BHP has said its “sorry” for payroll issues that resulted in 28,500 staff being underpaid and has called in Protiviti to conduct a review of its payroll systems.
In an ASX statement, the mining giant said [pdf] it “identified issues with certain allowances and entitlements affecting a number of its current and former employees in Australia.”
According to BHP, it incorrectly deducted annual leave on public holidays over a 13-year period.
The remediation cost is anticipated to be up to US$280 million (A$430 million) pre-tax, incorporating costs including associated superannuation and interest payments.
Current and past employees had an average of six leave days incorrectly deducted from their balances.
Early investigations have found OZ Minerals has also been impacted by a similar leave issue before being acquired by BHP in May 2023.
BHP also said 400 current and former employees at “Port Hedland are entitled to additional allowances due to an error with the employment entity in their contract.”
BHP president Australia Geraldine Slattery said the company is “sorry to all current and former employees impacted by these errors.”
“This is not good enough and falls short of the standards we expect at BHP. We are working to rectify and remediate these issues, with interest, as quickly as possible.”
While Protiviti conducts its own investigation, BHP said [pdf] that “calculating any historical entitlements is a highly manual process and requires assessment of many different data points and records for each individual affected, including inputs such as payslips, rosters, swipe data.”
The organisation self-reported to the Fair Work Ombudsman and affected employees will be contacted directly via email within the next two weeks.
BHP said an update will be provided in its full-year results in August.
A dedicated hotline and website will be established to provide assistance for impacted staff from Friday.
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