Jarrod McGrath
Good workers don't blame tools, so don't blame software for wage theft
Highlighting a critical issue on The Australian Financial Review, I delve into the unjust practice of attributing wage theft to software failures....
In my piece for the Australian Financial Review, I argue for a pivotal shift in technology strategy to effectively drive Industrial Relations (IR) reform. This article underscores the importance of innovative tech approaches to navigate and support the evolving IR landscape.
Workplace agreements struck up between enterprises, unions and staff rarely take into account the capability of company technology systems to implement them.
There’s very little about 2020 so far that could have easily been predicted, but one thing that comes as no surprise is that industrial relations (IR) reform has become centre stage for Australia’s ambitious JobMaker plan and financial exit strategy from COVID-19.
As we come to terms with officially entering a long-expected recession, the Morrison government has turned its focus to IR reform that maximises both productivity and wages, the ultimate win for the economy, businesses and people.
As Australia enters a long-expected recession, the Morrison government has turned its focus to IR reform. Alex Ellinghausen
This ambitious reform comes at a very complicated time too. The 9-to-5ish is no longer the norm – more staff are working across different regions, in a mixture of casual and full and part-time roles or contributing to the gig economy. Many staff have had to quickly adjust to working from home, and for many workplaces at least some semblance of this will continue.
In that sense, the reform rightfully addresses the digital economy and technology-driven nature of today’s workforce. But there is another vital technology question that the government and its industrial relations consultation groups must consider to enact real change.
All companies have varying levels of workforce management procedures in place and nowadays technology is an essential part of that. Whether it relates to time and attendance, human resources, payroll or anything else under the human capital management (HCM) banner, you can bet there are several digital services at play, often leveraging the cloud.
However, agreements struck up between enterprises, unions and staff rarely, if ever, take these systems into account. The question of "will this agreement comply with the processes and technology in place?" simply does not arise.
Agreements grow more complex and unique over time and vary across different organisations and staff, exacerbating the issue.
Complex agreements
I work with the primary software vendors for all things workforce management, and collectively they’ve spent millions of dollars trying to create a one-size-adapts-to-all solution for increasingly complex agreements.
Say a union decides to implement a change related to overtime payment. As it stands, there is no system in place to simplify or automate the delivery of that change across the organisations it concerns, and that has not factored into the union’s thought process.
HR, payroll and other HCM managers typically need to collaborate with their IT team or partner to get this done, which leaves room for error and inefficiency.
Another example often occurs after negotiations are completed, with changes agreed to be implemented immediately and often backdated. That urgency cannot always be met as the understanding between what was negotiated and what needs to be implemented in a technological sense requires clarification before being built into the software systems.
Sometimes software modifications are required, often still implemented via a manual workaround, which can be slow and interpreted differently across different departments and managers. The consequence is that rushed changes or conflicting interpretations can later be found to cause incorrect payments.
A perfect case and point of when this comes back to bite us is the underpayment scandal that plagued Australian businesses and staff before the pandemic. The failure or inability to connect the dots between processes, technology and people has left staff under or over-paid and cost businesses millions.
As we go through this reform process, we need to use technology to our advantage – the government and its IR consultation groups need to engage with workforce management technology vendors and partners on the ground that deliver them to ensure that whatever they decide, we can leverage it, automate it, and safeguard it from incredibly debilitating issues like underpayment creeping in.
Originally published by The Australian Financial Review
Jarrod McGrath, July 03, 2020
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