Significant amendments to the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010 (SCHADS Award) will take effect from the first pay period on or after 1 July 2022, putting into effect the Fair Work Commission’s determination of earlier this year following its four yearly review.

Summary of changes
Changes to the SCHADS Award include:

• increasing the minimum engagement for part-time and casual home care employees from one hour to two, and imposing an express obligation on employers to consult affected part-time employees before 1 July 2022, about how shifts might be varied to make the change;
• providing a new broken shift allowance, with the amount depending on whether the shift is broken into two or (with the employee’s agreement) three separate periods of work, and prohibiting broken shifts of more than three separate periods of work in a day;
• requiring an employer to either:
• provide alternative or ‘make-up’ work (subject to giving at least 12 hours’ notice of the cancelled or rescheduled shift, and then following the required consultation provisions to find a time for the make-up shift); or
• pay an employee for a lost shift,

if a client cancels or reschedules a scheduled home care or disability service within seven days of the scheduled service (replacing the current provision that requires no payment if the employer communicates the client’s cancellation up to 5pm the night before the shift);

• introducing a new ‘remote work’ clause which requires an employer to pay an employee for certain minimum periods and at various penalty rates for working ‘remote work’, performed away from the workplace and outside of ordinary work hours (regardless of whether an employee is on call or not);
• a new laundry allowance and other entitlements for repair or replacement of clothing other than uniforms;
• providing additional overtime entitlements for day workers who work outside the prescribed span of hours;
• prescribing additional payments for employees who work more than eight hours in a 24 hour care shift;
• adding employees who work at least eight 24-hour care shifts in a year to the definition of shift workers, who are entitled to an extra week of annual leave each year.

Actions required
Employers will need to review the changes and make sure they implement the right changes to their payroll rules, to keep up with the changes the Determination makes to the SCHADS Award for affected employees.

Employers of part-time employees who have worked one hour engagements (as permitted by the existing SCHADS Award) will need to consult with those employees before 1 July 2022 about how it will implement the required increase in the minimum engagement.

Employers with enterprise agreements that apply to employees who are covered by the SCHADS Award will also need to be mindful of these changes when seeking to negotiate any new agreements. Given the changes to the SCHADS Award, an enterprise agreement that previously passed the BOOT (better off overall test) in relation to the SCHADS Award may no longer do so.

If you would like further advice or assistance please contact a member of our Employment, Workplace Relations and Safety team.