Overtime is payable to your employees when they work more than the ordinary hours of work.
You can require all your employees to work reasonable overtime as long as they are paid overtime rates. An employee can refuse to work overtime if the request is unreasonable, for example where there are risks to their health and safety, or because of personal circumstances including family responsibilities.
If an employee is called back to work after finishing work for the day, overtime rates must be paid for a minimum of 2 hours.
Cleaning employees are entitled to the following overtime rates:
| From Monday to Saturday |
Time and a half for the first 2 hours and double time thereafter |
| All day Sunday |
Double time for all hours |
| Public Holidays |
Double time and a half for all hours |
| All time worked by full-time employees outside the rostered hours (unless worked on a Sunday or Public Holiday) |
Time and a half for the first 2 hours and double time thereafter |
| All time worked by part-time employees in excess of 7.6 hours per day, five days per week or 38 hours in any week (unless worked on a Sunday or Public Holiday) |
Time and a half for the first 2 hours and double time thereafter |
Overtime worked on each day stands alone. This means that each day is treated independently when applying the overtime penalties. For example, if an employee works 2 hours of overtime on Monday and also 2 hours of overtime the next day, the overtime each day is paid at 150% of the ordinary rate.
Your cleaning employees may be entitled to a meal allowance when they work overtime. See the allowances section for more information about this.
Example
Jonathon is the part-time cleaner for KoKo’s Cleaning Service Pty Ltd and usually works 35 hours between Monday and Friday. When one of his colleagues takes some annual leave, his boss asks him to work some extra hours.
Jonathon agrees to work an extra 3 hours on Tuesday and Friday and an extra 4 hours on Saturday. Under the Cleaning Award, after working his regular hours on each of those days, Jonathon’s overtime rates are calculated as follows:
Tuesday - ordinary part-time hourly rate for the 3 hours (these hours are not overtime as Jonathon’s total working hours for the week have not yet reached 38)
Friday - time and a half for the first 2 hours of overtime and double time for the last hour
Saturday - time and a half for the first 2 hours of overtime and double time for the last 2 hours.
Overtime rates for casual employees
In addition to their casual hourly loading, casual employees are also entitled to overtime rates when they work in excess of the ordinary hours of work. Both the overtime penalty rate and the casual loading are calculated on the base rate, not on the casually loaded rate.
Example
If the ordinary hourly rate is $16, the overtime penalty is time and a half and the casual loading is 25%. The rate to be paid is calculated as follows:
$16 X (150% + 25%) = $16 X 175% = $28 per hour
If your casual employees’ rates of pay come from Schedule A or Schedule B of the Cleaning Award, you can call us for assistance with calculating their overtime penalty rates.
Time off instead of payment
Your cleaning employees can choose to take paid time off work instead of payment for overtime if you agree. The time off needs to be taken within 4 weeks of the overtime being worked, at a time that is convenient for you and your employees. If the time off is not taken within 4 weeks you will need to pay your employees for the overtime at overtime rates.