• Business Growth & Optimisation

2024 Guide to the Australian Minimum Wage for Employers

6 min. read02.02.2024
By Team Zeller

If you’re hiring staff, promoting staff, or giving employees different responsibilities this year, you’ll need to know exactly how much you should be remunerating them for their work.

In this guide, we outline how the minimum wage works in Australia and explain the difference between awards, registered agreements, and the National Minimum Wage, and how to find the wage rates for your employees.

What is minimum wage in Australia?

Minimum wage refers to the minimum amount you can pay an employee for the work they are doing. The wage of every Australian worker is regulated by the Fair Work Commission to ensure employees are not exploited. In Australia, there are three potential frameworks that can stipulate what wage rate your employee is covered for. These are awards, registered agreements, or the National Minimum Wage. Each of these frameworks will outline exactly how much an employee should be paid in accordance with their age, skill level, and when they work (full time, part time, casual, shift work, weekends, public holidays etc.). Note that when we talk about minimum wage in Australia, we are referring to the amount of pay before tax is taken out (gross pay).

When figuring out how much you need to pay your employees, the first step is to understand which of the following three frameworks they may be covered by.

Award

A legal document that stipulates the minimum wage and employment conditions for a particular industry or occupation, set by the Fair Work Commission.

Registered Agreement

A negotiated arrangement between employers and employees, specifying the minimum wage and employment conditions, and formally approved by the Fair Work Commission.

National Minimum Wage

The lowest wage rate that must be paid to employees who are not covered by an award or a registered agreement, as determined by the Fair Work Commission.

Awards

For most employees, the minimum wage is set by the award that covers their industry or occupation. There are more than 100 different awards in Australia covering everything from retail to hospitality and beauty, and the full A-Z list is available on the Fair Work Commission website here. Awards stipulate weekly and hourly pay rates, penalty rates, rates for shift work and overtime as well as other entitlements. Each award will also have a tiered classification system, where each level reflects different skills, experience and responsibilities. The higher the level, the higher the minimum wage. It’s essential that you understand these minimum wage rates and when they apply, because failing to do so could put your business in breach of the Fair Work Act 2009. If you already know the award of the industry you are working in and the age and experience level of your employee, an easy way to find their pay grade is to use the Fair Work Commission’s Pay Calculator.

You can view the awards and download the pay guides for some of the most common awards covering small businesses below:

AwardsPay guidesAward Code
General Retail Industry AwardGeneral Retail Industry Pay GuideMA000004
Hospitality Industry (General) Award Hospitality Industry (General) Pay GuideMA000009
Restaurant Industry AwardRestaurant Industry Pay Guide MA000119
Hair and Beauty Industry AwardHair and Beauty Industry Pay GuideMA000005

Registered agreements

In certain businesses, interpreting the appropriate award can be complex and administratively difficult, which is why there is another option available to employers: an enterprise or registered agreement. A registered agreement is formed when employees and employers in a specific business or company unanimously (or at least majoritarily) agree on their working conditions, and formalise them in a document that is approved by the Fair Work Commission. As with an award, a registered agreement covers all kinds of working conditions, including minimum wage, but also working hours, overtime, penalty rates, annual leave, and sick leave, for example.

The purpose of a registered agreement is to benefit both the employer and employees, so the minimum wage outlined in such an agreement can never be lower than the applicable award. If a registered agreement is in force, it will apply to the business until it is terminated or replaced by the Fair Work Commission. This means that even if a new employee joins the business after the document has been approved, they will still be covered by the registered agreement.

An employer and 2 or more employees can create an agreement that meets the needs of the business. Find more information about the process of forming a registered agreement here.

National Minimum Wage

If your employee is neither covered by an award nor a registered agreement, they will be covered by the National Minimum Wage. As of 1 July 2024 the National Minimum Wage is $24.10 per hour or $915.90 per week. This is the base rate for adult employees and it is used to calculate different rates (called 'special national minimum wages') for certain types of employees, depending on:

  • the type of employment (for apprentices or trainees)

  • the employee’s age if they are under 21 years ('junior')

  • the employee’s work capacity (if they have a disability).

For example, for junior employees, their pay rate is calculated as a percentage of the National Minimum Wage as follows:

Age% of rate of pay
Under 16 years36.8%
16-year-old47.3%
17-year-old57.8%
18-year-old68.3%
19-year-old82.5%
20-year-old97.7%

Click here to find more information about the pay rate for award/agreement free apprentices, trainees, and junior employees.

