The 30-minute HR audit: 8 questions to ask FairWork Mate AI about your business today

The Fair Work Ombudsman publishes its enforcement focus areas every year. Three patterns repeat: misclassified casuals, under-paid penalty rates, and inadequate records. Add to those the National Employment Standards baseline failures (notice, leave, redundancy), the contractor-vs-employee misclassification trap, and the modern-award classification drift, and you have eight repeating compliance gaps that account for the bulk of FWO recoveries and FWC unfair dismissal claims.

You don't need a $5,000 external HR audit to find them. You need 30 minutes, a list of your current staff, and FairWork Mate AI. Each of the eight questions below takes 3-5 minutes to answer with the AI's help. By the end you have a list of red flags ranked by exposure size, with the case-law citations to back up the prioritisation.

This audit doesn't replace formal compliance review for businesses with 50+ staff or complex enterprise agreements. It does catch the obvious gaps that a $300/hr lawyer would spend the first hour finding anyway.

Q1: Is every staff member on the correct modern award? Pull your staff list. For each one, ask FairWork Mate AI: "What award covers a [job title] in a [industry] business in [state]?" The AI returns the award code (e.g. MA000009 for hospitality), the relevant Fair Work Commission test for coverage, and any borderline cases. Red flag: any "covered by no award" answer for a non-management role — usually wrong.

Q2: Is each staff member on the correct classification level within their award? Ask: "An employee with [skills/duties] in [award] — what's the correct classification level?" The AI walks through the level definitions, asks for clarifying detail, and lands on a specific level (e.g. "Level 3 cook under MA000009"). Red flag: any "Level 1" classification for someone exercising real skill or supervision — that's the most common deliberate under-classification we see in FWO prosecutions.

Run these two for 5-15 staff and you'll either get clean confirmation (good) or 1-2 reclassifications (act on those before the FWO does).

Q3: Are any of your casuals overdue for a conversion offer? Ask: "We have casuals who started [date], working pattern [X]. Under the 2024 Closing Loopholes rules, are any of them eligible to be offered conversion to permanent?" The AI applies the small-business threshold (under 15 employees = 6-month rule, otherwise 12-month) and the "regular and systematic" test. Red flag: casuals working ≥6 months in a regular pattern with no offer-or-refusal letter on file. The exposure here is back-pay of leave entitlements they would have accrued as permanents — typically $5,000-$15,000 per casual.

Q4: Are any of your "contractors" actually employees? Ask: "We engage [name] as a contractor — they invoice us monthly, work 4 days a week at our premises, use our equipment, no other clients. Are they an employee under the 2024 ABCC v Personnel Contracting test?" The AI applies the multi-factor test from the High Court and recent FWC sham-contracting decisions. Red flag: any contractor who'd plausibly be found to be an employee — exposure is unpaid super (12% of all earnings since engagement), unpaid leave, and FWO sham-contracting penalties up to $99,000 per contravention. Contractor or Employee Check runs the same test in calculator form.

Q5: Is every staff member being paid at least their current award rate including all loadings? Ask: "Staff member on [award], Level [X], working [hours/pattern] in [state] — what's the minimum gross hourly they should be paid including casual loading and any applicable allowances?" Compare to what your payroll system has set. Red flag: any staff member being paid below the AI's calculated minimum. This is the #1 source of FWO back-pay orders. Use Pay Rate Lookup to verify the AI's number.

Q6: Is super being paid on the right base, at 12%, by the quarterly deadline? Ask: "We have an employee on $80,000 base + $5,000 in commissions + $3,000 in allowances. What's the super-guarantee base for 2025-26 and what do we owe?" The AI returns the OTE definition, applies the 12% rate (in force from 1 July 2025), and flags the maximum super contribution base ($62,500/quarter for 2025-26). Red flag: if super is being calculated on base only when commissions/allowances are part of OTE. Late super attracts the Super Guarantee Charge — interest plus admin fees plus loss of tax deduction.

Q7: Do your time-and-wages records meet the 7-year retention requirement? Ask: "What employment records am I required to keep under the Fair Work Act and Fair Work Regulations 2009, for how long, and what does FWO actually inspect during a workplace audit?" The AI walks through Regulations 3.31-3.40 — name, hours worked, pay rate, leave accrued and taken, super contributions, individual flexibility arrangements, and any employer-employee agreements modifying the award. Red flag: missing time records for casuals (most common gap), missing super-contribution records, no signed copy of employment contracts.

Q8: If you needed to terminate someone tomorrow, what process would protect you from an unfair dismissal claim? Ask: "What's the procedurally-fair process for terminating a [tenure] year employee in our [size] business for [reason], and what's our unfair dismissal exposure if we get it wrong?" The AI walks through the small-business exemption (under 15 employees = Small Business Fair Dismissal Code applies — different rules), the procedural-fairness requirements (warnings, support person, opportunity to respond), and the substantive-fairness test. Red flag: any termination process that skips written warnings, support person rights, or the opportunity to respond. Unfair dismissal compensation cap is 26 weeks pay or $87,500 (whichever lower) for 2025-26.

By the end of 30 minutes you'll have a list. Most will be small. Some will be large. Triage:

• Award/classification gaps — fix forward immediately (correct the rate this pay run), self-disclose past underpayment to FWO if material (over $1,000 per employee). Self-disclosure is treated favourably by FWO and reduces penalty exposure.
• Casual conversion overdues — issue offers or refusal letters in writing within 7 days. Document the assessment.
• Contractor reclassification — get a 30-minute call with an employment lawyer ($200-400) before unwinding. The unwind itself is high-risk and case-specific.
• Pay-rate underpayment — back-pay, document, fix the payroll system. Back Pay Calculator sizes the exposure.
• Super shortfalls — pay the SGC promptly. Late but voluntary is much cheaper than FWO-discovered.
• Records gaps — start the corrected record-keeping immediately. Past gaps can't be recreated, but going-forward compliance limits future exposure.
• Termination process risk — re-train your managers on the basic procedural-fairness sequence. Fix the process before you need it, not after.

30 minutes of self-audit, ~$0 of cost (free 2 questions/day at /advisor over 4 days, or one $9.99/day pass for the full audit in one sitting), and you've covered the eight gaps that account for most workforce-compliance pain. For HR teams running this audit quarterly across 50+ staff, For Business from $499/mo includes unlimited AI plus the API for integrating into your existing HR systems.