As the focus shifts towards some of the world’s biggest companies becoming undone, HRD takes a closer look at the workplace compliance glitch and how measuring data could be the only way forward
Over 28,000 workplace cases were resolved by the Fair Work Ombudsman in the 2017–18 period, a 5% increase from the previous year and a climb that resulted in close to $30m being recovered for workers. Nearly $9m of this amount was due to compliance and enforcement faults.
In light of recent media headlines inundated with reputable names that have come under fire for underpaying staff across several industries, the question must be asked: why is Australia’s workforce under the spotlight when technology leaves no room for human error?
“I don’t believe it’s their reluctance to be compliant. I think it can be confusing and costly,” says David Kroser, managing director and founding partner of workforce management solutions provider RITEQ.
He believes it’s an insight into an employer’s mindset when it comes to navigating the changing complexity of the Australian award and EBA landscape.
It’s become an infectious call to action, and as more Australians rally for their rights and conditions to be met, there has never been a greater need for employers to not only proactively seek to rectify their wrongs but most importantly to restructure how their HR departments and payroll teams validate awards and workplace laws – in accordance with how these documents were originally meant to be perceived when they were first written up by industry bodies.
This is because, according to Kroser, although many employers may be incorrectly interpreting workplace laws on paper, “the vast majority are possibly not aware of the fact that they are doing it”.
Road to recovery
RITEQ has been shown the back door to the inner workings of Australian companies and HR departments since 2002. But there’s a common issue that has surfaced throughout the years and continues to prevail today – inconsistency across the board.
“We can have 20 retailers on an identical award, which is documented and governed by the retail governing body, and all 20 retailers can interpret it slightly differently because a lot of these rules are so complex, and a lot of these rules have been developed over so many years that it’s quite easy to actually interpret them incorrectly,” Kroser says.
He also acknowledges that the multifaceted Australian playing field is one of the most challenging and intricate compared with those in most other countries in the world.
Referring to the overarching attitude as a “level of complacency”, Kroser says companies need to refrain from placing the complete onus and pressure on the expertise of the payroll and HR department. Rather, he advises that they go back to the governing body or association that drew up the awards and request that an audit be done.
“Make sure that your interpretation of every rule within an award is exactly the same as their intended interpretation when they wrote up the award originally,” Kroser says, adding that it may also be a good idea to engage an industrial relations lawyer to validate the audit in writing so that absolute clarity is reached.
However, he says an employer could “still end up going down the same track” because the IR lawyer or an awards specialist might also “interpret it in a slightly different way than what was intended”.
But what happens if the findings are too much to bear?
Massive compensation figures of $5.4m, $5.7m and $2m are just a few that have hit the headlines as a result of underpaid staff.
In reflecting on a wide range of situations that RITEQ has experienced as part of its requirement gathering process, Kroser says: “There are people in the organisation at a pretty senior level that are aware of these failings but are in many ways concerned that if they bring it to the fore, what that might mean in terms of back pay.”
It’s all in the data
Data has never been more crucial for companies today, yet it is still undervalued in a world where business growth and return on investment are measured by the dollar sign.
“Companies that use data and the stories it tells to identify potential non-compliance and make decisions are effectively using principles based more on science than intuition or guesswork,” Kroser says.
“The ones that are making decisions based on their gut feeling, or what they think is the right decision, are generally the companies that are falling foul and in some cases struggling to stay afloat.”
But he also affirms that, once an employer is guided through how to properly measure the value of data, in terms of the results it brings to effective rostering, productivity, and doing more with less, they’re not going to want to take the software out of the equation. Finding a workforce management provider that has a deep level of experience in award interpretation and delivering data insights is just as important.
As the market becomes inundated with software competitors increasingly wanting to capture the visually mesmerised millennial, RITEQ maintains its standing as a leader in the field for its expertise in award interpretation and leveraging data insights to drive exceptional company results.
“Delivering visually appealing graphs that don’t go beyond helping sell a solution has always come second to our focus of ensuring that we deliver true and measurable value to our clients,” Kroser says.
Whether it be keeping pace with compliance law, enhancing rostering to achieve profitability, or introducing a high level of automation of manual tasks once done by a human, Kroser says: “The power is in the stories that data can tell, and then turning those stories into actions that efficiently find where problems exist and provide the most effective solutions.”
Coding work-life balance
Australians are a hard-working bunch – in fact, in 2017, according to an Australian Institute for Health and Welfare report, we sat in the bottom third out of 35 other OECD countries for work-life balance, mainly as a result of working long hours.
“I think we’ve reached a stage in the evolution of the world where finding a balance between different areas of your life has become so critically important, and none more so than at work,” Kroser says.
The inherent value of data extends to its ability to identify detrimental work patterns.
“What might be the reason for that?” Kroser asks. “Is it the employees? Are they suffering from workforce stress? All of these sorts of things come into play, and now into workforce management systems, being that they are able to track patterns of time that people work, including things like not taking enough time off, and fatigue.”
RITEQ’s tech-powered TLC will also be heading in the direction of helping to understand the mental wellbeing of employees, with several developments in the pipeline.
“The next frontier in terms of workforce management is definitely how we use artificial intelligence and machine learning to make these systems smarter and able to make decisions that are better decisions than a human can make,” Kroser says.
It sounds like a future that could increasingly turn away from human intervention, as such systems are only expected to get “smarter and smarter” the more they’re deployed for the job at hand. However, Kroser is careful, almost reluctant, to use the term ‘AI’ in conversation.
“It’s almost like having a robot behind the scenes to solve problems provided by some critical decision-making,” he says.
RITEQ RITEQ develops workforce management software designed to simplify and automate your workforce management processes. RITEQ Workforce Manager (WFM) is scalable and modular, allowing your company to optimise rostering, control labour costs and maximise accountability with cost-effective time and attendance.
