McDonaldÍs Australia is taking steps to ensure employee pay packets for its 85,000-strong national workforce are accurate. The fast food franchise has partnered with The Fair Work Ombudsman and set up a self-audit process to review about 8500 pay packets and correct any issues it may find.
Ron Christianson, corporate communications director for McDonald’s, said WeÍre extremely pleased to be working with the Fair Work Ombudsman to further strengthen our commitment to our employees by proactively conducting an audit of randomly chosen pay packets from restaurants across the country. We feel that this is an important step to help ensure that our team members consistently receive the right pay and entitlements.
Over the course of the next three months, we will be reviewing time and wage records for the pay period of October 1 to 14, 2009 and October 1 to 14, 2010. Restaurants involved in the review will be chosen at random, in consultation with the Fair Work Ombudsman, from metropolitan and regional locations in all states across the country, and will include both company-owned and franchised restaurants.
Once the results have been compiled, we will immediately take any corrective action that may be required and implement any necessary changes to our procedures to help ensure accuracy into the future.
Fair Work Ombudsman Nicholas Wilson has welcomed the companyÍs pro-active approach. “We congratulate McDonaldÍs for showing corporate responsibility to its thousands of young and casual workers and showing leadership to the rest of the franchising industry,” he said. “Here is a company which sees more profit in great relationships with its staff — and part of building a great relationship is being able to say to workers that they have been paid every single cent they are entitled to.
“Recognising that problems may sometimes occur with payment of correct wages and entitlements, McDonaldÍs will be asking its franchise holders to pay careful attention to the minimum hourly rate for employees under 16 and meal allowances for overtime shifts.
“This is a terrific model for other companies, large and small, who want to be seen as a great place to work for young employees or people looking to gain foundation skills for their careers.”
McDonaldÍs is undertaking the task voluntarily. Wilson said McDonaldÍs has used its intranet site to inform all employees of the program and all staff have been invited to contact a workplace relations hotline should there be a need to report any alleged underpayment of wages or entitlements.
A report on the outcome of the review is expected by the end of August.