Leading Australian building manufacturer improves employee experience, automates compliance and triples user base with Smart WFM

Leading Manufacturer bolsters workforce management automation, brings salaried and third-party hires under WFM system as new wage compliance legislation sets in.

Sydney, June 2025 – Compliance, productivity and experience consulting company, Smart WFM, today announced it has deployed a major UKG workforce management upgrade to a leading Australian building products manufacturer. It supports the company’s long-standing commitment to maintain payment accuracy and comes as new workforce legislation begins in Australia. 

The customer selected Smart WFM to deploy a major upgrade to its UKG environment, which manages its workforce management (WFM) functions. The upgrade has simplified and automated a range of processes related to time tracking, overtime, and – crucially – maintaining compliance with the Australian Government’s Closing Loopholes Act 2023. Employees now have the option to access the application via a mobile app, demonstrating the customer’s desire to offer flexibility and improve employee experience.

As part of the legislation, from the start of this year, new laws are being enforced to ensure staff in Australia are paid accurately and businesses have systems in place to track and report compliance with the Fair Work Commission’s relevant award rates.

A customer program manager said the company wanted to ensure its staff weren’t burdened with self-reporting their time.

“We’ve always had a strong focus on ensuring our staff are paid accurately, but we wanted to go a step further and create a system that simplifies and automates the processes that are ensuring this,” they said.

“These upgrades mean we have automated systems to track, for example, overtime for our staff to ensure it is accurately captured and reflected in their paycheques. Having that data to hand also means we can see if overtime is becoming a burden for any staff member or department and then take steps to address it.”

The complex deployment has nearly tripled the number of Australian and New Zealand staff on the UKG system, as it now includes salaried and even third-party labour hire staff. “Upgrades of this calibre can often take years or end up being shelved, but partnering with Smart WFM helped to ensure it was successfully completed in just seven months,” they said.

“Smart WFM’s team didn’t just bring expertise and experience, they worked with us to identify what we really needed. They ensured things like our flexible working and bespoke time-in-lieu policies were enshrined into the solution from the start, which has helped to reduce costs and avoid complications or delays.”

Smart WFM CEO Jarrod McGrath says the customer is an exemplar for what it means to meet the obligations it has to its people.

"A lot of workforce management projects are reactionary, in that they involve companies that have realised that they are not paying staff correctly particularly with the new wage theft laws coming in,” said McGrath.

“But this customer is a rare outlier in that its HR and transformation teams have taken a truly proactive approach to getting the most out of this technology, to make clocking in and out, scheduling, and payment easier for its people. This is a benchmark for all industries – not just construction – to be a positive and proactive leader in people, payment, processes, and tech.”

About Smart WFM

Founded in 2016, Smart WFM is a professional services consulting company focused on delivering compliance, productivity and experience solutions by tailoring UKG technology. The Smart WFM team has deep domain expertise across UKG Pro WFM and UKG Ready technology across time, scheduling, HR and Boomi integration, with experience across multiple industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, retail, finance, gaming, transport and logistics, construction, and government.

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