Introduction
This guide provides an overview of how the Humanforce Suite assists in meeting the requirements of the Aged Care Award [MA000018]. It covers the main award clauses and their application within the Humanforce system. The purpose of this guide is to serve as a comprehensive reference for employers with employees covered by the Aged Care Modern Award.
Use of this Library Award does not replace your obligations to ensure you are compliant with the Award in a way applicable to you and your scenario. All advice sought throughout the building of this award was general in nature and there is no guarantee it aligns with your specific circumstances.
Using this Guide
The guide demonstrates how Humanforce assists in meeting the requirements of the Aged Care Award. While this guide details the most common sections of the Award, it is not an exhaustive resource. To view the full sections of the Award, please refer to the Aged Care Award on the Fair Work Ombudsman website.
This guide was last reviewed on April 11, 2024.
What Type of Employee/Employer is this Award For?
This award is intended for employers with employees covered and supported by the Aged Care Modern Award [MA000018].
Configuration Notes:
- This Library Award covers the follow Award profiles
- Aged Care – FT
- Aged Care – PT
- Aged Care – CAS
- Aged Care – FT Shiftwork
- Aged Care – PT Shiftwork
- Aged Care – CAS Shiftwork
Configuring the Award
Enabling the Award
A member of the Humanforce team will be required to enable this award and any appropriate award profiles within your Humanforce system.
Setting Correct Base Pay Rates
Humanforce does not currently support award-appropriate base rates as part of our library awards. However, base rates appropriate to your organisation can be loaded within your system. For more information on setting base rates, please refer to this help article.
Enabling/Adjusting Allowances
This library award has a set of allowances which can be enabled for any given employee by assigning them a qualification from within Workforce Management. Assigning a qualification will activate the associated allowance for all shifts.
If an allowance is subject to a limit, such as a laundry or uniform allowance as an example, this has been built into the system to prevent exceeding the payment cap.
If the allowances on this library award do not align to how you pay your Aged Care workforce, your workforce management consultant can work with you to find an alternative best solution appropriate to your organisation's needs. For example, it may be appropriate to relocate an allowance from a qualification to a role or set of roles, and only when those roles are worked does the allowance occur.
The following allowances may be considered for such changes:
- Uniform Allowance
- Tool Allowance
- Nauseous Work Allowance
- Leading Hand Allowance (Levels 1-4)
- Laundry Allowance
Award Summary Table
This table is a summary of the Library award elements and which components can be edited and managed by a Humanforce Consultant, or yourselves directly.
*1 - A standard broken shift will work but span of hours based overtime specific to a weekday will not at present
*2 - all of this is automated inclusive of the variances that occur when less than 38 hours of Ordinary is worked.
*3 - All Purpose Allowances are not currently possible out of Humanforce, but the base rate Allowance can be handled and is currently handled via the Library Award
*4 - Use of the Work During Sleepover shift type is required to make this work in the case of work during sleepover.
*5 - Addition to Annual Leave balances is not support within the Library Award but may be configured out of your payroll system and fed back into Humanforce depending on your Payroll solution.
*6 - Includes all appropriate payments resulting but does not include cases like (i) that prevent the employee from being rostered for a sleepover on an ADO.
Hours of Work
Ordinary Hours
Automated
The following rules are automated within Humanforce:
- 22.1 Ordinary hours of work - The ordinary hours of work will be 38 hours per week, or an average of 38 hours per week worked over 76 hours per fortnight or 114 hours per 21 days or 152 hours per four week period, and will be worked either:
- Ordinary Hours of Work 22.1 c) - eight hours on a day shift or 10 hours on a night shift.
- Minimum Engagements 22.7 a) - The ordinary hours of work will be 38 hours per week, or an average of 38 hours per week worked over 76 hours per fortnight or 114 hours per 21 days or 152 hours per four week period, and will be worked either:Permanent part-time and casual employees will receive a minimum payment of two hours for each engagement.
