A few months ago, I wrote a long blog about the on-going problems of paying staff working for the Queensland Health service in the Australian State of Queensland. Well, the problems are still on-going, six months later.
The health service installed a late, over-budget and under-tested payroll system on the 24th of March of this year. Immediately, technical deficiencies surfaced, which resulted in many Queensland Health staff not getting paid; some getting paid incorrectly; some employees who had quit a year ago (or died) still getting paid; some getting paid but with blank payroll slips to tell them what was taken out of their pay; and some staff even quitting over the problem.
The problems caused a major political row to erupt, with promises that the payroll problems would be fixed in the "near future."
Well, the near future is now, and according to this story in the Courier Mail, Queensland Health admits that at least 50 of its staff won't be paid again this pay period, and that it still hasn't processed 11,500 pay corrections that are needed. Queensland Health administrators did try to put a positive spin on the news, however, saying that 11,500 pay corrections is way down from the 35,000 that once existed.
Tell that to the staff who haven't been paid - or paid correctly - for the past six months. I am sure they will rejoice at the progress being made.
Robert N. Charette is a Contributing Editor to IEEE Spectrum and an acknowledged international authority on information technology and systems risk management. A self-described “risk ecologist,” he is interested in the intersections of business, political, technological, and societal risks. Charette is an award-winning author of multiple books and numerous articles on the subjects of risk management, project and program management, innovation, and entrepreneurship. A Life Senior Member of the IEEE, Charette was a recipient of the IEEE Computer Society’s Golden Core Award in 2008.
