Salaried team update
On 30 October 2019, Woolworths Group announced that a number of salaried store members had not been paid in full compliance with the Group’s obligations under the General Retail Industry Award (GRIA). Although these issues are now the subject of litigation with the FWO, to date Woolworths Group has paid over $427 million, including interest and superannuation to affected salaried team members.
End-to-end payroll review
In F21, the Group launched an end-to-end payroll review to ensure robust pay processes across Woolworths Group. This includes reviewing payroll systems and processes to ensure compliance with obligations, awards and enterprise agreements.
This review has identified certain areas of non-compliance in relation to hourly paid team members employed under three different Woolworths Group retail enterprise agreements (EAs) underpinned by the GRIA in Australia and other entitlements across the Woolworths Group.
The areas of non-compliance identified under the Woolworths Supermarkets and BIG W retail EAs include where there are various rostering principles designed to provide team members with consecutive days off over a roster cycle. For example, a team member who is rostered to work three Sundays in a four-week period is required to have a break of three consecutive days, including a Saturday and Sunday, unless they request an alternative arrangement. With no agreement to the contrary initiated by the team member, any time worked on the last three days of the four-week period must be paid at overtime rates.
Another area of non-compliance arose because the Group’s payroll system was incorrectly configured to account for the different long service leave rules in each state and territory across Australia. Woolworths Group is committed to fully rectifying all payment shortfalls as soon as possible.
The payroll review is ongoing across Woolworths Group with more than 85% of team members already reviewed representing over 70% of the total payroll cost. Testing and analysis is currently in progress across Primary Connect and Woolworths New Zealand. This work, which we aspire to have substantially completed by the end of calendar 2022.
