Wage theft laws need ‘urgent revisit’, Deputy CEO says

The chief executive of one of Australia’s fastest growing tech start-ups says Australia’s IR laws are broken.

Deputy CEO Ashik Ahmed. Source: Supplied

Australia’s industrial relations laws are in desperate need of a shake-up and the government must revisit its draft wage theft legislation, according to the chief executive of one of Australia’s fastest growing tech start-ups, who says HR law is a mounting issue for Australian businesses.

Ashik Ahmed, CEO and co-founder of Deputy, says Australia’s ageing HR laws are overly complex and onerous, and are failing both employees and their employers.

Small businesses in particular are struggling to adhere to the legislation and politicians aren’t listening, according to Mr Ahmed.

“It’s quite sad to see how we’re just complicating this,” he said in an interview.

“I think the system is broken.

“Employers struggle without technology but 80 per cent are still writing down their hours on paper.”

It comes after the federal government recently junked proposed wage theft laws that were part of its industrial relations bill, sparking condemnation from Labor and unions.

As more cases of wage theft are aired and debate over industrial relation bills rock Australia, shift-scheduling software companies are emerging as a key stakeholders in the debate.

Mr Ahmed said certain politicians are complicating the system, and are leaving workers in limbo.

Australia’s HR laws are broken, according to Deputy.

A survey by hospitality union Hospo Voice in 2017 found three in four workers in the sector had reported being underpaid at some stage, with mistakes and mismanagement rife in the hosptaility sector.

“Some try to get away from Fair Work and use their own EBA, and that only furthers one’s battles and litigations,” Mr Ahmed said.

Deputy services more than 250,000 workplaces across 120 countries the world over. The company is now one of Australia’s most successful tech start-ups, raising a $111 million Series B funding round in November 2018, a deal touted at the time as Australia’s largest ever such funding round.

Australia’s pay awards, of which there are more than 100, are still some of the most difficult, Ahmed said, making software like his critical.

“I have complete empathy for the shift worker and educating them is definitely something we have a lot of content on, but I’m also interested in fixing the system so that this doesn’t happen,” he said.

“I would like to educate politicians. Ensuring they understand the law they’re writing and how it affects people is something I’m deeply passionate about,” he said.

“The people who write these laws don’t live in the shoes of the people they’re writing the laws for.”

Before starting Deputy 12 years ago, Mr Ahmed began his first job at Hungry Jacks in 1994. He was the first in his family to find a job after migrating from Bangladesh.

In the 1990s, fighting any kind of wage theft or underpayment involved keeping an immaculate work diary. Today, software companies like Deputy are doing it for us.

Each day thousands of workers across the country scan their thumb, type in a pin, check in via an app or use facial recognition technology to take their own picture before starting work.

Using apps like DayForce and Deputy, their labour is recorded alongside their thumbprints, photographs and check-in pins, all stored in cloud software.

In larger companies which use software that integrates with payroll technology such as Xero, there are less chances of mistakes as they are bound by enterprise bargaining agreements and awards provided by employers.

But for the smaller companies which use lesser known software and technology little more advanced than the 130-year-old bundy clock, that chance of error runs greater.

Mr Ahmed thinks his software can help plug the gap until the laws can catch up with workplace realities.

“I can assure you no employer wants to wake up and see their names at the front of the paper.”

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