What’s new and coming soon for the Employment Hero Mobile App?

There are three reasons for this significant change:

1. Attract and retain talent: In a tight labour market, it’s become increasingly difficult for many SMEs to attract and retain top talent. Swag will help you attract and retain talent, plus boost your employment value proposition (EVP) by offering exclusive rewards and corporate-level discounts for employees and candidates. The Swag also works with Employment Hero’s Applicant Tracking System and free job board to streamline recruitment and save you on job advertising via paid job boards.
2. Cut the cost of living: The cost of living increased 9.3% last year, affecting more Australians than ever (ABS, 2023). Swag will offer features like Cashback discounts and card linked offers so you can give employees a unique way to save on everyday items and make their money go further.
3. Improve the user experience: We have had consistent feedback from you, our customers, that you want to see an improved mobile user experience (UX). This update addresses that with a beautiful UX update.

The Swag superapp aims to tackle today’s pressing employment issues with updated functionality and new features. With Swag, your employees can manage work admin, promote financial wellbeing, discover internal development opportunities and access exclusive perks. It’s an easier way to attract talent, show recognition and boost retention.

Swag is the next iteration of the Employment Hero app, where everything work and money is rolled into one powerful app. By introducing new app features and functionality, our goal is to make employment easier and more rewarding. The Swag app now contains everything an employee will need to manage their work, career, save on everyday purchases, and claim exclusive benefits.

If your employees use the Employment Hero App, they will only need to update their app on Wednesday 1 March. For any employees who haven’t previously downloaded the Employment Hero App, they will need to search for Swag in either the Google Play or App Store to download. They can log into Swag using their existing credentials.

Over the years we have received customer feedback on the user experience of the mobile app. This change improves the UX and introduces feature parity across both the desktop and mobile versions of the system. All of the features and functionality that your employees accessed in the Employment Hero App will be available in Swag, with some great new functionality to further support employees.
UX improvements
Swag features an updated user interface that improves the user experience. Upon updating the app, a quick walkthrough will show your employees what has changed.
Swag Work
Swag Work will feature all the same functionality your people use and love, with a new facelift. Expect the UI to be cleaner and easier to navigate.
Swag Money
Swag Money includes features like on-demand pay (InstaPay), a dedicated Swag Spend account and card-linked discounts and Cashback Offers. With these features you can provide the tools to fight inflation and reduce financial stress.
Swag Benefits
Swag Benefits offers exclusive rewards and discounts in the Swag store where your employees can access hundreds of products at reduced prices.
Swag Career
Swag Career helps you showcase internal opportunities to your team and tap into referral networks - making it easier to retain and hire great people. Features include an internal job board, free job posting, and candidate profiles with accreditations and employment documents for easy onboarding. employees can easily refer people from their network for open roles, direct message candidates and internal candidates can easily check their application process with you having full visibility of your talent pipeline.

Employees will receive an in-app walkthrough of the new Swag features when they update their Employment Hero mobile app on Wednesday March 1.
In the coming weeks we will send you links to templates that you can use to inform your employees of the upcoming change.

Within the Money Tab of Swag, your employees have access to a range of features to promote financial well-being and help fight the cost of living crisis. Your employees can set up a Swag Spend account which helps them unlock hundreds of unique cashback discounts and card-linked offers with no monthly fees. Pay Spilt ensures employees always have funds on-hand and ready to use in their Swag Spend account. If your subscription includes Payroll, employees have access to InstaPay, which enables your employees to access a portion of their earned wages without the need for credit.
With Benefits, you can supercharge your EVP by offering exclusive rewards and perks. Your employees' have access to the Swag's discount marketplace with hundreds of products at reduced prices. You can give your employees Hero Dollars to recognise the great work they do which they can spend in the Swag store.

Yes, these changes will only apply to the mobile app. The Employment Hero desktop experience will remain the same. We are working to improve feature parity between the desktop and mobile app. The existing Employment Hero app will reflect the new Swag branding, features and new User Interface (UI).

