884 831 or email sales@mitrefinch.com.au
