How Digital Solutions Are Supporting Compliance in the Labour Hire Industry

The Australian workplace is governed by a myriad of different pieces of legislation, regulation and tort law, each of which is designed to make work and remuneration fair for all Australians. Australian employees are protected by a set of minimum entitlements as they go about their work, overseen by the Fair Work Act of 2009, and the Fair Work Ombudsman.

All firms who provide employment to an individual — or contract an individual to complete paid or unpaid services — are held to strict standards of compliance. In the labour-hire market, however, the waters are somewhat muddied, and the question of who is responsible for what can become confused.

Employees represented by labour-hire firms and provided to clients are precisely that — employees. Under the terms of their association with the labour-hire firm, these employees have the right to be treated in a fair and decent manner. Then, when they are assigned a role with a client, the duty of care in the workplace is passed on to this client. In other words, there should be a clear division, and the issue of responsibility and liability should be a simple one.

Except, it isn't quite so simple. Legal precedent means that labour-hire firms can be held accountable for breaches of employment law in the workplace. In the case of Drake Personnel Ltd (tried as Drake Industrial) v WorkCover Authority in New South Wales in 1999, the labour-hire firm was deemed responsible due to an apparent failure of their own systems and protocols. This means that regulatory and legal compliance is not only crucial for labour-hire companies, but it can also be difficult for companies to guarantee effectively.

Fortunately, solutions such as Alloc8 are making life easier for labour-hire firms to guarantee this compliance, achieving a reliable foundation upon which to build in the future.

Management of Skills, Competencies and Training Levels

Proper management of skills and training is a significant part of achieving regulatory compliance. If a hire is not trained to the appropriate level, they may not be permitted to utilise certain pieces of machinery or fulfil certain roles. When these skills, competencies and training levels are logged into a system like Alloc8, it becomes easier to match the right employee with the appropriate role.

You will also be able to add other fields to Alloc8 profiles, including any accreditations or induction courses carried out by the employee, as well as the client preferences of the employers themselves.

Automated Compliance Checks

While having this information to hand is certainly useful, it is not a guarantee. Labour-hire firms can still find themselves falling foul of regulatory compliance and other guidelines. What is required is a system of automation — something that eliminates human error by taking key functionality out of the hands of human personnel.

Drawing upon information logged within the Alloc8 system, the solution's automated protocols will flag any potential compliance breaches should they arise. Protocols can also alert the user if there is critical information missing from employee profiles, or any other issue that may be inhibiting the proper compliance checks.

Creation and Storage of Audit Trails

Compliance takes many forms. Labour hire companies operating in Australia certainly need to be aware of the direct safety regulation that applies to their business, as well as the torts and precedents that influence legal decisions in this field. These companies should also be aware of tax legislation and other legal requirements, all of which will need to be strictly adhered to.

Alloc8 achieves effective asset and resource management for labour-hire firms. Company resources can be audited and logged, and repairs and replacements are costed and recorded. Meanwhile, safety checks, incident reports and other important pieces of documentation can be signed off, verified, stored and accessed easily.

Audits of different kinds can be managed via the Alloc8 solution, and audit trails can be presented to regulators as and when required. A watertight and systematic culture of auditing and assessment is incubated within the workplace.

Customised Forms and Checklists

Make sure your personnel have all the resources they need to stay compliant while they are out on the job. This means, providing them with the appropriate forms for each job, safety checklists for specific tasks and any other documentation that may be required. With Alloc8, these forms can be crafted from scratch or built using customisable templates.

The forms themselves can also be sent directly to smartphone and tablet devices via the Alloc8 application. GPS tracking and signature capture supports the signing and storage of relevant forms and paperwork without delay.

Discover More About How Alloc8 Can Help You Stay Compliant

Regulation is not out to penalise labour-hire firms — rather, it keeps employees and the general public safe from harm. With Alloc8, you benefit from the right approach to compliance, ensuring that you and your firm are in full adherence at all times. Schedule your demo today.

Get in touch to schedule a free demo—and work the future with Alloc8.