What Is Employment Hero?

Employment Hero is a cloud-based “Employment Operating System” — an all-in-one platform that combines HR, payroll, hiring and employee benefits into a single piece of software. Founded in Australia in 2014, it’s designed to help small and medium businesses manage the employee lifecycle from onboarding through to offboarding without needing a large internal HR or payroll team.

For SME owners who are currently juggling spreadsheets, paper contracts and manual pay runs, Employment Hero is essentially a digital toolkit that centralises employee records, automates payroll, and helps track leave, performance and compliance tasks in one place.

Importantly, software is not a substitute for HR expertise or legal compliance under the Fair Work Act 2009. A platform like Employment Hero can help you administer your obligations more efficiently, but it doesn’t tell you whether your awards are correctly applied, your classifications are right, or your policies are legally sound. That’s where an HR professional still needs to be part of the equation.

What Does Employment Hero Actually Do?

Employment Hero brings together several functions that many small businesses currently manage separately (often across email, spreadsheets and paper files):

HR administration — digital employee records, contracts, policy acknowledgements, and org charts
Payroll — pay runs, Single Touch Payroll (STP) reporting to the ATO, and superannuation processing
Onboarding and offboarding — digital new-starter paperwork and checklists
Time and attendance — rostering, timesheets and leave requests
Recruitment (ATS) — job ad posting, applicant tracking and screening
Performance management — goal setting and review cycles
Employee benefits — perks such as discounts and early wage access

Not every SME needs every module. Many businesses start with just payroll or just HR record-keeping, and expand into other modules as they grow.

Where Employment Hero Fits Into Your Legal Obligations

Australian employers have a range of obligations under the Fair Work Act 2009, the National Employment Standards (NES), and applicable Modern Awards — regardless of business size. A platform like Employment Hero can help you action these obligations more consistently, but the underlying legal responsibility always sits with the employer. A few examples of where the two intersect:

Record-keeping and pay slips

Under the Fair Work Act, employers must keep accurate time and wage records for seven years, and these records must be complete, legible and in English — there is no exemption based on business size, so a sole trader with one casual employee has the same record-keeping obligations as a large corporation [1]. Pay slips must be issued within one working day of pay day, even if the employee is on leave, and must include specific details such as gross and net pay, the employer’s ABN, and any loadings or allowances paid separately for each pay period [3]. Digital HR/payroll platforms are commonly used to automate this — but the employer remains legally responsible for accuracy.

Superannuation and “Payday Super”

The Superannuation Guarantee (SG) rate is currently 12%, calculated on ordinary time earnings [7]. From 1 July 2026, a significant reform known as “Payday Super” comes into effect: employers will be required to pay super contributions at the same time as wages, with funds required to reach the employee’s super account within seven business days of payday, rather than the current quarterly cycle — and the calculation base is moving to a broader “qualifying earnings” measure that includes ordinary time earnings, commissions and salary sacrifice amounts [7]. This is a major cash-flow and payroll-system change for SMEs, and it’s a good example of where having payroll software connected to compliant, real-time reporting (via Single Touch Payroll) becomes genuinely important — not just a nice-to-have.

The Fair Work Information Statement and NES

Every new employee must be given a copy of the Fair Work Information Statement (FWIS) when they start, and every new casual employee must also receive the Casual Employment Information Statement (CEIS) at the start of employment and again at set intervals throughout it [4]. These sit alongside the 11 minimum entitlements that make up the National Employment Standards, covering areas such as maximum weekly hours, leave entitlements, notice of termination, redundancy pay, and superannuation — which is itself an NES entitlement, subject to some exclusions [5]. HR platforms can help you issue these statements consistently as part of a digital onboarding workflow — but the content and timing requirements come from the Fair Work Act, not the software.

Modern Award coverage

Most Australian SMEs are covered by one or more Modern Awards, which set out minimum pay rates, penalty rates, allowances and classifications for specific industries and occupations. No HR or payroll software — including Employment Hero — can determine the correct award or classification for your business on its own. That judgement call needs to be made (or checked) by someone who understands award interpretation, because getting it wrong is one of the most common — and costly — compliance failures for SMEs. Software then helps you apply that correct classification consistently and pay it accurately, pay run after pay run.

Practical SME Examples

Example 1 — A 12-person retail business. A small retail employer currently manages timesheets on paper and processes pay manually through their accounting software. They introduce a platform like Employment Hero to digitise rosters, timesheets and pay runs. This reduces manual data entry errors and creates a clear digital record for Fair Work record-keeping purposes. However, before go-live, they still need an HR/IR review to confirm their staff are correctly classified under the relevant Award and that penalty rates and allowances are configured correctly in the system — the software will only pay what it’s told to pay.

