Fair Work reviewed 22 targeted aged care providers last week. Among the most common breaches were broken shift entitlements, minimum engagement periods and overtime.
Three of the four most common issues depend on the pattern of work, rather than simply applying a rate to a number of hours.
Was the shift broken? Did each engagement meet the minimum? Did the hours or span of work trigger overtime?
Rules like these need to be worked through before anyone configures the time interpretation engine.
In the award and EA mapping work I see, the problem is often earlier than the system. The obligation hasn't been translated properly into a time interpretation requirement.
If a rule is missing, payroll may process exactly as designed; no error message and nothing obvious on the payslip. The problem is that the rule itself was never there.
Fair Work has called for better payroll and rostering systems, better trained payroll staff and regular compliance audits.
I'd also reconcile the instrument back to the time interpretation requirements, then test those requirements against real rostered scenarios with Payroll, IR and operations involved.
If a rule was missed in the original build, you'll only find the issue through a ground-up review.