Lucy Wilson explains why Gumtree Group is prioritising people over platforms as Payday Super reshapes payroll obligations this month
Payday Super, the biggest change to Australia's superannuation payment rules in decades, took effect on 1 July 2026, requiring employers to pay superannuation guarantee contributions at the same time as wages rather than quarterly.
For Lucy Wilson, chief people officer at Gumtree Group, the shift landed as a relatively minor item on a much bigger agenda – one dominated by artificial intelligence, workforce design and a hard-won philosophy she sums up in three words: talent before tools.
Payday Super lands with little disruption
Under the new regime, employers must ensure super contributions reach an employee's nominated fund within seven business days of payday, replacing the previous quarterly cycle. Gumtree Group – which operates the Gumtree, CarsGuide and Autotrader brands and runs payroll from within its people and culture team – said it began preparing months before the deadline.
"We knew that that was coming months ago," Wilson said. "We pay quarterly at the moment, so we just had to flip that over with the final payroll provider to make sure that it's sitting in the monthly accrual."
She added that operationally, the transition was straightforward for a business of Gumtree Group's size: "From a workflow perspective, it really is relatively simple."
Wilson said some of the resistance she has heard from other HR and payroll professionals reflects the scale of change involved for larger, more complex payroll operations. According to Australian Taxation Office guidance, the regulator will focus its early enforcement on employers who are not attempting to comply, giving businesses room to adjust systems through the first year.
Talent before tools guides the approach to AI rollout
The bigger focus for Gumtree Group's people and culture function is artificial intelligence – and specifically, how much responsibility employers carry for preparing their workforce for it.
"That's completely reshaping our workforce and how we work," Wilson said. "More importantly, not even the workforce as much yet, but completely reshaping ways of working."
Wilson said "organisations should first focus on capability, productivity and understanding how AI reshapes work before making broader organisational decisions.
The opportunity here is empowering people to do great things with that tool and seeing productivity lift before jumping in too quickly."
Her guiding question for leaders, she said, is: "What's our duty of care as the organisation to get people upskilled?"
That principle – talent before tools – also shaped how Gumtree Group navigated a major ownership transition after being acquired from Adevinta by ASX-listed media company The Market Herald (now ASX:GUM).
Wilson, who joined during that period, said the priority was addressing "change fatigue" among staff before making decisions on new systems or platforms, working alongside chief product and technology officer Paul Russell to rebuild the organisation's values from scratch through a series of workshops open to the whole business.
She believes involving and connecting employees directly in defining the culture created stronger engagement, greater ownership and ultimately deeper loyalty during a period of significant change.
Designing benefits people actually value
Beyond AI and payroll compliance, Wilson said a third priority for her team is building a benefits offering that flexes to individual employees rather than applying a single standard package across the workforce.
" How do I create something that's really important to one employee, and something that's equally meaningful to another at a different stage of life, where people can choose what they access?" she said.
Wilson said the skill she expects to be in highest demand across HR in coming years is workforce planning and design – the ability to model a future workforce and bring business leaders along in building it. "I actually think workforce planning and design is probably going to be the hottest skill for the next couple of years," she said.