Example 2 — A growing professional services firm. A firm going from 8 to 25 employees over 18 months starts using a platform for onboarding, contracts and performance reviews to keep pace with growth. This improves consistency and record-keeping. But contract templates, probation clauses and performance management processes still need to be drafted or reviewed against current Fair Work Act requirements — a generic template inside any software platform is a starting point, not a compliance guarantee.

Common Mistakes SMEs Make With HR/Payroll Platforms

Assuming the software knows the law. Platforms automate calculations based on the settings and award data entered — they don’t independently verify that your award coverage, classifications or pay rates are correct.
Not reviewing default templates. Standard contract, policy and letter templates provided within a platform are usually generic and may not reflect your specific Award, state-based obligations, or business context.
Migrating incorrect data. If historical pay rates, leave balances or classifications are wrong before implementation, the software will simply continue applying the same errors — faster.
Treating “compliance features” as compliance itself. Reminders, checklists and dashboards are helpful admin tools, but they don’t replace a genuine HR or IR compliance review.
Skipping change management. Rolling out new HR/payroll software without properly communicating it to staff often causes confusion around pay, leave balances and self-service access.
Forgetting the human side. Employee benefits, engagement features and self-service portals work best when paired with clear internal communication — not as a silent system change.

Employment Hero Implementation Checklist for SMEs

Before (or during) an Employment Hero implementation, it’s worth working through:

[ ] Confirm correct Award coverage and classifications for every role, before data migration

[ ] Audit current pay rates, leave balances and employment terms for accuracy

[ ] Review and update employment contracts and policies to reflect current Fair Work Act and NES requirements

[ ] Configure pay conditions (penalty rates, allowances, overtime rules) correctly against the applicable Award(s)

[ ] Prepare for Payday Super requirements ahead of 1 July 2026, including payroll and super fund readiness

[ ] Set up onboarding workflows to issue the Fair Work Information Statement and, where relevant, the Casual Employment Information Statement

[ ] Test a sample pay run before going live business-wide

[ ] Plan staff communication so employees understand what’s changing and how to use self-service features

[ ] Schedule a periodic compliance review — software settings can drift out of date as Awards and legislation change

An Employment Hero implementation done well combines the software rollout with this kind of compliance groundwork — done in isolation, either one leaves gaps.

How HR Excellence Partners Supports SMEs

Choosing and implementing a platform like Employment Hero is a smart efficiency move for many Australian SMEs — but the software is only ever as compliant as the data, classifications and policies behind it. At HR Excellence Partners, we help SME owners get the HR fundamentals right before, during and after an Employment Hero implementation: confirming Award coverage, auditing pay and classification accuracy, reviewing contracts and policies, and building onboarding processes that meet your Fair Work Act obligations.

If you’re not sure whether your current HR setup — software or otherwise — is actually compliant, a good starting point is our HR Health Check. It’s a practical review of where your business stands against the Fair Work Act, the NES and your applicable Award(s), with clear next steps.

Use code HEPFREE at checkout to have the cost of your HR Health Check waived.

Book your HR Health Check with HR Excellence Partners →

Vas Papadopoulos
Founder & Principal HR Consultant
HR Excellence Partners
vas@hrexcellencepartners.com.au
hrexcellencepartners.com.au
+61 432 244 744

References

Fair Work Ombudsman, Record-keeping and pay slips fact sheet — https://www.fairwork.gov.au/tools-and-resources/fact-sheets/rights-and-obligations/record-keeping-pay-slips
Fair Work Ombudsman, Pay slips and record-keeping — https://www.fairwork.gov.au/tools-and-resources/language-help/english/pay-slips-and-record-keeping
Fair Work Ombudsman, Pay slips — https://www.fairwork.gov.au/pay-and-wages/paying-wages/pay-slips
Fair Work Ombudsman, National Employment Standards — https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/national-employment-standards
Fair Work Ombudsman, Introduction to the National Employment Standards fact sheet — https://www.fairwork.gov.au/tools-and-resources/fact-sheets/minimum-workplace-entitlements/introduction-to-the-national-employment-standards
Fair Work Commission, National Employment Standards — https://www.fwc.gov.au/work-conditions/minimum-wages-and-conditions/national-employment-standards
Australian Taxation Office, About Payday Super – Superannuation Changes — https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/super-for-employers/payday-super/about-payday-super
Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) — https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2009A00028

What Does Employment Hero Actually Do?