The Cost of Getting Awards Wrong Just Went Up

Topic: Why minimum wage increases raise the stakes for award compliance

Reference: Fair Work Commission's 2024–25 minimum wage increase

Context: The minimum wage has increased again, but the real risk isn't just cost — it's misclassification.

Australia's national minimum wage is rising again — and while headlines focus on frontline workers, the real pressure sits with HR, finance, and operations teams managing award coverage.

It's not the base pay itself that's the issue.

It's selecting the wrong award or misclassifying roles within the right one.

We recently worked with a services firm that used generic position titles to classify hundreds of roles. One role — an admin coordinator — was classified under Level 2. A BOOT test triggered by a former employee revealed the role's duties matched Level 3. The backpay required? Over $130,000 across just three team members.

Multiply that risk across a workforce and it becomes clear: Award interpretation is not a tick-box exercise — it's a business risk.

At Humello, we use AI to map roles to the right award and level — based on actual accountabilities, not just job titles.

You can try this for 1, 3, or 5 roles, and we're actively inviting organisations to run audits and BOOT tests with us.

Follow our page for practical insights and tools on role design, classification, and compliance.