I've got a new employee, what now?

You've made the decision to hire a new employee ... what happens now?

This is a common question. At the simplest level, you need a way to get their personal, financial and payment information and provide them with the relevant legal forms. This is a longer article than most and is broken up into:

Forms

Employment Information Form (internal use, allows for easy data entry into software to setup employee)
Superannuation Choice Form
New Contractor Information Form (internal use, kind of like a checklist)

Getting the payments right and selecting the Award

You will need to know the Award that you are hiring your team member under. This is a specific area of law and making a mistake can get you into trouble.

We have a blog article available on how to read an Award, that can be found here:

Getting this wrong can have big financial consequences especially now that the Government has criminalised 'wage theft'. As of 1 January 2025, wage theft has been criminalised nationwide in Australia. This means that businesses that intentionally underpay workers or withhold entitlements, could now face criminal charges, hefty fines, and even jail time. Importantly, this doesn’t include honest mistakes.

There are protections in place for businesses to avoid criminal prosecution and these are included in the Voluntary Small Business Compliance Code (Code). The Fair Work Ombudsman has created a guide to paying employees correctly and the Voluntary Small Business Wage Compliance Code which you can access here (it's a PDF File).

In short the Code is a framework designed to help small businesses (those with less than 15 employees) meet their obligations around payroll and employee entitlements. The purpose of the Code is to help small business employers avoid criminal prosecution if they didn’t intentionally underpay their workers.

It is important to note is that while accessing the protections of the Code prevents a business from criminal charges, Fair Work can still take Civil action against a small business employer and those involved in the underpayment.

Fair Work

FairWork will govern a number of the employment conditions for your employees. There are a number of legal obligations including giving new employees an Information Statement. The type of IS that you provide will depend upon the nature of their work i.e. Full Time, Casual, Contract.

You only need to give this to your employee at the commencement of employment. These are updated regularly, the link to access these is found here: https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/information-statements/fair-work-information-statement (Full Time Work).

For Casual Work there is a different form and this can be found at: https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/information-statements/casual-employment-information-statement

It is easier to include this in the email that you send to offer employment as it is a regulation that should anything every become an issue that you are able to demonstrate that you provided your employee with this information.

Employees versus Contractors

This is a major area of law and there can be major issues with mis-classification. Generally superannuation and Workcover will still be required for people (individuals/sole traders) who work for you and principally provide labour only. This coverage is under the extended definition of employees for the various acts.

They are not exactly the same but for practical effect are and that is that if you hire an individual person (employee or contract) and they provide principally labour then they will likely be considered employees for the purpose of workcover and superannuation coverage.

Worksafe Qld (PDF) Wages Definition Manual (refer to Page 9 for individual contractor payments): https://www.worksafe.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/17240/wages-definition-manual.pdf

Worksafe Qld (PDF) Presentation on Who is a Worker: https://www.worksafe.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/20806/who-is-a-worker-employer-guidance.pdf

STP

Single Touch Payroll (STP) is a government requirement that each pay cycle all wages information is reported. This is very easy with software once it has been setup. When you’re ready to go and have Michaela’s employment information then we can add her to your payroll in Xero and get that setup.

Superannuation is to be paid at a minimum each quarter and is generally 11.5% of the employees gross pay (excluding overtime). This will be increasing to 12% on the 1 July 2025.

Your employee can nominate you as an employer via their MyID (formerly MyGov) account as well, but you will still need their TFN to be able to effectively add them to your payroll. You may need to provide them with your ABN for the correct employer to be nominated.

Disclaimer and where to find help ...

There is the standard disclaimer for this note that this is general information only and provided for education purposes. There might be additional and specific things that you need to do to meet compliance in your industry or under the Award.

This may include Award determination, contract for employment, site inductions, license verification etc - this is a non-exhaustive list.

If you need assistance please contact your Client Manager who can then provide a referral for suitably qualified person, whether it be a lawyer or HR specialist.