Not sure which award to apply to staff, or what classification level to assign?
You can speak with an industrial relations expert from our Employment Advisory service, who can provide guidance so you don’t accidentally underpay staff.
This guide explains how to classify staff under a Tanda Modern Award template. You will require the Admin permission level to follow the steps in this guide. Prior to classifying employees you will need to activate a Tanda Modern Award template.
You can classify employees under a Tanda modern award template individually on the employee profile, or you can bulk classify multiple employees using the bulk classification tool.
In this guide:
Individually assigning award classifications
To assign an award classification to an individual employee, follow the below steps:
Navigate to Workforce > Staff and select the employee you want to classify
On the left side menu, click Pay Conditions
Click the Edit Current Pay Conditions button
Select when the changes should begin applying
Configure the Industry award, Employment type, Classification/level, as well as any Allowances or Additional tags
(Optional) If Positions have been configured in your account, these can also be used to apply award classifications.
Select if the employee should receive a contract or document with this change
Click Confirm Changes, review the changes, and then click Confirm and Apply
Further tips on classifying employees:
If you followed the above steps but rates don't appear yet, check the date of birth is entered. The date of birth is used to determine if a junior or adult rate should apply
To view which rules apply to an employee after an employee is classified, click Award Rules button on the left side of an employee profile
Positions
Where positions have already been created and assigned to staff those employee setups can be edited in bulk by editing the position. Theses changes will automatically apply to staff - a confirmation email will be sent to confirm staff pay conditions have been updated.
You can read more about configuring and editing positions here.
Bulk assigning award classifications
To bulk assign award classifications to staff, follow the below steps:
Navigate to Compliance > Award Template and click Manage on the relevant template
Select Add Staff to Award
Select the Award for each employee, or for employees not covered by an award, select Custom Payroll Setup. When you have assigned either an award or custom payroll setup to each employee, click Select Awards at the bottom of the page to move to the next step.
Select the Employment Type and Classification/Level for each employee covered by the award. Note: if all staff are already assigned an employment type and classification, this step will be skipped automatically.
Assigning custom award rules
To configure the employee, select Custom Payroll Setup and then select the Tag or Tags that apply to them. You will also need to assign their base hourly rate in the Base Rate field:
Other employee profile payroll fields
Payroll ID
Some payroll systems use a Payroll ID as the unique identifier for employees. Entering a payroll ID will help to match records between systems.
Tanda uses email, phone number, employee ID and name to match the correct users when importing staff information, so this field is not mandatory in Tanda for all payroll systems, but if it is required in your payroll software, it's a good idea to have it in Tanda also.
Date of Birth and Employment Start Date
Employment start date will automatically apply the date you import an employee profile, but you can override that date. Date of birth is used to apply base hourly rates based on age.
Annual Salary
Enter the full annual salary into the salary field. You can decide how you want salary costs to calculate in your account general settings here.
Public Holidays
Confirms the Public Holiday settings applied to the employee. For further information on setting up public holidays in your account, see Configure public holiday dates.
Advanced Payroll Fields
Some payroll classifications payroll fields are turned off by default. These can be enabled by activating advanced payroll fields through Settings > Feature Management. Advanced payroll fields include:
Paid at Adult Rates: Tick this if you would like Tanda to disregard the age of the staff member and pay them adult rates
Part Time Fixed Hours: if your staff member is part time, this is where you enter what their contracted hours are, either weekly or fortnightly. That way, the system knows when to calculate overtime
Expected hours in a week: enter expected hours for salaried staff, to cost their hours on timesheets and reports. This can also be configured in Salary Settings.
Overtime averaging period: if you are set up for a weekly pay (for example), but you have a staff member whose overtime is calculated fortnightly
Period start date: this field determines the period start date for overtime calculation. If you use overtime averaging, this sets the start date of the overtime averaging period
FAQ's and Troubleshooting
How are salaries calculated?
There are two options for how you can apply salary costs in Tanda. To change the method of salary cost allocation, navigate to Settings > All Settings > View all general settings > Salary allocation.
The split evenly by rostered days salary allocation method divides the weekly salary by the number of shifts on the roster to arrive at a flat cost per worked shift. This calculation includes all rostered shifts for a particular employee, including published and unpublished shifts. Once the number of rostered shifts has been worked, adding up to the employees total salary, no further costs are added for additional shifts.
The split evenly by hourly rate salary allocation method divides the weekly salary by the rostered or expected hours for the week, whichever is larger. This creates an effective hourly rate for the week which is applied for each hour the employee works up until the employee has worked the total rostered hours or expected hours for the period.
Expected hours are determined by the number of expected hours entered into your organisation general settings under Settings > All Settings > View all general settings > Show advanced settings > Expected hours in pay period. Expected hours can also be modified for a specific employee on the payroll tab of the employee profile, as described above under 'advanced payroll fields'.
Why is the timesheet cost for a salaried employee less than the employees salary for a period?
If using the split evenly by rostered days salary allocation method, this means the number of worked shifts is less than the number of rostered shifts. This signals that either (a) there is an additional shift on the roster which shouldn't be there, or (b) the employee didn't attend one of their rostered shifts. Removing the additional shift, or applying leave for the day not worked will bring the timesheet cost in-line with the employees salary for the period.
If using the split by hourly rate salary allocation method, this means the total number of hours of worked time + leave on the timesheet adds up to be less than the expected hours or rostered hours (depending on which is greater) for the period. If an employee is engaged to work an expected number of hours in a period, and works less than those hours, the difference is typically made up of paid or unpaid leave.