Why legal expertise matters in wage audits
Shana Schreier-Joffe explains the advantages of having a legal professional conduct wage audits over other providers, focusing on the accuracy and expert interpretation that lawyers bring to the table.
About the speaker
In 2019, Shana was named a finalist in the Women in Law Awards for the category of ‘Partner of the Year – SME’ and has been named a Leading Employment Lawyer in the prestigious Doyles Guide. Shana is a frequent guest speaker at many industry functions and legal seminars and presents workplace training to clients on all aspects of employment and workplace law.
Summary
In this video, Shana Schreier-Joffe explores the advantages of having a legal professional conduct wage audits, emphasizing the accuracy, risk mitigation, and expert interpretation that lawyers bring to the table. Unlike standard payroll providers, lawyers offer a deeper understanding of modern awards, Fair Work compliance, and legal risks associated with wage audits.
With the increasing focus on wage theft laws, underpayment penalties, and Fair Work investigations, businesses must ensure their audits are not just accurate but legally defensible. A legal expert can help identify hidden liabilities, provide privileged legal advice, and protect businesses from potential disputes by ensuring that payroll practices align with employment law requirements.
Key benefits of legal-led wage audits
- Greater accuracy in assessing compliance with modern awards and entitlements
- Legal privilege protection, keeping audit findings confidential
- Identification of hidden risks, such as underpayments and misclassifications
- Guidance on corrective actions to prevent future payroll disputes
- Proactive compliance strategies to avoid Fair Work penalties and legal action
With wage compliance under growing regulatory scrutiny, businesses must take a proactive legal approach to wage audits. Watch the full interview to understand why legal expertise can safeguard your business from costly payroll errors and legal liabilities.
Transcript
0:00
There are lots of providers out there doing audits for clients, for accountants, doing audits for clients and a lot of other organisations and and that's obviously for the reason that it is a compliance requirement for a lot of employers.
0:16
The difficulty with other providers doing it as opposed to a law firm I think fall into three buckets.
0:23
The first is expertise. So I have been trained for the last 20 years in employment law. I know how to read an award. I know what the award says. I know how to interpret an award. And that is the first place you start with any audit. If you don't know which classification employees are supposed to be classified under, your audit's wrong. Doesn't matter how beautiful the bells and whistles and how quickly you can do it, you're putting the person in the wrong bucket. You got your results going to be wrong. And for my part, the accountants and the other providers don't have the skill to identify the issues in the ward that require identification so employees in that order can be classified and dealt with appropriately. So that's 1 and probably the most important point.
1:11
The second bucket really is the idea of, of privilege. Now for most employers, the the purpose of an audit is to ensure our hope that they're doing the right thing and they're paying their employees properly. But the downside of that or the ancillary of that is if they're not, they're including an underpayment and underpayments are something that they were ombudsman all right on to and they're prosecuting. And when we start prosecuting, they come into people's businesses, they ask for documents, they ask for everything that they can look at and, and a, and a wage audit that a lawyer does is covered by legal professional privilege not required to be provided in those circumstances. Any other audit done by anyone else doesn't have that protection.
1:55
And the third bucket really relates to the ability of lawyers to interpret the results. So if you got an accountant or anybody else, they'll just give you a spreadsheet. Yes, you're over. No, you're not. Or this is what the number is. What we will do is provide you advice on the compliance aspect of that order. So are your payslips correct? What are the issues? Why are you not complying? Because in this area, there's this issue with this part of the award or whatever, and I think that piece is missing from everyone else.
2:29
So those are the three main areas where I think we stand very separately to providers in markets.
