Available for the following plans: Employment Lite, Employment Plus, Employment Unlimited
Available for the following HR plans: Free, Standard, Premium, Platinum
Available for the following user access levels: Admin
The Salary History feature lets you update an employee's salary, assign the correct leave allowance template, leave category, and pay schedule. The Pay Run Details feature helps you determine whether employees need to submit timesheets and sync their data with your payroll platform. It also displays the user's timezone in the "Last Updated" section and accounts for daylight saving. The Work Hours feature records an employee's work hours, allowing you to set standard weekly hours, daily totals, or customise hours based on work type and daily hours over up to eight weeks.
Best Practice:
If an industrial instrument is selected for an employee, we recommend reviewing the details on the Fair Work website to ensure compliance and accurately determine the Anniversary Date. Pay point progression rules can vary, especially when considering continuous employment.
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Getting started
Set up Salary History
- Click the People menu.
- Click the Employees List submenu.
- Select the employee who needs to have their salary added.
- In the Pay and Compensation section, select the Pay Details tab.
- Click the Add Salary button.
- Update the following fields:
- Effective from.
- Pay rates.
- Pay rate (100%). Employment Hero uses the information within the Anniversary Date field and the Pay Rate Template field to calculate when to apply a pay rate increase to an employee file.
- Effective pay rate.
- Pay category.
- Superannuation.
- Reason for change.
- Comments.
Helpful Hint
The Pay Rate, Superannuation, and Pay Category fields are only editable if you are not using an industrial award. If entering a 'per annum' pay rate, please make sure the rate you enter is exclusive of superannuation. Superannuation will be applied on top of the pay rate listed.
If you can not see the correct pay category for this employee, then you will need to update your data from payroll. For details on to do this, refer to the following article. Please note that organisations on the Standard plan are unable to add employee salary history with Award data.
- Click the Save button.
Available for the following plans: Employment Lite, Employment Plus, Employment Unlimited
Available for the following HR classic plans: Standard, Premium, Platinum
Available for the following user access level: Employee, Manager, Admin
- Click the People menu.
- Click the Employees List submenu.
- Select the employee whose total compensation package you wish to view.
- In the Pay & Compensation section, select the Total Compensation tab.
- Click on the eye icon to view the total compensation package details.
- Here you will see the employee's total compensation package.
Set up Pay Run Details
- Click the People menu.
- Click the Employees List submenu.
- Select the employee who needs to have their pay details updated.
- In the Pay & Compensation section, select the Pay details tab.
- Click the Edit button.
- Choose which of the following employee pay details to enable:
- Pay employees their normal working hours by default.
- Synchronise with payroll.
- Choose from the following timesheet type options:
- Do not use timesheets.
- Use timesheets to submit all time worked.
- Use timesheets for exceptions only.
- Choose the employee's work type.
Helpful Hint
Pay Employees their Normal Working Hours refers to employees who work a dedicated and uniform set of hours every day/week that does not fluctuate. While the The work type field is only available for these two timesheet types: Use timesheets to submit all time worked or Use timesheets for exceptions only.
- Click the Save button.
Set up Work Hours
- Click the People menu.
- Click the Employee List submenu.
- Select the employee who needs to have their standard daily hours added.
- In the Pay & Compensation section, select the Pay details tab.
- Click the Edit button.
- Click the Standard Daily Hours button.
- Complete the following fields:
- Normal working hours per week.
- Ordinary work day.
- Click the Save button.
Important
Custom Work Hours is only available on our HR classic Premium and Platinum, Employment Plus, and Employment Unlimited plans. You will need to ensure that you have typical work hours set up in your company settings and under the employment settings
- Click the People menu.
- Click the Employee List submenu.
- Select the employee who needs to have custom work hours added.
- In the Pay & compensation section, select the Pay details tab.
- Click the Pay Details tab.
- Click the Edit button.
- Click the Custom Work Hours button.
- Click the Enter Hours button.
- Complete the following fields:
- Cost centre or Work site and position (optional).
- Hours.
Understanding location fields
Depending on your organization's setup, you may see either a Cost centre field or Work site and position fields. Organizations using work sites and position will see those fields instead of cost centre. These fields are optional and can be left blank if not required.
