Author: Aaron Goonrey (Partner, Lander & Rogers)
This article was originally published in Lexology.
Do you have annualised wages
in your organisation? This guide will help you get prepared for the 1 March
2020 changes.
The concept of annualised wages
under modern awards and their impact on existing employment arrangements has
left many HR practitioners bewildered. There is one certainty – it is time to
start assessing your employees’ existing annualised wage or salary arrangements
with modern award obligations in mind. This will include reconciling the hours
award covered employees work to ensure they are adequately remunerated for any
award entitlements they should receive, even if they are paid a salary under a
contract of employment.
The decision
In July 2019, the Fair Work
Commission handed down a decision for annualised wages as part of its four
yearly review of modern awards (the decision can be accessed
here). The decision requires employers to comply with
certain new modern award annualised wage clauses from 1 March 2020 — but only
in relation to employees who are paid an annualised wage, as opposed to a
salary under a contract of employment.
There are three different types
of annualised wage provisions. For the purposes of this article, we will
refer to the Clerks Award to illustrate the changes brought about by this
decision.
Are you required to do
anything differently?
