Plague of wage theft and growing worker dejection can be traced to a common source

But headlines and billion-dollar quantum computing boosts will only take us so far. I've yet to see anything in the government's FMIA materials, the recent budget, or anywhere else on any plans to fix the damaging disconnect between an increasingly complicated industrial relations (IR) system, technology, and human resources process.

I firmly believe this disconnect is a major contributor to our stubborn productivity woes, underpayment and wage theft scandals, and much more, and the benefits of fixing it are exponential for people, the economy, and the hopes we have for Australia's future global leadership.

Even in this digital-first era, the worker still very much carries this country.

My Grandad was a boiler maker, jumping into fire boxes often while trying to keep steam trains running. Dad was a motor mechanic. My friends were mostly tradies. I've been everything from a DJ, lighting technician, author, consultant, and CEO, straddling the worlds of blue and white collar.

What I've seen over that time is IR laws go from simple to complex, and with that the introduction of workforce management and payment technologies intended to make it all run smoothly.

Clearly, that intent has not been realised. People and businesses tend to think tech can solve these issues, and it can't (in isolation at least). It's now at the point where it's incredibly difficult for employers to be certain they're correctly paying workers, hence the plague of underpayment and wage theft scandals.

The cost of falling on the wrong side of the Fair Work Ombudsman is about to skyrocket too. From 2025, the Ombudsman will be able to fine larger employers up to three times the value of underpayments, while new right-to-disconnect laws will make it more difficult to join the dots on people logging on or off outside of hours.

And as with all things that affect people, the cost goes beyond the almighty dollar. Workforce issues are affecting people from the Australian Public Service (APS) to the coalface of private industry feeling rightfully dejected.

The pay gap between the top and bottom is growing, the gender pay gap is at nearly 22 per cent, underpayment and wage theft are eroding trust, returning to the office is forced in many cases, and recognition and appreciation are low.

A recent report highlighted the issue as two-thirds of employees reported they don't feel appreciated in the workplace, while more than three-quarters human resources (HR) managers believed they were appreciated.

The issue is obviously nuanced and goes beyond IR. Organisational leaders simply don't put enough emphasis on what their people think about them, the organisation, where it's going, or whether or not people's passions are being listened to or cared about.

There are simple tools we could use more to measure and improve this feeling such as the simple employee Net Promoter Score (NPS), which asks the simple question: How likely are you to recommend us as a place to work for your family and friends?

There's a braveness and maturity in asking that question, and in recognising the need to bridge gaps between employees and employers that emerge from answers to it. But few Australian government agencies, enterprises, or other major employers do.

Fixing the issues that have festered in IR and with workers' rights requires listening, but crucially we also need to build the missing traceability element between payment, people, and tech. We can actually live with the complexity of the system - Canberra, predominantly, has set these rules with the best of intentions and to make Australia a fairer place to work.

But the decades-long compounding complexity of payment rules, along with a total lack of investment into workforce management and payroll technologies that are supposed to connect award rates, agreements and what appears in people's paycheques, have put us at this crossroads.

In an economy supposedly driven by AI and automation, there is still nothing that can accurately connect these people-payment pillars and go some way to mending trust and improving productivity.

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It's disappointing the government doesn't seem to recognise this issue given its mission to make Australia a manufacturing and green energy powerhouse. Budding entrepreneurs will benefit from the $22.7 billion the government has allocated, sure, but they'll need people too, as well as ease and confidence to pay them.

We need to seriously invest in technology that can simplify the systems that inhibit its use to drive productivity and efficiency. And Canberra has to lead this, through incentives and leading by example as one of the country's largest employers and procurers of workforce management and payroll technology.

But political leaders have avoided it for years because it's not easy to fix and frankly, worryingly, most don't understand it.

With election campaign winds starting to blow and a visit to the polls likely within the year, certain within the next 18 months, I implore the existing government and those who challenge them to be as ambitions with fixing a broken workforce management system as they are with billion-dollar promises.

Whatever our political leanings and the different industries we believe will design the future, I'm sure we can all agree a happier, more engaged, more productive workforce free from the shackles of crippling IR and trust issues could bring.