Modern Awards and how they apply to small business

What is a Modern Award?

Minimum conditions at work are outlined within legislation, Modern Awards (Awards) and registered agreements; often called Enterprise Agreements (EA), or Enterprise Bargaining Agreements (EBA).

The majority of small businesses don’t have a registered agreement in place, and so will be turning to Awards and general employment legislation to guide the minimum requirements.

The first 122 Modern Awards were effective from 1 Jan 2010, consolidating more than 1500 existing Awards, after a huge review into pay and conditions across industries in Australia and the introduction of the new workplace relations system.

As you can imagine these Awards cover the majority of industries and occupations that employees work within in Australia, but if no Award applies then the minimum pay and conditions in the legislation will apply.

How do I know which ones/s, if any, apply to my team?

Finding the right Award can be tricky, but there's a few options:

• Use the Fair Work Award Finder (HERE).
  This is a good starting point, however there are limitations and as it doesn’t cover every role title or industry that Awards are applicable for.
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• Get in touch with your industry body for guidance specific to your sector.
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• Browse the Awards list on the Fair Work website, find ones that look relevant, then check the Coverage clause and job classifications.
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• Work with a HR professional. Having a HR Partner navigate it for you can give you peace of mind that you've got it covered.
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High income roles (above $190,100 or FY27) are not covered by an Award. There are also a number of professional roles that are not typically covered, for example accountants, marketing, legal, HR, PR, and IT. It is always a good idea to check the Awards for your industry and also the Professional Award or Miscellaneous Award to make sure they don’t cover your professional employees.
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Same, same, but different

While there are many similarities or consistent clauses across all Awards, there are also many nuances that exist between Awards (have we mentioned this stuff can be tricky?). If you have employees that are covered by more than one Award it pays to check the details.

In recent years, Family and Domestic Violence Leave , the Flexible Work Arrangements Model and Casual Conversion have been added as standard clauses across all Awards. Where Awards still vary considerably is in pay, work hours, and conditions.
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YIKES! The Award is over 70 pages long. Where do I start?

Some particular areas to be across are:

• Minimum Award Wages (and corresponding Classifications schedule) – ensuring your team are paid appropriately based on their skills, experience, qualifications and responsibilities.
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• Ordinary Hours of Work – this clause outlines the normal business hours for this employee group, e.g., between 7am and 7pm, but a maximum 10 hours per day.
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• Overtime or Shift Allowances – pretty self-explanatory but this will be important for rostering and planning workloads/workflows for many businesses to weigh up the impact of stretching out the work day versus employing more staff, for example.
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Need a hand navigating Awards?

Let us do the heavy lifting!

If sifting through Awards and figuring out how they apply to you and your employees sounds like something you’d rather not do, you can reach out to our team and we can walk you through the ways we can make the process simple for you.

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