Helpful Hint
If you leave the cost centre or work site and position fields blank, the system will automatically use the employee's default location from your payroll platform (KeyPay). This will then sync back to HR and populate the employee's custom work hours accordingly.
- Click the button to add additional weeks.
Important
You can configure up to eight weeks of custom work hours to accommodate complex work patterns. This is particularly useful for fly in/fly out or rotational workforces where work cycles extend beyond a standard week. The extended period enables accurate tracking of hours that can be averaged over longer periods according to Award or Enterprise Agreement provisions. To read further information on how the platform determines working weeks, refer to the following section.
- Continue adding work hours for additional weeks as needed (up to 8 weeks total).
- Click the Save button.
Important
Custom Work Hours is only available on our HR classic Premium and Platinum, Employment Plus, and Employment Unlimited plans. You will need to ensure that you have typical work hours set up in your company settings and under the employment settings tab.
- Click the People menu.
- Click the Employees submenu.
- Select the employee who needs to have custom hours added.
- In the Pay & compensation section, select the Pay Details tab.
- Click the Edit button.
- Click the Custom Work Hours button.
- Click the Start and Stop Times button.
- Complete the following fields:
- Cost centre or Work site and position (optional).
- Work time.
- Break time.
Understanding location fields
Depending on your organization's setup, you may see either a Cost centre field or Work site and position fields. Organizations using work sites and position will see those fields instead of cost centre. These fields are optional and can be left blank if not required.
- Click the button to add additional weeks.
Important
You can configure up to eight weeks of custom work hours to accommodate complex work patterns. This is particularly useful for fly in/fly out or rotational workforces where work cycles extend beyond a standard week. The extended period enables accurate tracking of hours that can be averaged over longer periods according to Award or Enterprise Agreement provisions. To read further information on how the platform determines working weeks, refer to the following section.
- Continue adding work hours for additional weeks as needed (up to 8 weeks total).
- Click the Save button.
Available for the following EmploymentOS plans: Employment Plus, Employment Unlimited
Available for the following HR Classic plans: Premium, Platinum
- Click People menu
- Click the Import Employees submenu.
- Select the Update Employee Custom Work Hours option.
Helpful Hint
You can choose to select the Include existing user information checkbox and/or the Include terminated users checkbox depending on your requirements.
- Click the Download button.
- The Employee Custom Work Hours CSV file should now be in your web browser's download history. Once you are satisfied with your CSV file, click or drag the file onto the upload tile.
Important
Your file will need to contain all the following mandatory fields: First Name, Last Name, Account Email, Employing Entity, Location, and Pattern. The template supports up to eight weeks of custom work hours configuration.
- On the Import File window, click the Yes button.
- Once you have ensured your data has been correctly mapped on the Map Your Columns window, click the Continue button.
Important
If your CSV file contains errors, a Resolve Errors window will appear. It will show the file name and a checklist of issues to fix. If you encounter this, click the file name, follow the checklist instructions, then save the improvement(s) you will need to make. When finished, re-upload the corrected file using the click or drag the file onto the upload tile. - With the process now complete, read the confirmation window. This will say "Imported Successfully. All of your employees have been imported to our system".
Edit and Delete Data
- Click the People menu.
- Click the Employees List submenu.
- Select the employee who needs to have their salary deleted.
- In the Pay & Compensation section, select the Pay details tab.
- Click the pencil icon in the Work hours section.
- Choose one of the following:
- Standard daily hours
- Custom work hours
- Fill in the details of the employee's new work hours.
- Click Save.
Further information
This questions asks whether you would like to update the employee's salary based on the change in actual weekly hours. Not whether you would like to change the 'Actual weekly hours' in their 'Salary' tab.
The options have the following consequences on their salary:
"No, do not change"
If you select 'No, do not change', you are opting that the employee's salary is not changed. This will keep their 'effective pay rate' (i.e. what they are paid in reality) the same and update the 'Pay rate (100%)' by extrapolating the 'effective pay rate' using their new FTE.
E.g., if an employee is being paid $1000 a year at 1 FTE → they go down to 0.8 FTE based on changes to their custom hours → 'No, do not change' [Salary] is selected → their 'effective pay rate' stays at $1000, and the new 'pay rate (100%) is updated to $1250.
