Introduction
This guide provides an overview of how the Humanforce Suite assists in meeting the requirements of the Security Services Award [MA000016]. 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 Security Services 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 Security 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 Security Services Award on the Fair Work Ombudsman website.
This guide was last reviewed on May 17, 2024.
What Type of Employee/Employer is this Award For?
This award is intended for employers with employees covered and supported by the Security Services Modern Award [MA000016].
Configuration Notes:
- This Library Award covers the follow Award profiles
- Security Services – FT
- Security Services – PT
- Security Services – CAS
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 Security 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:
- First Aid Allowance
- Firearm Allowance
- Supervision Allowance
- Relieving Officer
- Aviation Allowance
- Torch and Uniform 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 - Any cycle other than weekly will require a Humanforce Consultant to make an adjustment to your award.
*2 - Humanforce will not enforce these rostering practice minimums. You will need to ensure you manually roster as appropriate.
*3 - Updating Daily Overtime to 12 hours from 10 will require a Humanforce Consultant to make changes to your award.
*4 - It's not possible for Humanforce to know the particular nature of the work being given to the employee, 13.2 stipulates certain non-standard tasks that need to count as Ordinary working time, you must make sure you roster that way within Humanforce.
*5 - Humanforce will not restrict the amount of hours given to an employee, there is no pay outcome as a result of a breach of 19.1, it is a firm you must not do type arrangement.
*6 - Correct payments for Call Backs require the use of the Call Back Shift type to be used. This must be assigned by a roster manager user.
*7 - Humanforce will not enforce the appropriate amounts of Paid Breaks to be taken. Assigning the appropriate Paid Breaks will be manual.
*8 - Meal Allowance is manual in payroll due to the notification the previous day or earlier requirement. If you wish to make the assumption this notification is never given to the employee, this can be automated by a Humanforce Consultant. If you just prefer this to be handled from within Humanforce, rather than Payroll, a Humanforce Consultant can set this up as an Adhoc allowance, allowing a roster manager to add it as part of the shift manually.
Hours of Work
Ordinary Hours
Automated
The following rules are automated within Humanforce:
- Ordinary Hours of Work (13.1) - Ordinary Hours of 38 per week are available in the Library award. by default.
- Ordinary Hours of Work (13.3 b) - Daily Overtime is set on a default award installation at 10 Ordinary hours per day.
- Call Back (19.5 b) - Minimum engagement provisions are automated as part of your payroll process when the Shift type for Call Back is selected.
Manual in Humanforce
The following requirement is not currently automated and must be handled manually in Humanforce:
- Ordinary Hours of work (13.3 a) - Humanforce will not enforce these rostering practice minimums. You will need to ensure you manually roster as appropriate.
- Ordinary Hours of work (13.2) -It's not possible for Humanforce to know the particular nature of the work being given to the employee, 13.2 stipulates certain non-standard tasks that need to count as Ordinary working time, you must make sure you roster that way within Humanforce.
- Restriction on amount of overtime (19.1) - Humanforce will not restrict the amount of hours given to an employee, there is no pay outcome as a result of a breach of 19.1, it is a firm you must not do type arrangement.
- Call Back (19.5 a) - Call Back requires correct manual use of the appropriate Shift type.
Reconfigurable
The following requirements can be reconfigured within scope:
-
Ordinary Hours of Work (13.1) - Ordinary Hours for alternate periods will require a Humanforce Consultant to reconfigure your award. The award has the following provisions:
(a) 76 hours over a roster cycle of up to 2 weeks; or
(b) 114 hours over a roster cycle of up to 3 weeks; or
(c) 152 hours over a roster cycle of up to 4 weeks; or
(d) 304 hours over a roster cycle of up to 8 weeks.
- Ordinary Hours of Work (13.3 c) - Daily Overtime may be reconfigured to allow for up to 12 Ordinary hours per day maximum if your agreements with employees allow for this.
- 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!
