HR compliance

HR compliance in Australia is not one field. It spans two regimes with different regulators, different remedies and different timeframes, and HR usually owns the boundary between them.

Employment compliance. Pay, classifications, hours, leave, contracts, termination and record-keeping. Fair Work territory, and largely administrative.

Workplace compliance. Safety including psychosocial hazards, discrimination and harassment, privacy, and conduct. Different regulators in each state and a different evidentiary standard.

The gaps appear at the handover. A bullying complaint is a safety matter and a Fair Work matter at once. A dismissal following a harassment complaint touches both, and getting the process right in one does not protect you in the other. A restructure engages consultation obligations and psychosocial risk simultaneously.

An HR function organised only around the first regime handles the second reactively, which is where most exposure sits.

The Fair Work Ombudsman and Safe Work Australia cover the two sides. This is general information rather than legal advice, and obligations vary by state and territory.

See Sentrient’s workplace compliance system and GRC system.