The 2026 workplace changes you cannot afford to miss

If your payroll settings have not been touched since last financial year, this post is for you. The 12 months to July 2026 stacked up more employer-side change than any recent year, and several of the new rules carry teeth. Here is what is now in force, in plain English, and what to actually do about it.

Award rates went up 4.75 per cent on 1 July 2026

The Fair Work Commission’s 2026 annual wage review lifted most modern award rates by 4.75 per cent, with the national minimum wage rising to $26.44 an hour, or $1,004.90 a week. The increase touches the pay of roughly a fifth of the Australian workforce. If you pay award rates, your payroll should have moved on 1 July. If you pay salaries “above award”, the floor just rose underneath you: a salary that comfortably covered the award last year might only barely cover it now, and a set-off clause only works while the salary genuinely covers the entitlements.

Payday super started 1 July 2026

The quarterly super cycle is gone. From 1 July 2026, superannuation guarantee contributions must be paid at the same time as wages, reaching the employee’s fund within seven business days of payday. For a business paying fortnightly, that is 26 super events a year instead of four. The cash flow rhythm changes, and so does the margin for error: a missed payment now surfaces within days, not months. If your payroll software is not handling this automatically yet, that is an urgent conversation with your bookkeeper.

Super sits at 12 per cent, the final step

The superannuation guarantee reached its legislated ceiling of 12 per cent on 1 July 2025. No further scheduled increases, but combined with payday super, the total cost and cadence of employing someone has genuinely shifted. Worth rechecking your loaded cost per employee if you have not done so since 2024.

Underpayment is now criminal territory

Since 1 January 2025, intentional underpayment of wages or entitlements is a criminal offence, with penalties that reach individuals, not just companies. The word “intentional” matters: honest mistakes remain a civil issue. But “we never got around to checking” is a harder story to tell every year, which is exactly why an annual reconciliation of actual pay against award entitlements has become baseline hygiene, not best practice.

The right to disconnect now covers small business

Since August 2025, employees of small businesses also hold the right to refuse unreasonable out-of-hours contact. It does not ban the after-hours email. It does mean expectations about availability should be written down, reasonable and consistent, rather than assumed.

Three checks to run this quarter

• Reconcile every wage and salary against the post-July award rates, including allowances and penalties, and keep the working.
• Confirm your payroll actually pays super each cycle and that contributions are landing inside seven business days.
• Reread your contracts’ set-off and availability clauses against the rules above. If they were drafted before 2025, assume they need attention.

This is precisely the sort of quiet, unglamorous work a fractional HR team does so it never becomes a headline problem. Book a 20 minute call with ACTIv8 and we will tell you which of these checks your business actually needs, and which you can tick off yourself.