Breaks
Automated
The following break rules are automated within Humanforce:
- Breaks between work periods (14.4 a, d) - The minimum break between shifts of 8 hours, and any appropriate resulting penalties are automated within Humanforce.
- Unpaid Breaks (14.3) - Unpaid Breaks will be prompted to be assigned within Humanforce when a shift is the appropriate length.
Manual in Humanforce
The following requirement is not currently automated and must be handled manually in Humanforce:
- Long breaks (14.5) - The long break requirements are manual and correct rostering practices must be adhered to.
- Paid breaks (14.2) - Humanforce will not enforce the appropriate amounts of Paid Breaks to be taken. Assigning the appropriate Paid Breaks will be manual.
Manual in Payroll
The following break requirements are not currently automated and must be handled manually in Payroll:
Wages and Allowances
Higher Duties
Manual in Payroll
The following rostering requirement is not currently automated and must be handled manually in Payroll:
Allowances
Automated
The following allowance is automated within Humanforce:
- Broken Shift Allowance (17.4) - In the instance of a Broken Shift occurring, a Broken Shift allowance will be automatically added to the second shift or subsequent broken shifts.
Manual in Humanforce
The following allowances require the relevant qualification be enabled on entitled employees profiles:
- First Aid Allowance (17.2) - must be assigned to an employee and then will occur on all shifts with any appropriate limits from that stage forwards.
- Firearm Allowance (17.3) - must be assigned to an employee and then will occur on all shifts with any appropriate limits from that stage forwards.
- Supervision Allowance (17.5 a-d) - comes with four different levels, each having a qualification you can assign to enable for an employee ongoing for all shifts ongoing, subject to any payment limitations around that.
- Relieving Officer (17.6a-b) - must be assigned to an employee and then will occur on all shifts with any appropriate limits from that stage forwards. The notice period stipulated out of (b) is not automated and must be manually adhered to out of Humanforce.
- Aviation Allowance (17.7) - must be assigned to an employee and then will occur on all shifts with any appropriate limits from that stage forwards.
- Torch and Uniform (17.10) - must be assigned to an employee and then will occur on all shifts with any appropriate limits from that stage forwards.
Manual in Payroll
The following allowance requirements are not currently automated and must be handled manually in Payroll:
- Meal Allowance (17.8) -is manual in payroll due to the notification the previous day or earlier requirement. See notes below regarding reconfiguration options.
Reconfigurable
The following requirements can be reconfigured within scope:
- All Allowances enabled by qualifications within Humanforce - These can all independently be set up to work in different ways if appropriate by a Humanforce Consultant, they can be triggered by a role, department or location as three options, etc.
- Meal Allowance (17.8) - If you wish to make the assumption this notification is never given to the employee, this can be automated by a Humanforce Consultant. If you just prefer this to be handled from within Humanforce, rather than Payroll, a Humanforce Consultant can set this up as an Adhoc allowance, allowing a roster manager to add it as part of the shift manually.
- Vehicle Allowance (17.9) - If you wish to have this handled out of Humanforce, a Consultant can reconfigure the Library Award to add an Adhoc Allowance for this Allowance.
Unsupported
The following requirements are currently not supported within Humanforce:
-
- Vehicle Allowance (17.9) - This allowance is not supported as standard within the Library Award.
Overtime
Automated
The following rules are automated within Humanforce:
- Overtime Rates (19.3) - All overtime rates featured within 19.3 are automated within Humanforce.
Penalty Rates
Automated
The following rules are automated within Humanforce:
- Penalty Rates (20.2) - All penalty rates found within 20.2 are automated within the Library Award, this includes the stipulations found in Permanent Night work (20.3).But
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
Broken Shifts (17.2)
- Due to the nature of how Humanforce handles broken shifts, there are some specific cases where a broken shift allowance will not correctly trigger for some longer durations of breaks between the two periods of work.
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 utiise and their applications.
- Call Back (19.5) - Call back as a Shift Type is required to ensure all appropriate adjustments are made as listed above.
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
You can find the changelog for this award here.
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!