A home care or disability service that’s cancelled or rescheduled by the customer is known as a client cancellation.

Special roster provisions apply to client cancellations if:

• the cancelled service would have been provided by a full-time or part-time employee
• it occurs within 7 days of the scheduled service.

The client cancellation provisions don’t apply to casuals.

What happens when a service is cancelled?

When a service is cancelled, the employer can either:

• direct the employee to do other work during the period of the cancelled service
• cancel the whole shift, or
• cancel the affected part of the shift.

If the employee is entitled to a different pay rate for doing other work during that time, they’ll get the higher rate.

If a shift or part of a shift is cancelled, the employer has to either:

• pay the employee the amount they would’ve been paid if they’d worked, or
• give the employee make-up time (the same number of hours of work at another time).

Make-up time

To give an employee make-up time, the employer has to let them know that a service has been cancelled at least 12 hours before the service was rostered to start. If the employer doesn’t give enough notice for the make-up time, the employee gets paid for the time they would’ve worked if the service hadn’t been cancelled.

If make-up time is given:

• the employee has to get at least 7 days’ notice of the new shift, unless they agree to a shorter period
• it must be worked within 6 weeks of the date of the cancelled service
• the employee has to be consulted about the change to their roster in line with the consultation terms of the award.

An employee who works make-up time gets paid the higher of:

• the amount they would’ve been paid for the cancelled service, or
• the amount that applies for the work they actually do.

Make-up time can include work with different clients or in a different part of the business if the employee has the skills and experience to do the work.

Example

Leo is a part-time home care employee. He’s covered by the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Award.

Leo has 2 shifts scheduled with a client for the next week. One shift is scheduled for 8am Monday and one for 8am on Tuesday, each for 3 hours.

On Sunday night at 9pm, Leo’s employer calls him saying the client has cancelled the services he was going to provide over the next 2 days. The employer says they don’t have other work for him to do at his rostered times, so they’re cancelling these 2 shifts.

Leo will get paid for 3 hours for the Monday shift even though he won’t be working because he’s received less than 12 hours’ notice.

The employer tells Leo they’ll give him make-up time for his Tuesday shift.

There’s no payment for Leo’s Tuesday shift as it was cancelled more than 12 hours in advance and he will be given more than 7 days’ notice for the make-up time.

On Wednesday, Leo’s employer calls him to check if he’s available to work the 3 hours make-up time with a different client on Saturday the following week. Leo says he’s happy to work make-up time a week from Saturday.

Leo is paid his Saturday rate when he works the make-up time as this is higher than the weekday rate he would have received for the original cancelled service.