The National Minimum Wage is reviewed every year by an expert panel at the Fair Work Commission. Should they decide to make any changes, these usually come into effect on the first day of the following financial year, so it’s important to stay up to date in the lead up to the 1st of July.

How do I find the minimum wage for my employees?

In order to figure out the minimum wage rate for an employee, follow these steps:

1. Find your award.

You can find this either by searching the A-Z list, or by using the Fair Work ‘Find my award’ tool. If you work in the hospitality, retail, restaurant or beauty industry, you can view the awards at the links at the top of this page.

2. Use the Fair Work Pay Calculator.

This tool will ask you a series of questions about your employee, such as whether they are a trainee/apprentice, how old they are, what their classification (skill level) is and what type of work they are doing (part time, full time or casual). It will then present you with the hourly and weekly minimum wage for that profile including weekend, public holiday and early morning or night shift rates.

Lost in labour costs and team expenses? Here are three ways Zeller can help.

1. Tracking sales to optimise rostering

When you take payments with Zeller Terminal, every single sale is tracked in the Zeller Dashboard, or the Zeller App, for you to see. By monitoring your sales over time, you can identify trends in transaction volume, which can help you to manage your roster strategically, adding more staff in busy periods, and less staff when things are quiet.

2. Managing team expenses with Corporate Cards

From coffees for clients to taxi rides, toilet paper, maintenance calls, or interstate travel, team expenses are part and parcel of running a business. With Zeller Corporate Cards, you can give your employees the freedom to pay for expenses, while individually controlling how much they can spend through transaction limits and budgets. It saves you the administrative hassle of chasing up receipts and processing reimbursements, while also ensuring expenses remain within budget and align with company policy.

3. Monitoring labour costs against revenue

Cash flow can be the make or break of any business, and with labour costs accounting for a significant portion of your expenses, it’s important to monitor these closely. When you settle payments into and pay your wages from Zeller Transaction Account, you will be able to gain a clear visualisation of your cash position over time from Zeller Dashboard and Zeller App. This will help you make informed business decisions to keep your cash flow healthy.

Find out how Zeller can help your business.

Learn more

Hiring Staff Without the Headache

Be confident that you’re hiring the right person for the job, every time. One of the most exciting parts of operating your own business is that it gives you the opportunity to work independently; you are in control. Once you start hiring employees, that dynamic can shift. Getting the right staff for your business is critical. These are the people who will be representing your brand every day, in their dealings with customers. You’ll need to be able to learn to trust them to get the job done the way you expect, so that you can work on other parts of the business (and take a breather, when you need it). According to the latest Business Conditions and Sentiments report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, an increasing number of businesses are struggling to find employees. Follow these steps for hiring staff for your small business to ensure they are the right fit. Five steps to hiring employees for your small business 1. Write a clear job description The job description is the first step to finding the right staff for your vacant role. It should outline the desired criteria required for the position, as well as how to apply. Your job description should include: job title day-to-day duties and expectations of the job level of authority necessary qualifications, skills, licences or education requirements application deadline It is also important to specify the type of person you want to hire and the role’s salary or pay range. This ensures that only interested and eligible candidates will apply. You should be clear on what the role really offers and requires, and not overpromise in the description. Sometimes a holiday job is just a holiday job necessary to get you through a busy period — be upfront about that. 2. Advertise the position on job sites Now it is time to make your vacancy visible. Think about the kind of employee you are trying to attract, and how they might search for jobs. To help potential employees find you, use sites like LinkedIn or your social media channels. Alternatively, you can pay a small fee to post your ad on hiring websites like Seek and Indeed to reach maximum people. There are also industry-specific job boards you can utilise, such as ones for hospitality roles. You could encourage fellow employees to share the posting, or even put up signs within your own business’s shop window. 