Available for the following HR Plan: Standard, Premium, Platinum
Available for the following Payroll Plan: Premium
Available for the following User Access levels: Admin
How it works
Every year, the Fair Work Commission conducts a wage review, which often means an increase to base rates for employees paid under a modern award. If you are using the pre-built industry awards (called Industrial Instruments in the HR platform), the payroll platform will provide updated versions of these award packages on the 1st of July every year. The applicable rate changes are included in this. Any contracts issued by the Fair Work Ombudsmen will be updated as they are released.
What you need to do
An admin needs to complete two actions to apply the Fair Work Commission's award update. The first part is done via the payroll platform, while the second is completed via the HR platform.
Important
Our payroll platform has an Award Updating feature. You can use this to install the latest award version that we have released to cover the Fair Work Commission changes.
- Log into your Employment Hero Payroll platform.
- Click the Business menu.
- Click the Payroll Settings submenu.
- Under Pay Conditions, click Manage Awards.
- Click the Actions button.
- Click the Apply Updates button.
- Select Yes or No to the following questions:
Important
Depending on your payroll platform setup, you may not see all the questions below.
- Update rule sets.
Warning
If you have changed the rule set period from the platform default, updating an award will reset it back to default.
Select yes if you would like to update all the default rule sets assigned to this award.
- Preserve disabled rules.
Warning
Select yes if you want your disabled rules preserved. If you choose no, the payroll platform will enable the rule sets you had disabled.
- Update pay rates.
Helpful Hint
Select yes if you want the platform to update the pay rates for all employees linked to a pay rate template for this award. The platform will only update rates that have changed. If you have overridden the rate for an employee linked to the award, these rates will not change, and the platform will display a message if this is the case.
- Re-apply leave allowance templates to linked employees.
Helpful Hint
Select yes if you want to update any leave allowance templates as part of this award update.
- Preserve custom work types.
Helpful Hint
There are certain settings for an award work type that you can change, such as Automatically Enabled For and Work Maps To. If you have customised any of these settings and wish to preserve them, select Yes for this option when installing an award update.
- Preserve custom leave allowance templates.
Important
There are certain settings for an award leave allowance temple that you can change, such as the following:
- Leave year start date.
- Leave loading.
- Enabled leave categories.
- Leave category units.
- Leave category unit type.
- Leave category leave loading.
- Accrues.
- Accrue in advance.
- Maximum accrual.
- Carry over.
- Contingent period/entitlement period.
- Preserve custom pay periods.
If you have customised just one setting listed above within a leave allowance template and you select yes to this question, the platform will deem the whole leave allowance as customised and will not update the template.
- Preserve custom pay categories.
Important
There are certain settings for an award pay category that you can change, such as the following:
- Super rate.
- Rate loading.
- PAYG exempt.
- Payroll tax-exempt.
- Accrues leave.
- Hide units on pay slip.
- Payment classification.
- Rate precision.
If you have customised just one setting listed above and you want to preserve these settings, then select Yes to this question.
- Preserve custom rule set period.
Helpful Hint
Each pay condition has a rule-set default period defined by the award. There may be cases where you choose to apply a rule period that runs in line with your pay period, and so you customise this setting. If this is the case, make sure you select Yes to this question.
- Update rule sets.
- Click the Install button.
- Click the Accept button.
Helpful Hint
After this, the payroll platform will take you to the Employment Agreements screen where you can see the updated award.
Important
The HR platform is the source of truth for your company settings, payroll settings, and employee file data. To apply the latest award changes to your employees, you need to manually add the updated award classification from the payroll platform.
- Log into your Employment Hero platform.
- Click the Settings menu.
- Under Payroll Settings, click the Classifications submenu.
- Click the Update From Payroll button.
Helpful Hint
The Classifications page will now show a green Updated button. This means the HR platform has successfully imported your classifications from the payroll platform. You can click the View Pay Rates button to see further details about the classification, such as pay rate, pay type, and pay category.
Important
After a successful sync, the HR platform will automatically create a new salary entry for each employee requiring an updated pay rate. You can see this reflected in the Pay Details tab in the employee file. The effective date displayed in the new salary line will be the date the sync occurred. We have received several support queries about this, so please be aware of this feature.
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Comments
we updated the Award on the payroll platform then sync it to the HR platform. But in the HR platform, it states that the new payrate is only effective the date that we sync which is today > 3/7/2024 whilst legally it should be 1/7/2024 ? is there anything else we missed?
Hi Sim Thein,
Thanks for reaching out. I have created a support ticket for you so you can discuss your question with the support team, who are positioned to be able to assist with support requests. Your ticket number is Request # 1131431 and you will receive an email from the support team confirming that they have received your question and will be back in touch with you ASAP.
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