Wage compliance in Australia refers to an employer’s obligation to correctly pay employees according to Awards, Enterprise Agreements, and Fair Work legislation for every pay period. In 2025, Fair Work enforcement and criminal underpayment laws significantly increased expectations on governance, systems, and proof, particularly for enterprise employers heading into 2026.
As 2025 draws to a close, wage compliance has become one of the most visible governance risks facing Australian organisations. What was once viewed as a payroll or HR function is now a board-level obligation which has been shaped by Fair Work enforcement, criminal underpayment laws, and rising expectations around proof, systems, and prevention.
Looking ahead to 2026, enterprise employers must move beyond remediation and adopt a proactive, system-driven approach to wage compliance.
I’ve reflected on what has changed in 2025, the key Fair Work enforcement signals for enterprise and regulated industries, and what organisations, directors, and operational teams must do next.
Wage compliance has shifted from administrative to criminal risk in 2025
From January 2025, deliberate wage underpayment is now a criminal offence, with repercussions for non-compliance far reaching. Regulators are no longer focused solely on whether underpayments occurred, but whether organisations had appropriate systems and controls in place to prevent them. This single change has moved compliance from a “payroll hygiene” conversation to a board-level risk and liability imperative.
Throughout 2025, Fair Work activity reinforced this expectation, particularly for large employers with complex workforce arrangements.
With the Fair Work Ombudsman working hard to increase awareness of employee’s rights and employer’s obligations, the agency’s online Pay and Conditions Tool (PACT) performed over 5.2M calculations in FY25 (representing over 35% of Australia’s working population). This shows that employees and employers are educating themselves on pay entitlements and relevant awards.
Fair Work Enforcement and the Enterprise Compliance Reset
High-profile enterprise cases over recent years have continued to shape Fair Work’s enforcement stance in 2025.
The regulatory expectation is now clear:
- Every pay period must be compliant in its own right: Underpayments in one pay cycle cannot be offset by overpayments in another
- Annualised salaries require evidence, not assumption: Employers must be able to demonstrate that total remuneration meets or exceeds minimum entitlements for each pay period
- Payroll reconstruction does not satisfy compliance standards: Compliance must be evidenced at the time work is performed and paid.
- Records must be complete and accessible: Records must be auditable, traceable, and available on demand
These principles apply regardless of organisational size, payroll maturity, or technology investment.
“The FWO has invested significant resources for the past 5 years into not only identifying and rectifying breaches of workplace laws by large corporations, but also in improving systems, governance and processes to ensure large corporations are more proactively monitoring their compliance to ensure their staff are correctly paid.”
Workforce Management Complexity is the Primary Wage Compliance Risk
In 2025, most workforce/wage underpayment issues did not stem from intent, they stemmed from complexity.
Enterprise employers now manage:
- Multiple Awards and Enterprise Agreements
- BOOT requirements and rate comparisons
- Overtime and penalty interactions
- Fatigue, rest, and safety rules
- Flexible, hybrid, and shift-based work
- Multi-role and multi-award employees
When these variables are managed manually or downstream in payroll, risk can multiply.
Modern workforce structures are intricate by design. Staff changes and workforce variables all move in real time and in ways that are almost impossible to manage manually.
Solutions like nimbus compliance and nimbus time2work, demonstrate how compliance can be operationalised:
- Rosters that enforce rest breaks automatically, and signal non-compliance before work happens
- Award rule engines that calculate entitlements against awards in real time
- Audit trails that lock data from alteration or retrospective editing
Takeaway: The integration of Workforce Management systems with payroll, legal frameworks, and data controls is now the foundation for compliance. The only sustainable model is one where compliance is automatic at source, not manually recovered at audit.
Why Payroll-Only Compliance No Longer Works
Fair Work scrutiny in 2025 made one thing clear: most compliance failures originate before payroll runs. Commentary on a recent example in the Higher Education space reinforces that compliance risk isn’t just a post-pay payroll issue, but often a result of earlier operational issues.
Rostering, approvals, and time capture are now recognised as the true source of wage compliance risk. If compliance rules are not enforced where work is planned and approved, payroll becomes (at best) a point of detection, not prevention.
Modern compliance requires:
- Award and agreement rules applied at rostering
- Real-time validation before work occurs
- Locked audit trails from time capture through to payroll
- System controls that prevent non-compliant decisions
Wage Compliance Governance, Proof, and Regulator Expectations
Fair Work increasingly differentiates between organisations that can demonstrate governance maturity and those that react to issues after they arise, addressing past underpayments and future governance and system improvements.
In 2025, regulators focused heavily on:
- Executive ownership of wage compliance
- Documented controls and approval frameworks
- Evidence of system-enforced rules
- Ongoing internal review and exception reporting
Good intent is no longer enough. Proof of systems, controls, and oversight now significantly influences regulatory outcomes.
Wage Compliance Outlook for 2026
Heading into 2026, Fair Work has clearly signalled continued focus on industries with:
- Large, decentralised workforces
- High award coverage
- Shift-based and variable work patterns
- Historical underpayment exposure
Enterprise employers should expect deeper scrutiny of workforce systems, rostering practices, and governance structures, not just payroll outcomes. This stance makes it clear that wage compliance must be systematic, incorporated into operational technology, and understood by everyone from senior executives to on-the-ground staff.
To prepare for 2026, organisations should:
- Treat wage compliance as a standing board agenda item
- Identify where compliance risk enters workforce operations
- Embed award and EA rules at the point of rostering
- Automate BOOT, fatigue, and minimum entitlement checks
- Ensure audit-ready data from roster to payroll
- Regularly review controls, exceptions, and governance
- Wage compliance is now a critical element of enterprise planning and operating models.
Wage Compliance & Workforce Management: What to Do Next
The Fair Work Ombudsman is increasingly distinguishing between organisations who can demonstrate compliance designed into operational planning versus those who reacted to errors.
If you are reassessing your wage compliance exposure heading into 2026, now is the time to understand whether your systems, controls, and governance are fit for the regulatory environment ahead.
Learn more about nimbus time2work and nimbus compliance, or book a solution discovery session to assess wage compliance risk across your workforce systems and practices.
