Making a great first day in Australia
Reviewed by Mellow Editorial Team, HR & payroll content team
A great first day for a new employee in Australia comes down to preparation and paperwork done before the person walks in the door — not scrambled together on the morning.
Get the legal paperwork sorted before day one
Three forms need to be completed before or on the first day, and leaving them until later creates compliance gaps.
Tax file number declaration. Your new employee fills this in so you know how much PAYG income tax to withhold. Without a TFN declaration, you are required to withhold at the top marginal rate — a bad start for everyone. Employees can also submit their TFN directly to the ATO through myGov, in which case you receive a notification rather than a paper form.
Superannuation choice form. Employees are entitled to choose their own complying super fund. Give them a standard choice form and allow them time to complete it. If they do not return one within the required period, you pay into their stapled fund (the ATO will tell you what it is) or your default fund if no stapled fund exists. From 2026, the Superannuation Guarantee rate is 12% of ordinary time earnings, so make sure your payroll is set up to reflect that figure.
Medicare levy and HELP debt. The Medicare levy is 2% and is factored into the PAYG withholding tables automatically. If your employee has a HECS/HELP study debt, they need to declare it on their tax file number declaration. You then apply the relevant repayment band on top of normal withholding. Missing this is a common error that leaves employees with a surprise tax bill at year end.
Set up payroll correctly on day one
Once the paperwork is in, open a payroll record for the employee before their first pay run. Key things to get right:
- Employment classification. Full-time, part-time or casual affects leave entitlements and how you calculate pay. Under the National Employment Standards, permanent employees accrue four weeks of annual leave per year. Casual employees do not accrue leave in the same way but attract a casual loading instead.
- Award or enterprise agreement. Most employees in Australia are covered by a Modern Award. Confirm which award applies — or whether an enterprise agreement or individual contract overrides it — and enter the correct base rate and any applicable penalty rates or allowances.
- Bank details and pay frequency. Collect bank account details on day one. Confirm the pay cycle (weekly, fortnightly or monthly) so the employee knows when to expect their first payment.
- Single Touch Payroll. Every pay event must be reported to the ATO through STP at the time of payment, not retrospectively. Your payroll software should handle this automatically, but confirm the employee's record is active in the system before the first pay run is processed. The annual STP finalisation deadline is 14 July — day one setup feeds directly into that end-of-year obligation.
Walk them through what they need to know practically
Legal compliance is one side of day one. The other is making the person functional as quickly as possible.
Give them a written summary — one or two pages is enough — covering: how to submit leave requests, who to contact for IT or facilities issues, how expenses are claimed, and the pay schedule. This does not need to be a glossy handbook. It just needs to answer the questions they would otherwise have to interrupt someone to ask.
Introduce them to the people they will actually work with, not just a formal org-chart tour. A brief ten-minute sit-down with a direct colleague does more for early engagement than a day of presentations.
If they are working remotely, ship equipment so it arrives before day one, confirm system access is live, and schedule a video call first thing. Remote employees lose the ambient orientation that office employees get automatically, so you need to replace it deliberately.
Redundancy and the longer compliance picture
Day one is also the right time to think about the employment relationship over its full arc. Redundancy entitlements under the National Employment Standards are calculated on years of service, so the employment start date matters — make sure it is recorded accurately in your payroll system. An incorrect commencement date can create disputes years later when employment ends.
Keep a signed copy of the employment contract, the completed tax forms, and the super choice form on file. These are the documents you will need if questions arise about entitlements, obligations or the terms the employee was engaged on.
If you have employees in multiple locations
Australian payroll obligations already have a lot of moving parts. If your workforce includes people in other countries as well — different tax regimes, different reporting cycles — the complexity multiplies quickly. How Mellow runs payroll across six countries on one platform covers how that can be managed without running separate systems for each jurisdiction.
The principle is the same wherever someone is based: get the setup right before the first pay event, because correcting it afterwards is always harder than doing it correctly once.
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