You’re doing it all wrong.
Due to the complexity of Modern Awards and Enterprise Bargaining Agreements (EBA), employers who aren’t using cloud rostering software are overpaying staff to compensate for their lack of understanding.
As a result, thousands of businesses, large and small, are switching to cloud rostering software because it provides three major benefits:
- Better cost control of wages
- Increased accuracy and productivity
- Improved staff morale
In this article, we’ll go into detail why manual payroll processes leaves your business potentially exposed to thousands of dollars of overpayments, and how you can remedy this by transitioning your business to a cloud rostering software.
This can include minimum wage rates, penalty rates, leave, minimum rest periods and a range of other minimum requirements.
These are often poorly understood by employers and frequently result in exceeding direct labour cost budgets and poor wage control.
The use of a redundant rostering system like spreadsheets and on paper compounds wage control problems due to a lack of circuit breakers or a system to help identify these pitfalls.
For example, for industries such as hospitality or airlines where businesses operate for long hours - Modern Awards often set out minimum rest periods between shifts. Employers often overlook this part and place employees that finish on a late shift the previous night onto a morning shift the following day.
The result? Paying double the rate for the second shift.
Another example - many Modern Awards usually enforce some level of penalty rates once employees work more than 72 hours in a fortnight or 144 hours in a month.
The use of manual rostering systems will mean that when these conditions are exceeded, you could potentially be unknowingly rostering additional hours at significantly higher rates.
The benefit of a cloud rostering software: A centralised cloud rostering system will afford the ability to input all modern award or EBA conditions as well as become updated whenever there are legislative changes to the award.
These conditions are applied to the cloud rostering feature of the software and alert employers of any potential cost control blowouts that may occur.
In addition, a centralised cloud roster system have the added benefit of comparing actual attendance vs. expected attendance in a live format.
Cloud payroll systems can employers identify employees who are chronically arriving too early or finishing too late to address performance issues that will help with controlling further wage costs.
Rostering often means a lot of:
- Checking the availability of staff
- Adjusting schedules
- Meeting individual staff preferences
- Reducing overtime
- Managing over/understaffing
- Avoiding too many consecutive days of working (for shift workers)
- Avoiding late to early transitions for businesses that operate long hours
And many more.
The practice of manual rostering in your payroll process means that there’s a significant amount of back and forth and double handling to adjust the roster to meet all of these requirements as much as possible.
The benefit of a cloud rostering software: Having the ability to build your roster on a cloud rostering software will mean that there’s a centralised place for employees and employers to communicate and adjust availability.
Employees can indicate changes in their availability on the software, which can then be reported to the employer at the time of building the roster on the platform.
This centralised system proves to be a significant time-saving measure and avoids employers having to re-release rosters that need adjusting.
Employers are often guilty of not taking note of requested days off by staff, no accounting for leave that was approved ahead of time and making late adjustments to the roster due to concerns that are not addressed.
While the odd adjustment occurring now and again is acceptable, constant mismanagement of rosters can cause staff to feel that their requests are not being taken seriously nor generates a great deal of confidence in the employer.
Often in larger operations, roles of staff can be distinctly different from one another. Manual rostering often results in errors of shift assignment mismatches.
For example, assigning an entry-level staff on supervisory shifts by accident or assigning a commis chef to complete a sous chef’s duties, when they aren’t capable of doing so.
If not picked up before the shift, this can result in significant duress to the entire team during the operation of that particular shift.
The benefit of a cloud rostering software: Using a centralised rostering software can address this by removing the human error element of rostering.
Employers can pre-populate set shifts each week for permanent staff as well as assign titles or skillsets to all staff to avoid accidentally rostering them on a shift duty that does not fall within their capabilities.
This not only ensures accuracy but also minimises adjustments that need to be made that can impact on staff morale or confidence.
No one wants to pay more than they need to for labour costs. By giving your business the best shot to comply with Modern Awards, cloud rostering software provides a robust and simple solution to address poor rostering practices and human error.
With complex employment conditions taken care of, employers can focus on accuracy and time-saving measures afforded by the cloud rostering software. Cloud rostering software generally forms part of a cloud payroll software where communication regarding rostering and payroll can all be centralised and communicated on the platform. This includes automatically sending rosters to staff via apps as well as shift swaps that can be made automatically.
Pay Cat are payroll specialists focused on helping clients transition from manual payroll processes to a cloud payroll and rostering system with a focus on eliminating efficiencies to save you time and money. As agnostic payroll experts, we can match your organisation with the best cloud rostering and payroll solution to match your needs.
If you’re interested in seeing how we can help you to migrate to a cloud payroll system, talk to us today.
