A certified Employment Hero partner is a consultancy that has completed Employment Hero’s implementation training and is listed on its partner directory. It is a training credential, not an endorsement. We’re Employment Star (employmentstar.com.au), a certified partner in Parramatta, NSW — implementation from $2,340 ex-GST, live in 14 business days.
“Certified partner” is a phrase that gets used loosely. Plenty of consultants describe themselves as Employment Hero specialists; fewer hold the actual credential, and the difference isn’t obvious from a website.
It’s also a phrase that means two entirely different things depending on who’s saying it — one about partners, one about a feature inside the platform. Both are worth understanding, and they get confused constantly.
Below: what the partner credential is, what it isn’t, how to check someone’s claim in about two minutes, and ten questions that will tell you more about a prospective partner than any brochure.
Two things people mean by "Employment Hero certification"
1. The Certified Hero Partner program — the partner credential
This is the commercial one. The Certified Hero Partner program is Employment Hero’s program for consultancies and specialists who implement and support the platform for other businesses.
To hold it, a partner completes a structured training course set by Employment Hero covering platform configuration, payroll setup and award interpretation, and is then listed in Employment Hero’s partner directory. It’s a demonstrable, checkable qualification rather than a self-description.
Here’s the boundary, stated plainly. Certification means we’ve completed Employment Hero’s implementation training and are listed as a partner. It does not mean Employment Hero employs us, supervises our work, guarantees our output, or endorses us beyond that partner relationship. Any implementer suggesting otherwise is overstating it, and you should treat the overstatement as information.
2. The Certifications feature — tracking your employees' licences
The second meaning has nothing to do with partners. Inside the platform, Certifications is a feature for tracking the qualifications, licences and compliance documents your own employees need to hold.
You define certification types — forklift licence, working with children check, first aid, trade licence, RSA, professional registration — assign them to roles or individuals, store the evidence against the employee record, and get automated notifications before they expire. It reports from a single dashboard, so you can answer “is everyone on site currently ticketed?” without opening a filing cabinet.
It also connects to the learning management side of the platform: when an employee completes an assigned course, the record sits alongside their other certifications on their profile.
If you searched “Employment Hero certification” wanting this feature, that’s what it does. If you were looking for who to hire, keep reading.
Why the Certified Employment Hero Partner program exists
Employment Hero is straightforward to buy and less straightforward to configure correctly.
The pattern the program exists to address is familiar: a business buys the platform, sets it up in-house, and it broadly works. Then a payroll query surfaces an award classification that was never quite right. Then an allowance that should have applied to a group of employees turns out never to have been switched on. Then someone realises onboarding was never connected to payroll, so bank details have been retyped for eighteen months.
None of that is a software failure. It’s a configuration failure, and configuration failures in payroll are quiet, systematic and cumulative. They don’t produce an error message — they produce a slightly wrong number, repeatedly, until someone checks.
The certification program is Employment Hero’s mechanism for making sure the people configuring the platform on behalf of businesses have been trained on the parts where being wrong is expensive: modern award rule sets, superannuation earnings bases, mid-year data migration, STP reporting categories.
Training your own team is a separate exercise, and a worthwhile one. We’ve covered platform training for your team on its own page.
How to verify a partner's certification
Two minutes, three steps.
- Check Employment Hero’s partner directory for the business name — not the individual’s name, and not a trading name that differs from the entity you’d be contracting with. If they’re listed, they’re certified.
- Ask which individual holds the certification and whether that person will do your configuration. Some firms hold the credential through one person and staff projects with others. That’s not necessarily a problem, but you should know.
- Ask when it was completed. Employment Hero’s platform changes; a credential earned before STP Phase 2 and Payday Super existed doesn’t cover them. What you actually want is evidence of recent work, not just a certificate.
A partner who is comfortable with all three questions is a partner who has nothing to manage around.
Certified partner, general consultant, or do it yourself
| What you’re checking | Certified Employment Hero partner | General HR or bookkeeping consultant | Self-managed setup |
|---|---|---|---|
| Completed Employment Hero’s implementation training | Yes, by definition | Not necessarily — ask | Not applicable |
| Listed on Employment Hero’s partner directory | Yes, and verifiable | No | Not applicable |
| Modern award rule configuration | Core part of the role | Depends on the individual | Your team’s responsibility |
| Parallel test pay run before go-live | Should be standard — ask | Ask | Frequently skipped |
| Where configuration risk sits | Shared under the engagement | Shared under the engagement | Entirely with you |
| Typical commercial model | Fixed project fee | Hourly or day rate | Internal staff time |
Self-managed setup is a legitimate choice, and for a small salaried team on a single award it’s often the right one. The calculation changes with multiple awards, shift work, casuals, several entities, or a mid-financial-year migration.
10 questions to ask any Employment Hero partner before you engage them
- Are you listed on Employment Hero’s partner directory, and under exactly which business name? The entity on the directory should match the entity on your invoice.
- Who will actually do the configuration work, and do they hold the certification? Names, not team descriptions.