3. Review job applications Often, the most consuming part of hiring employees for your business isn’t the interviewing itself — it’s deciding who to interview. Reviewing job applications is a time-consuming step, because you’re judging from a piece of paper (or digital document) whether the person can do the job. A logical first step is striking out all those who have never worked in your industry — unless, of course, you’re looking to train someone from scratch. It’s easiest to keep a record of each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses as you read through job applications, then create a shortlist of those that have the required experience. Keep these to review when it comes to selecting the candidates that you choose to interview. 4. Interview your selected candidates When it comes to interviewing potential employees, there are a few criteria you should be looking for and questions to ask. Background and training Does this person have the knowledge and skills required to do the job? Ask them to explain how their current knowledge and previous work experience could help them in this new role. Personality Fit is an important consideration, especially in a small business. Ask yourself, will this person fit our team? Seek examples of how they’ve dealt with conflict, or what kinds of personality traits they think they will bring to the job. Behaviour How will this person deal with the job and the specifics of your workplace dynamic? Workplace-based scenario questions could show how the candidate will respond to the stressors of the job — such as rush hour at a CBD cafe, or Black Friday at a retail store. Ability to improvise Can this person deal with the unexpected or unfamiliar? Ask questions that they might not have prepared for, or for an example of a way they have overcome an unknown situation. Thought processes How does this person solve problems? This is when ethical or metaphorical questions and scenarios can be used to show how they would respond to hypothetical situations, such as when a customer’s card is declined. Many small business owners find they don’t have the time to train staff for the job. You could also consider testing a potential employee’s skills by asking them to undertake specific scenarios, such as making a cup of coffee if the role is for a barista. 5. Prepare for their first day Congratulations — you’ve found the right person for the job. Now it’s time to onboard them and ensure they are ready to start working. Use the training and orientation process to not only teach new employees about their role and the expectations that come with it, but also to outline your business goals and values. Training should be detailed and specific to the job, but not overwhelming and not all at once. Utilise other staff to teach the intricate ways of your business.It is important to bring new employees up to speed as quickly as possible, to help them feel part of your business and to ensure they add value to your business. A proper staff induction usually involves a run-down of the business, staff organisational chart, HR policy, and safety manual. You will also need to set up new staff with the tools they need to do the job. In their role, do they require access to your accounting software? Social media profiles? Stocktake tracking technology? Consider what level of access is required for this person to fulfill their role. All customer-facing staff will need to learn how to use your Zeller Terminal, for example. However, you can still restrict their ability to provide refunds by requiring a PIN. The PIN can be given to employees after they pass probation, if you wish. Hiring the right staff for your small business is a time-consuming but important step in growing your business. Think carefully about the type of person you want in the role and make sure your job ad reflects that. When it comes to interviewing and selecting the right candidate, asking thorough and relevant questions is critical. For more tips on growing your business, sign up to our Business Blog .

