A Queensland university has signed an agreement pledging to repay thousands of underpaid staff more than $8 million.

Griffith University failed to properly compensate 5,457 employees across its six campuses, affecting full-time, part-time, and casual staff since 2015. The underpayment impacted academics, fitness staff, and support personnel.

Individual underpayments ranged from less than $1 to more than $92,400, including superannuation and interest.

The university will now repay more than $8.34 million in payments after it signed an enforceable undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman.

The government watchdog found academics were not paid properly for activities such as tutorials and subject coordination rates.

Fitness staff were not paid split shift or meal allowances and progression between pay bands had been incorrectly paid.

Insufficient training, inadequate data collection, lack of automation, payroll system errors, and lax payroll and data review processes were identified as the causes of these payment issues.

Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said Griffith University had self-reported the breaches and co-operated with the ombudsman’s investigation.

“This situation highlights the serious, ongoing problems that can arise when an employer does not implement appropriate checks and balances to ensure workplace compliance,” she stated.

Griffith is the sixth university to sign an agreement to repay staff who were underpaid.

“We expect universities to meet their legal obligations under their own enterprise agreements and underlying awards,” Booth said.