Upcoming Changes: Professional Employees Award 2020
Jul 17, 2023Earlier this year, the Fair Work Commission announced that it would be implementing a variety of changes to the Professional Employees Award 2020. These changes will be introduced on 16 September 2023.
If you're an Employer, it's important to keep up to date with these changes. After all, it is your legal obligation to ensure your employees are being paid correctly!
This Award covers the following:
- employers with respect of their employees who perform professional engineering and professional scientific duties where another industry award does not apply;
- employers principally engaged in the information technology industry, quality auditing industry or the telecommunications services industry and their employees who are covered by the classifications in the Award; and
- employers principally engaged as medical research institutes with respect to employees performing professional medical research duties and their employees who are covered by the classifications in the Award.
Currently, the Award does not address overtime and penalty rates, rather it required Employers to pay employees 'compensation' for hours of work that it applies to.
Here's a summary of what's changing:
- If an employee works in excess of 38 hours per week, they will now be entitled to paid overtime or time off in lieu.
- If an employee is required to commence work before 6:00 am and/or work beyond 10:00 pm from Monday to Saturday, a penalty rate of 25% will apply.
- If an employee is required to work on a Sunday or Public Holiday, a penalty rate of 50% will apply.
- Casual employees will be entitled to 25% casual loading on top of these penalty rates.
- In the instance that an employee works beyond 38 hours per week, they will be required to keep records of the hours worked.
- The coverage of this Award has been broadened (however, the Award will continue to NOT cover employees who are in wholly or principally managerial positions).
NOTE: The following changes WILL NOT apply to employees covered by this Award who receive an annual salary that is 25% or higher above the minimum annual wage for their classification.
It's clear that the changes being made are quite significant, however, they are unlikely to have a large impact on those covered by this Award due to the highly sought-after nature of those covered by this Award. Aka, many people covered by this Award have salaries well in excess of Award rates.
Actions for Employers:
- Check for any employees covered under this Award.
- Assess their salaries - how much higher (if at all) are they than the Award?
- CRITICAL: Do you have an "all inclusive" salary and "offset" clause? If not, contact us ASAP to revise your contracts.
If you have any questions about the changes being made to the Professional Employees Award 2020, please reach out to the Employii team at [email protected]
Author: Chelsea Finlay (HR Officer)