No, this won’t affect the Employment Hero desktop experience. On desktop, the Employment Hero name, functionality, look and feel, and sign-in process will remain unchanged. The change to Swag will only be reflected in the Employment Hero mobile app.

Only the Employment Hero mobile app will change its name and brand to Swag. The desktop Employment Hero product will not change.

You can use the support resources on this landing page to communicate this change to your staff. On this page, we have email templates, communications and reminder messaging for you to use.
An in-app walkthrough will guide employees on what’s new when they download Swag from 1 March.

As we continue to evolve Swag, our Payroll customers will be pleased to know that in the coming months, the functionality in the WorkZone app will fully move into Swag. We will communicate with you as this change happens, so watch this space!

The Swag app will be available to download from 1 March in either the Google Play or App Store. You can search for “Swag by Employment Hero” to locate the correct app.

It is a personal preference. There is nothing stopping your employee from downloading the current version of the Employment Hero app and on 1 March updating the app to see the new Swag name, new look and new features. As an admin, you can offer your new employee the option to download today or wait till 1 March, however we do encourage them to download now and update the app on 1 March.

No, InstaPay is not a credit product. Employees get early access to their own earned pay without the need to use credit cards, BNPL, or loans. There is no interest or late fees for using InstaPay. There is just one small fee of $3 into a Hero Wallet or $4 into another bank account per transaction to use InstaPay.

No. With InstaPay Employment Hero is paying a portion of the employee's pay in advance of the pay run to the employee. Then when the payrun happens and the employee gets their pay, Employment Hero deducts the InstaPay amount already paid to the employee as an automatic deduction from the employee's pay. This is all automated and completed as part of the pay run so there’s no extra admin on the employer. The employee will see this as a deduction in their payslip. Find out how to view, process and report on InstaPay in the payroll here.

We are aiming to bridge across the payday gap, providing employees access to their wages immediately so they don’t use expensive short-term credit products and manage their money in a timely manner.

Our research shows that employees use InstaPay to pay bills, manage any unplanned expenses and for emergencies.

No credit is being extended, no interest is paid and there are no ongoing fees, with automatic repayment on payday, and with weekly limits InstaPay is a product that can help employees manage their money effectively.

We have withdrawal limits which are;

• A weekly withdrawal limit of $250
• 50% of an employee's unpaid net pay owed is eligible for InstaPay with a weekly cap of $250.
• For permanent employees, the InstaPay balance is based on accrued entitlements from hours already worked.
• For casuals, InstaPay is only available for hours worked and approved by the employer.

When employees use the feature, they pay Employment Hero a small fixed fee of $3 or $4.

Instead of the employer paying their employee their full wages, employers need to reimburse Employment Hero for the InstaPay portion of pay that has already been paid to the employee and pay the employee the remainder of the pay. There are no other fees payable. This is all automated and completed as part of the pay run so there’s no extra admin on the employer.

The employee will not have outstanding fees they owe Employment Hero, as everything is automated. The only way employers could be liable for unpaid amounts is if employers decided not to pay Employment Hero as part of the payrun for the portion of pay already paid to the employee.

InstaPay is not classed as a financial product, irrespective of this Employment Hero is careful to ensure it does not provide personal financial advice to any employees or customers.

Employers are not at risk of being seen as providing financial advice as InstaPay is provided by Employment Hero directly to the employee as a customer and InstaPay is not a financial product under ASIC regulation.

When an employee requests an InstaPay payment, these transactions will appear in the relevant pay run as a post-tax deduction. Employment Hero bases InstaPay availability on approved timesheets, or a prorated daily amount (for each work day) for salaried employees. Find out how to view, process and report on InstaPay in the payroll here.

Employees can get help via the Swag app, or via the Employment Hero Help Centre. There are FAQs for employees here. There is also an InstaPay web page here.