Zeller Corporate Cards: A Winning Hand for Managing Business Expenses

The petty cash box is empty, you can’t find the business credit card, and you’re up to your knees in receipts. Thankfully there’s an easier way to manage team and project expenses. Meet Zeller Corporate Cards. If you’ve ever checked your bank balance at the end of the week, you know how quickly incidental expenses can add up. Now imagine a team of employees, each with their own needs: a round of coffees for clients, a flight for an upcoming conference, a grocery order for the office, a software subscription. The list goes on. If you’re not staying on top of these purchases, not only is it going to hurt your bottom line, but it’s also going to cause many a headache when it comes to your end-of-month finance reconciliation. Thankfully, there’s a simple way to track who’s spending what, and it doesn’t involve flashing corporate credit cards or leveraging sophisticated expense management software . Zeller Corporate Cards are designed to help businesses – and finance teams – stay in control of employee and project-related expenses, while also giving staff the freedom to make necessary purchases. Read on to discover how Zeller Corporate Cards will give you back money, time and peace of mind. Introducing corporate cards Not to be confused with corporate credit cards or corporate debit cards ( learn what these are here ), corporate cards are payment cards linked to a business’s transaction account, and are specifically designed for employees or teams to be able to pay for business expenses. A finance team or CFO can easily order multiple cards, assign them to employees, and individually adjust their spending limits. In addition, they typically have built-in expense management features like recurring budgets that reset periodically, set transaction limits, and tools to help cardholders track and manage their expenses. Zeller Corporate Cards can be created from Zeller Dashboard. Simply follow the prompts to create a new Corporate Card, assign the card to an employee, set the spend limits and choose your card colour. It’s as simple as that. Your card can then be added to your employee’s mobile wallet or a physical card can be ordered. What are the benefits of using Zeller Corporate Cards in your business? 1. Flexibility for staff With Zeller’s corporate card program, your staff are empowered to make purchases as they need them. Rather than having to ask your permission every time they need to process a payment, or paying with their own money and submitting an expense report for reimbursement, a corporate card will give them the freedom to pay for expenses, within the limits that you prescribe. 2. Reduced financial admin Without the burden of having to process employee reimbursements, administrative time is greatly reduced. With Zeller Corporate Cards, all your expenses are centralised into one dashboard, where finance teams can easily and efficiently track who has spent what. 3. Improved tracking Every corporate card is assigned to an individual employee, team, or project, meaning that it's easy to track and isolate expenditure into different areas of your business. Employees will know that their spend is being monitored, engendering a greater sense of responsibility and ownership over expense management — as everything will be traced back to them. What’s more, businesses can choose to make it mandatory for employees to provide certain information, such as the expense category (‘travel’ or ‘entertainment’, for example), the receipt, and a note (with additional information or reasons as to why the purchase was made). 4. Receipt reconciliation With Zeller Corporate Cards, employees can log in to their account on Zeller App or Zeller Dashboard, take a photo of multiple receipts, including tax invoices and transaction receipts, and upload them to a transaction processed with a Zeller Corporate Card. Not only does this do away with having to collect paper receipts, which can get lost or damaged, but it also saves a huge amount of time when it comes to reconciling receipts against their transactions. 5. Cash flow management Zeller Corporate Cards draw money directly from Zeller Transaction Account , which means that you can track your business cash flow in real time. Unlike a corporate credit card which draws on borrowed funds that you need to pay back later (with interest), corporate cards ensure you always know your business’s cash balance – with no hidden surprises at the end of the month. What’s more, you can see a visual representation of your cash flow from both Zeller Dashboard and Zeller App. 6. Budget control for projects Instead of assigning a card to an employee, Zeller Corporate Cards can also be assigned to individual projects. This allows all expenses for a specific project to be paid for on one card, ensuring that the budget is adhered to and that finance teams or managers can easily identify costs directly associated with that project. 7. Fraud protection By allocating corporate cards against individual employees, or by teams or projects, you are able to implement a greater level of fraud protection in your business. You’ll know exactly who is using each corporate card, what the card is being used for, and why — meaning any examples of expenses that fall outside of these guidelines can be identified immediately. 8. Mobile management With Zeller App, you can create and manage cards directly from your smartphone. If a team member needs to pay for a large expense above their usual transaction limit, you can quickly log in to the app and make the necessary changes within a few clicks. The same goes for issuing cards, if you’ve got a new employee or volunteer on the team, simply log in to Zeller App to add a new card, which – if you choose the virtual option – they can start using immediately. 9. Instant virtual card creation Zeller Corporate Cards can be created and added to a mobile wallet instantly. Your employees can start using their virtual card within minutes of you setting it up, meanwhile you can have a physical card sent out in the mail, if you wish. This convenient solution is not only fast to set up, but also ensures your employees will never lose their card. 10. Affordability In comparison to corporate credit card schemes which can cost upwards of $25 per card with establishment fees and late payment charges, or expense management software, which is likely to set you back hundreds of dollars a year, Zeller Corporate Cards are an affordable alternative. There are no monthly or annual subscription fees, and no transaction fees on domestic purchases either. The first 60 days are free, after which you will pay one low, flat cost of $9 per corporate card, per month. Whether you’re running a small business with just a few staff or a rapidly growing company: managing your expenses doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does have to be controlled. Reduce your administrative burden, empower your employees and know where your money is going, all with Zeller Corporate Cards.

