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The Yellow Canary Story

We're revolutionising the way employers approach workforce compliance

Yellow Canary was founded to address under-serviced and widespread workforce compliance issues in Australian businesses. Our mission is to make compliance easy for our clients.

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We make compliance easy for Australian businesses

  • Australian Industrial Relations is complex. With 122 modern awards and thousands of Enterprise Agreements (EAs), compliance is extremely difficult to manage and monitor.
  • Australia is notorious for underpayment scandals. Remediation projects - traditionally carried out by the Big 4 - are expensive, and can last for years.
  • Yellow Canary built the first Always On Compliance solution to automate regular payroll reviews, helping large Australians employers to monitor compliance on an ongoing basis, avoiding unnecessary remediation projects.
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Pioneering automated compliance solutions

Underpayments are a direct result of outdated processes and systems. Ironically, the proposed solution to underpayments has often been the very cause of the problem in the first place. Yellow Canary set out to challenge this approach. Our Always On Compliance platform simplifies regular payroll auditing, eliminating the risk of human error, streamlining governance processes, and offering insights to improve systemic issues.

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Living our values in everything we do

At Yellow Canary, living our values isn't just a motto. It's the foundation of our company culture and the way we do business. To ensure our values are intrinsic in our ways of working, we incorporate them into our hiring process, celebrate values champions, encourage employees to share values stories, and communicate them regularly.

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The leadership team behind our vision

Our leadership team brings diverse technical and industry experience to drive the business strategy and growth. They lead by example to align our teams on our shared vision to make workforce compliance easy for Australian employers.

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Supporting some of Australia’s largest employers across multiple industries

100+

Payroll reviews completed in 7 years

$70 billion

Of employee payroll data reviewed

300k+

Employees reviewed

100%

Of reviews have found non-compliance

Frequently asked questions

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Who is Yellow Canary?

Yellow Canary is a growing RegTech scale-up that enables Australian employers to achieve compliance confidence across employee payments, entitlements and Long Service Leave. Supporting Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) obligations, Yellow Canary’s Always On Compliance platform automates regular reviews, comparing payments to obligations, and providing rapid actionable insights.

What does Yellow Canary do?

Yellow Canary challenges the traditional approach to workforce compliance. Their automated solutions are designed to support companies navigating the complexities of the Australian industrial relations system, and to enable ongoing compliance due diligence.

Who are Yellow Canary’s founders?

Yellow Canary was founded in 2018 by Marcus Zeltzer and Brenton McSweyn to address under-serviced and widespread workforce compliance issues in Australian businesses.

Is wage theft a crime in Australia?

State specific wage theft laws in Queensland and Victoria mean that employers in those states can face criminal charges and convictions as a result of wage theft.

Under the Closing Loopholes Act 2023, intentional wage theft will carry severe penalties of up to 10 years in prison and fines reaching $1,565,000 for individuals and $7,825,000 for corporations, or three times the value of the underpayment – whichever is higher.

The Closing Loopholes No.2 Act 2024 includes civil provisions. Serious contraventions will cover recklessness as well as intentional acts, with the maximum fine increasing to $4,696,000, or three times the underpaid - whichever is higher. These reforms are prompting employers to think ahead about their compliance strategies, to avoid penalties resulting from missteps in wage compliance processes.

Why should my business prioritise compliance?

Australian businesses are under more pressure than ever to maintain and demonstrate workforce compliance. Non-compliance with workplace laws can result in payroll underpayments. This isn’t just bad for business; no matter the intent, underpaying workers can lead to decreased employee morale and lack of trust in the employer. Regular compliance reviews are essential for employers to ensure they’re meeting legal and ethical obligations and that issues do not compound over time.

Who are Yellow Canary’s clients?

Yellow Canary’s clients are some of Australia’s most recognisable employers with workforces from 500 to 100,000 across a range of industry sectors including banking, insurance, retail, hospitality, manufacturing and health services.

What makes Yellow Canary’s Always On Compliance solution different from other service or solution providers?

Yellow Canary’s Always On Compliance subscription offers a purpose-built calculator configured to your business needs. Using advanced technology, Yellow Canary creates a fast and scalable solution that simplifies the payroll verification process.