- Span of Hours 22.2 - The ordinary hours of work for a day worker will be worked between 6.00 am and 6.00 pm Monday to Friday.
- Rest breaks between rostered work 22.4 a) - An employee will be allowed a break of not less than 10 hours between the termination of one shift or period of duty and the commencement of another.
Manual in Humanforce
The following requirement is not currently automated and must be handled manually in Humanforce:
- 22.3 Rostered Days Off - Employees, other than a casual employee, will be free from duty for not less than two full days in each week or four full days in each fortnight or eight full days in each 28 day cycle. Where practicable, days off will be consecutive.
Manual in Payroll
The following requirement is not currently automated and must be handled manually in Payroll:
Reconfigurable
The following requirements can be reconfigured within scope:
- Additional Part day Public Holiday Options - At present, only the standard QLD/SA/NT Part day Public Holidays are supported in the Library Award build. It is possible to build these provisions out for Regional Show Days should you have this requirement. Just ask your Humanforce consultant!
Unsupported
The following requirements are currently not supported within Humanforce:
- Ordinary Hours of Work 22.1 a) - in a period of 28 calendar days of not more than 20 work days in a roster cycle;
- Ordinary Hours of Work 22.1 b) - in a period of 28 calendar days of not more than 19 work days in a roster cycle, with the twentieth day taken as an accrued paid day off (ADO)
- Minimum Engagements 22.7 a) - Full-time employees will receive a minimum payment of four hours for each engagement in respect of ordinary hours of work
- Rest breaks between rostered work 22.4 b) - By mutual agreement, the 10 hour rest break may be reduced to eight hours.
- Broken shifts 22.8 d) - All work performed beyond the maximum span of 12 hours for a broken shift will be paid at double time.
- Higher Duties 27.1 - An employee engaged in any duties carrying a higher wage rate than the classification in which they are ordinarily employed in any one day or shift will be paid at the higher wage rate
Breaks
Automated
The following break rules are automated within Humanforce:
- Meal Breaks (24.1 a) - Each employee who works in excess of five hours will be entitled to an unpaid meal break of not less than 30 minutes and not more than 60 minutes duration, to be taken at a mutually agreed time after commencing work.
- Meal Breaks (24.1 b) - Where an employee is required to remain available to attend to duty or is on duty during their meal break, the employee will be paid at overtime rates for all time worked from the commencement of that meal break until such time that a meal break free from duty is taken by the employee or the employee’s shift ends (whichever occurs first). Whilst payment will be calculated at overtime rates, the time worked until the meal break is taken will be regarded and count as an employee’s ordinary time.
Manual in Payroll
The following break requirements are not currently automated and must be handled manually in Payroll:
Wages and Allowances
Allowances
Automated
The following allowance is automated within Humanforce:
- Sleepovers (22.9) - See above below the table for limitations
- Meal Allowance (15.4 a i) - when required to work after the usual finishing hour of work beyond one hour or, in the case of shiftworkers, when the overtime work on any shift exceeds one hour.
- Meal Allowance (15.4 a ii) - Provided that where such overtime work exceeds four hours a further meal allowance of $13.70 will be paid.
Manual in Humanforce
The following allowances require the relevant qualification be enabled on entitled employees profiles:
- Clothing and Equipment (15.2) - Instead of the provision of such uniforms, the employer may, by agreement with the employee, pay such employee a uniform allowance at the rate of $1.23 per shift or part thereof on duty or $6.24 per week, whichever is the lesser amount. Where such employee’s uniforms are not laundered by or at the expense of the employer, the employee will be paid a laundry allowance of $0.32 per shift or part thereof on duty or $1.49 per week, whichever is the lesser amount.
- Leading Hand Allowance (15.3 b) - A leading hand will be paid a weekly allowance of the amount specified by the item number in accordance with the following scale
- Nauseous Work allowance (15.5 a) - An allowance of 0.05% of the standard rate per hour or part thereof will be paid to an employee in any classification if they are engaged in handling linen of a nauseous nature other than linen sealed in airtight containers and/or for work which is of an unusually dirty or offensive nature having regard to the duty normally performed by such employee in such classification. Any employee who is entitled to be paid an allowance will be paid a minimum sum of 0.27% of the standard rate for work performed in any week.
