Wages usually refer to the money paid to employees who are working under an award or an enterprise agreement. Salaries are usually paid to employees who do not work under an award or an agreement but may work under a written contract or a partly written contract constituted by the documentation leading up to the appointment.

A critical aspect of both wages and salaries is the correct categorisation or classification of each employee. This means that each employee must be correctly titled and the work allocated must be consistent with the classification. Simply calling an employee a manager does not avoid the application of an award that covers the work that the so-called manager does.