- Which modern awards have you configured before — and have you configured mine? Award-specific experience is the single strongest predictor of a clean build.
- Is your price fixed or is it an estimate? An estimate that moves after discovery is a different product to a fixed fee.
- What’s the committed go-live date, and what happens if it slips? A partner who won’t commit to a date has learned not to.
- Do you run a parallel test pay run before go-live, and will I see the variance report? This is the question that separates thorough implementers from fast ones. Ask it early.
- How do you migrate year-to-date payroll figures mid-financial-year? If you’re switching mid-year, this determines whether your employees’ income statements are correct at year end.
- How are you handling Payday Super qualifying earnings — will you review every earnings category? “Qualifying earnings” is not identical to ordinary time earnings, and a partner who hasn’t internalised that will leave the old flags in place.
- What does support look like after go-live — how many pay cycles, and through which channel? Cycle two is when the real questions arrive.
- What do you need from me, and by when? A partner who can’t answer this in specifics hasn’t planned your project; they’ve quoted it.
If someone answers all ten crisply, you’ve found a competent implementer. If they can’t answer questions 3, 6 and 8, keep looking — those three are where the expensive mistakes live.
Want a second opinion on your current setup?
We’re a certified Employment Hero implementation partner. Send us your configuration and we’ll tell you what’s working, what isn’t, and what it would take to fix — whether or not you end up working with us. No charge, no obligation.
What we do as a certified Employment Hero partner
We’re Employment Star, a certified Employment Hero implementation partner based in Parramatta, NSW, working with small and medium businesses across Australia. ABN 16 685 407 738.
We implement Employment Hero end to end for a fixed, one-off fee from $2,340 ex-GST — not a monthly charge and not priced per employee — with a commitment to 14 business days to go-live for a standard build, or 20 to 25 business days for complex multi-award environments.
That covers discovery and award mapping, data migration and reconciliation, modern award configuration, Payday Super and STP Phase 2 setup, Xero or MYOB integration, a parallel test pay run with a variance report you see, role-based training, go-live support and two pay cycles afterwards. The phase-by-phase detail is in our guide to how an implementation actually runs, and there’s a worked example in our Ortus Financial case study.
Afterwards you can run it yourself, or hand payroll and HR back to us. Our Employment Hero implementation and outsourced HR management services both operate with no lock-in contract and no per-employee fees, because the point of getting the configuration right is that you’re not dependent on us to keep it working.
This article is general information only and does not constitute legal, tax or financial advice. Obligations vary by business, industry and applicable modern award. Check your circumstances with the ATO, the Fair Work Ombudsman, or a qualified adviser.
Frequently asked questions
What does it mean to be a certified Employment Hero partner?
The firm has completed Employment Hero’s implementation training program and is listed in Employment Hero’s partner directory. It’s a training credential covering platform configuration, payroll setup and award interpretation. It does not mean Employment Hero employs, supervises or endorses the partner beyond that partner relationship.
How do I check whether a partner is genuinely certified?
Look up the business name in Employment Hero’s partner directory and confirm it matches the entity you’d be contracting with. Then ask which individual holds the certification, whether that person will do your configuration, and when the training was completed — the platform has changed considerably since STP Phase 2 and Payday Super arrived.
Do I need a certified partner to implement Employment Hero?
No. The platform is built to be self-serviceable and many businesses set it up themselves. The risk concentrates in modern award configuration, superannuation earnings bases and mid-year data migration. For a small, salaried, single-award team a self-managed setup is realistic; for shift work or multiple awards it’s a harder call.
Is "Employment Hero certification" the same as the Certifications feature?
No, and the two get confused often. The Certified Hero Partner program is a credential held by implementation consultancies. The Certifications feature is a tool inside the platform for tracking your own employees’ licences, tickets and qualifications, with automated expiry notifications.
What should an Employment Hero implementation include?
Discovery and award mapping, data migration reconciled to source, modern award and pay category configuration, Payday Super and STP Phase 2 setup, accounting integration, a parallel test pay run compared against your previous system, role-based training, go-live support, and support through at least the following two pay cycles.
Is Employment Star a certified Employment Hero partner?
Yes. We’re listed as a certified partner in Employment Hero’s partner directory and implement the platform for small and medium businesses across Australia from Parramatta, NSW. Our implementation is a fixed one-off fee from $2,340 ex-GST with a 14-business-day go-live commitment for standard builds.
Talk to a certified partner
We’ll review your requirements, map your awards and give you a fixed scope and date before you commit to anything.
Implementation from $2,340 ex-GST, live in 14 business days, no lock-in contract, no per-employee fees.
+61 466 614 475 · info@employmentstar.com.au
About Employment Star — We’re a certified Employment Hero implementation partner based in Parramatta, NSW, working with small and medium businesses across Australia. We handle Employment Hero setup, modern award configuration, data migration, STP Phase 2 and Payday Super — fixed price from $2,340 ex-GST, live in 14 business days.
Published 5 June 2026 · Last updated 3 August 2026