World Vision Australia to back pay staff over $6m

World Vision Australia has back paid staff after they signed an enforceable undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) following self-reported underpayments.

Charitable organisation World Vision Australia has back paid staff more than $6 million, including interest and superannuation, after it signed an enforceable undertaking for self-reported underpayments with the FWO.

With offices in both Melbourne and Sydney, the organisation self-reported these underpayments to the FWO in December 2019 after an internal review identified numerous compliance issues.

Overall, these compliance issues led to World Vision Australia underpaying over 3,000 current and former employees more than $4.6 million in wages and entitlements. The organisation has back paid this amount, plus more than $1.4 million in superannuation and interest.

The compliance issues were due to the underpayment of employee’s lawful minimum entitlements, including minimum wages, penalty rates, overtime, leave entitlements and allowances.

The underpaid employees worked in every state and territory in Australia, except for the Northern Territory, showing how widespread the issue was. The majority were based in Victoria and NSW, and both salaried and casual employees were affected by the underpayment.

Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth stated that an enforceable undertaking was necessary in this matter, as World Vision Australia had cooperated with the FWO’s investigation and demonstrated a strong commitment to reimbursing their employees who fell victim to these underpayments. It also made changes to ensure that an issue like this would never happen again.

“Under the enforceable undertaking, World Vision Australia has committed to implementing stringent measures to ensure all its workers are paid correctly. These measures include implementing a new time and wages payroll system and commissioning, at its own cost, at least one annual audit to check it is meeting all employee entitlements,” Booth said.

The individual back payments ranged from less than $50 to $84,394, with the average back payment being around $1,900, including superannuation and interest.

Although more than 1,000 former employees were not able to be contacted, World Vision Australia paid amounts owed to the FWO as unclaimed monies, with the hopes that these employees check the FWO’s website and gain the amounts owed to them.

Due to the enforceable undertaking, World Vision Australia has to provide a report to the FWO on its progress in implementing improvements to its payroll and corporate governance systems, which includes:

• Running an independent employee hotline to take any workplace relations queries for three months.
• Publishing and displaying notices about the EU and its contraventions on its website and in its offices in Melbourne and Sydney.