Meet the Retail Royalty of Queen Victoria Market

Watching Malcolm McCullough behind the counter at his Victoria Market delicatessen, it’s hard to believe that just seven years ago, this same apron-clad shopkeeper was sitting comfortably, suited up in a corporate office. A natural-born trader, you’d be forgiven for assuming he’d been serving customers his whole life. And in a way, he has. After cutting his teeth at Target in the late 80s, Malcolm went on to open the very first Bunnings store in 1994, later assuming the title of Managing Director for the Disney stores across the Asia-Pacific. After a stint at Starbucks in the USA, he was eventually headhunted for the role of CEO at the Queen Victoria Market where he was instrumental in putting together the plan for the market’s new redevelopment. However, a desire to get back to his roots sparked a career change, and when he got the inside scoop on one of the market stalls going up for sale, it was all the convincing he needed. In 2017, Malcolm and his wife Anna took over Bill’s Farm – a stalwart of Victoria Market’s iconic deli hall that’s been dispensing cheese and cold cuts for nearly three decades. When asked what it was like swapping an executive office for a cosy 32-square-metre shopfront, Malcolm says the move was natural: “Managing 600 stores and 6,000 staff is obviously more strategic as opposed to hands on, but you're still in the stores. Most of my roles have been operational, spending time on the ground, seeing the staff, talking to them about what's working, what's not working. So none of that was any different other than the fact that I’m actually spending a lot more time with customers.” Measure twice, cut once. While you can take the man out of the strategy, you can’t take the strategy out of the man. Malcolm’s approach to business leans heavily on his years of corporate retail experience. From customer service to stock rotation, staffing and business development, nothing is left to chance. When COVID hit, Malcolm was quick to come up with a strategic roster: “We had two teams of staff with two different weeks. One week on, one week off, but we still paid them every week. It just meant that if one of the people on one team got COVID, that whole team would go away to isolate, and the other team would come in and run the business. So, we were never in a situation where we had to close.” This highly considered approach is implemented across every facet of Malcolm’s business and it shows. “We manage our stock extremely well to the point that we have 26 stock turns a year. So we turn over the stock in the whole store every two weeks. We have very minimal wastage.” An enviable result and one that Malcolm and Anna have achieved through employing the ‘open-to-buy’ approach, a common retail strategy that ensures your inventory remains balanced at the perfect level to meet demand, and avoid over or under stocking. “We know exactly how much dollar value we can spend each week. We're not just going and buying. We also take the kitchen pantry approach: we have 510 products, but we're not going to get Kellogg's cornflakes in until we've taken Coco Pops out.” Going with the cash flow. Closely following every dollar that goes out and comes in, is one of the keys to the deli’s success, but Malcolm doesn’t do it alone. His armada of tech tools – Xero, Zeller and Atria point-of-sale – integrate together, allowing him and Anna to track every transaction and expense down to the cent. “With the POS, we know how much margin we make per product per day. It's just phenomenal the data that you can get.” he explains, “I think there are a lot of businesses out there that don't understand how much things cost and don't have an opinion on how their business performance is going. We look at it every week. We know exactly where our profit is going to finish at the end of the financial year, and then we'll forecast for the next financial year. We'll measure it every week to see how we're going against that budget.” For Malcolm and Anna, a key component of this analysis was unlocked when they transitioned their EFTPOS to Zeller Terminal . “Our merchant fees in the 2019-2020 financial year totaled $28,000… it was just out of control.” explains Malcolm, who became exasperated by the banks’ lack of flexibility especially when cashless payments skyrocketed during COVID. Thanks to their new EFTPOS solution, they’re spending less on merchant fees and saving money through strategic staffing: “The Zeller Dashboard is really handy for giving us information about when those transactions are happening. If they are varying at certain periods of time in the day, it means that we've got a requirement for less or more people. So we use it to help our rostering.” A changing demographic. If the ebb and flow of customers are worth monitoring anywhere, it’s the Queen Victoria Market. From the sudden halt of tourism at the beginning of the pandemic to the surge in people working from home, and the swelling local population living in new high-density developments, customer trends have changed significantly in recent years. “We no longer get that regular lunchtime customer who’s working in the city… and there aren’t as many tourists as there used to be. But we’re finding that we’re picking up new customers every single week from people who are moving into town, especially young university students but also just people living in the city.” Malcolm explains. Despite the market’s near 150-year history, running a successful business within it comes down to understanding the value it brings to today’s customer. The shifting demographic is having an impact not only on when customers are coming, but what they are buying. “We're finding that customers want to see what the new cheese is, what the new product is… they're looking for something different. They don’t necessarily want to do what they did yesterday.” says Malcolm. Having worked in other densely populated cities such as Hong Kong and Singapore, the retail specialist understands exactly why this is: “When people live above the shops they shop in, you need to constantly change your offer to make something different, better, put new stuff in.” he explains. Think big, act small, start now. Looking ahead, Malcolm has no plans of slowing down. He’s closely following the five-year business plan that he established when he took over Bill’s Farm, which includes growing their online orders and corporate catering. In-store, he’s intent on continuing to keep his customers and staff happy, and for that, he’s always prepared to change tack. “One of the things I love about retail is that you can change something today and see the results immediately. In other businesses it sometimes takes a long time to get through that process of strategy becoming reality.” Indeed, agility has proven to be the pillar of success for Bill’s Farm, which has held steadfast through a pandemic and now a cost-of-living crisis. “All you have to do is think big, act small and start now.” Coming from a retail veteran whose strategies have served him at Disney as they have in the deli, his maxim is one worth remembering. To read about other Australians growing their businesses with Zeller, head to the Zeller Business Blog and sign up to our newsletter to receive stories straight to your inbox.

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