Good faith, adverse action and the limits of employer discretion are all in play
An HR leader who flagged a $40 million wage compliance risk at Accenture has had her dismissal claims survive a Federal Court challenge.
Donna Young was employed as Employment Relations Lead in Accenture Australia's Human Resources Division from 31 October 2017. She was dismissed on 9 February 2024, without notice.
The case begins with overtime. As far back as 5 December 2019, Young informed then-CEO Bob Easton that the company's overtime recording system, known as myTE, carried a risk of historical breaches of employment law. Four days later, she presented to Accenture's board, warning that past non-compliance could result in up to six years of back payments, with a rough cost estimate of up to $40 million.
She continued raising the alarm over the following years, pointing to the gap between overtime hours recorded in myTE and those employees actually claimed as compensable. She also complained her four-person team was roughly one quarter the size of comparable teams at similar organisations, and that global hiring freezes prevented her from adding staff.
By late September 2023, an internal investigation was launched. Young was given notice on 27 September 2023 to attend a meeting at 10:00am the following morning, her last working day before scheduled leave, with five lawyers: two from Accenture plc's Corporate Investigation division (Ms Xinping Chen and Mr Calvin Bao) and three from Norton...
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