Yes, change salary
If you select 'Yes, change salary', you are opting that the employee's salary is changed. This will keep their 'pay rate (100%) the same' (i.e. the salary a person at 1 FTE is paid) the same and update the 'effective pay rate' by extrapolating the 'pay rate (100%)' using their new FTE.
E.g., if an employee is am being paid $1000 a year at 1 FTE, then they go down to 0.8 FTE based on changes to their custom hours → 'Yes, change salary' is selected → their 'Effective pay rate' is changed to $800 (based on 0.8 FTE now) and 'Pay rate (100%) 'stays the same.
The effective date is the date the salary change will sync to payroll. Please note the below:
Employment Hero Payroll
- Today or a past date will sync as of today's date. The past date will be stored in HR; however, the salary will change in Payroll as of today's date so any necessary back payments will need to be calculated.
- A future date will sync and be applied in payroll as of the future date
Xero
- If today or a past date is entered in HR, there is an option to sync that to Xero
- If a future date is added, it will not sync to payroll but trigger an email to payroll admin to manually add that to Xero
Understanding how effective dates work with pay runs
The effective date is the date the pay rate syncs to the payroll platform. Once synced to payroll this new pay rate is applied to the employees file and any pay runs that are then created. As such there could be a conflict between when the pay rate syncs and when it should actually be effective, so ensure that the date listed under 'effective date' is the date you would like for the new pay rate to be synced to Payroll and applied to the employees file.
When the effective date is synced in Payroll, how does it apply to a pay run?
If the pay run is already open then the new rate will not change the pay rate in the open pay run, unless you remove the employee and add them back in - then the new pay rate will apply. This also means that if the pay run is already open, and the date that the pay rate change should take effect is included in the pay period, you'll need to manually adjust the pay run to account for the change in pay rate mid way through the pay period.
If the pay run is not yet created when the sync happens, then once it is created the new pay rate will apply to the pay run - even if the pay period is before the 'effective date'.
Example:
- Pay Period 7th July to 13th July 2025
- Date Paid 15th July 2025
- Effective Date in HR 16th July 2025
Best practice for future pay rate changes
With the understanding that the effective date listed in the Salary History section of HR, refers to the date the pay rate will sync to payroll and be applied to newly created pay runs, the best way to action these changes in the future is to ensure you have already created the pay run for the pay period preceding the pay rate change. This will prevent the new pay rate pulling through to the pay run.
When filling in salary details for employees in HR platforms connected to EH Payroll classic, selecting the industrial instrument and classification automatically populates the award rate based on the given payroll settings. For casual employees, the populated pay rate includes casual loading, which is automatically applied in Payroll. If the user doesn't override the pay rate and enter the hourly rate excluding casual loading in HR, syncing to Payroll will apply the loading appropriately.
Employment Hero bases working weeks on an employee's start date. For example, if an employee's start date is the 1st of January, the week from 1st January to 7th January will be their first working week, 8th January to 15th January will be their second working week, and so on through to the eighth week.
Benefits of 8-week custom work hours
Extending custom work hours to eight weeks provides significant advantages for businesses managing fly in/fly out (FIFO) or other rotational workforces:
- Award compliance: Accurately reflects work cycles that can be averaged over extended periods as permitted by Award or Enterprise Agreement provisions
- Improved accuracy: Ensures correct calculation of overtime, leave entitlements, and pay based on actual work patterns rather than standard weekly averages
- Reduced manual adjustments: Minimizes the need for payroll corrections when work patterns extend beyond two weeks
- Better visibility: Provides clearer insight into long-term roster patterns, supporting more effective workforce planning
All existing one and two week configuration patterns will continue to work and can be extended to eight weeks if needed.
Please note that Custom Work Hours are only compatible with the Employment Hero Payroll classic platform. Please click this link for more information.
Explore related content
- Manage employee salary history You can use this feature to add an employee's salary details and specify the leave allowance template, leave category and pay schedule that needs to be applied.
- Manage employee pay run details This feature allows you to select whether employees do not need to submit timesheets, submit them only as an exception or they submit a timesheet for all work they undertake within your organisation.