- Tool allowance (15.6) - A tool allowance of $13.11 per week for the supply and maintenance of tools will be paid to chefs and cooks who are not provided with all necessary tools by the employer.
Unsupported
The following requirements are currently not supported within Humanforce:
- Leading Hand Allowance (15.3 c) - This allowance will be part of salary for all purposes of this award.
- Travelling, transport and fares (15.7 a) - An employee required and authorised to use their own motor vehicle in the course of their duties will be paid an allowance of not less than $0.96 per kilometre.
- Travelling, transport and fares (15.7 b) - When an employee is involved in travelling on duty, if the employer cannot provide the appropriate transport, all reasonably incurred expenses in respect to fares, meals and accommodation will be met by the employer on production of receipted account(s) or other evidence acceptable to the employer.
Overtime
Automated
The following rules are automated within Humanforce:
- 25.1 Overtime penalty rates - All of 25.1 is automated with exception of 25.1 (f)
Penalty Rates
Automated
The following rules are automated within Humanforce:
- 26 Shiftwork – All shiftwork penalties are automated
- 29 Public Holidays - All payments appropriate to Public Holidays are automated (29.2 a i, 29.2 b ii, 29.2 c i)
Leave Entitlements
Automated
All leave types aligned with the National Employment Standards are made available under the library award in Humanforce. As per best practice, leave accrual for each pay cycle should be handled by payroll, and appropriate leave balances should be synchronised back into Humanforce as part of payroll finalisation.
The following leave types are available:
- Annual Leave
- Sick Leave
- Bereavement Leave
- Carer's Leave
- Compassionate Leave
- Jury Duty
- Unpaid Leave
- Long Service Leave
- Paid Special Leave (intended for Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave, renaming to suit your business is recommended)
Limitations of this Humanforce Library Award
In addition to the above list of anything that may be unsupported because it is not possible:
General Applications of Overtime
- There are some known limitations in cases of either pay cycles starting mid week, or cases of Public holidays, where a shift crosses midnight AND that shift also includes overtime. These cases will require manual review. In this instance, crossing into a Public Holiday with overtime should output as expected, starting within a public holiday, crossing midnight out of it and having overtime will not.
Using this Humanforce Library Award
The below outlines any key pieces you'll need to be aware of when using this award with respect to how they align with the modern award, such as particular shift types a roster manager may need to utilise and their applications.
- Sleepovers - You create a Normal shift with Non-Attended Shift selected.
- Recall to work overtime - Create a shift/timesheet with the Recall to work shift type, minimum engagement requirements will be applied as part of the pay run process within Humanforce.
Future Plans and Award Roadmap
The following planned development or known future changes may require updates to this award configuration:
Higher Duties
Currently, the award is configured for a single employment level scenario where employees receive a code like “ORD” (Ordinary pay rate code), and the payroll system determines the appropriate pay rate based on the employee's level. Future enhancements may include support for higher duties assignments and pay rates.
Changelog
Date | Event |
29/07/24 |
Added Support for Part Day Public Holidays Adjusted award design method to allow for a better interpretation (no output changes) |
28/06/2024 |
Updated Rates for Flat Rate Allowances to the effective July 1 Rate:
|
23/06/2024 | Award Republished |
Library Award Test Documentation
You will find the test cases for this library award's current version available as an attachment to this document. For any enhancements to this library award, these tests will be re-run and updated as part of the enhancement process.
This testing is a result of running all of the available award profiles through an exhaustive series of test cases to validate the award output for anything from simple workweeks to the most complex of cases, and everything in between.
An instructional guide to assist in helping you better understand how these tests are run and how you can interpret the files available here will be made available and linked here soon!