Question I’ve been asked time and time again..
‘How can I be underpaying my staff? I pay my staff an agreed salary or hourly rate on a contract they signed!’
Award classifications in various industries can be complicated and confusing at the best of times, especially in Hospitality. So many business owners I speak to are completely unaware that they may be under paying their staff without even knowing it. That can be a scary thing to uncover in the event of an audit!
The same statement or question always comes up, ‘How can I be underpaying my staff when they happily signed an employment contract stating their salary or hourly rate? Isn’t that legally binding and doesn’t it offer me protection?’ The answer is an emphatic NO. The Award always supersedes any employment contract and the employee entitlements awarded to an employee under an Award cannot be replaced by an employment agreement.
What does that mean in laymen terms? If a staff member is on a salary of $X per year, the business owner must ensure that the renumeration afforded to the employee is still the same or above the minimum wage the employee is entitled to according to the Award. Therefore, careful consideration must be taken to ensure all the various penalty rates and entitlements (and there are SO MANY) have been calculated and don’t amount to higher than their actual salary! The amount of varying situations and rates can be staggering especially in Hospitality!
How can we overcome this and ensure we are not under paying our employees?
At Tax On Tax Off we setup integrations with various roster applications such as Deputy and Tanda that not only make rostering a breeze but also have the capability of automating the entitlements awarded to an employee under the Award to ensure your business complies with legislation. Additionally, the integrations retrieve sales data from various POS systems to provide in depth reporting on sales vs labour to give business owners the tools they need to fine tune their operations and reduce costs. After all, labour is the largest expense in any business and it’s extremely important to have quality and real time data at hand to maximise profitability.
Contact us for a free consultation and find out how integration and automation can improve your workflow today.