From 1 July 2022 the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Award includes provisions dealing with remote work.

An employee who is directed or authorised by their employer to be on call to perform work may be engaged in remote work. Employees may also perform remote work when they are not on call if needed.

Remote work is work performed by the employee that is:

• not part of their rostered ordinary hours (or for casual employees, not a ‘designated shift’)
• not additional hours worked by a part-time employee or overtime after a regular shift
• not required to be performed in the designated workplace.

Example

Katie is a part-time disability services support worker.

Katie’s ordinary rostered hours are on a Monday and Tuesday afternoon.

Katie’s employer contacts her and directs her to be on call on Wednesday between 2pm and 12am. Katie is required to be available over this entire period to give assistance to other employees if required.  She’ll be entitled to the on-call allowance.

Katie is doing remote work, because she’s working outside her usual rostered hours and isn’t working in a designated workplace.

Minimum payments for remote work

For each occasion an employee completes remote work they’re paid for a minimum payment period.  Any time worked continuously for longer than the minimum payment period is rounded and paid up to the nearest 15 minutes.

The minimum payment period for performing remote work is:

• 15 minutes when the employee is on call between 6am and 10pm
• 30 minutes when the employee is on call between 10pm and 6am
• 1 hour when the employee is required to work and wasn’t on call
• 1 hour when participating remotely in team meetings or training.

If there’s more than one period of remote work done within a minimum payment period, only one minimum payment will apply.

Example

While she’s on call, Katie receives a call from another disability care worker who is at a client’s home. She provides some assistance to that worker from a remote location for 20 minutes, between 3.40pm and 4pm.

Because the call is between 6am and 8pm, it’s paid at Katie’s minimum hourly rate. Because the call went for longer than 15 minutes, the minimum payment period is rounded up to the nearest 15 minutes. This means Katie is paid for 30 minutes.

Katie gets another call at 11pm. It takes 5 minutes to finish this call. Three minutes later Katie receives a call about another client. It takes 18 minutes to resolve this call.

Because the remote work was done between 10pm and 6am, the minimum payment period is 30 minutes.  Katie completed both calls within a single 30-minute period, so she’s paid for one minimum payment period for these calls.

Payment for remote work

The minimum hourly rate is paid for remote work, unless a penalty rate applies, as follows:

• 150% for the first 2 hours and 200% after 2 hours for work outside the span of hours of 6am – 8pm
• 150% for the first 2 hours and 200% after 2 hours for working more than 10 hours in a shift
• 150% for Saturdays
• 200% for Sundays
• 250% for public holidays.

Casual employees also get paid the 25% casual loading.

Penalty rates for remote work are paid instead of the usual Saturday and Sunday rates, overtime, shiftwork, and public holiday rates. Overtime is paid for remote work over 38 hours per week or 76 hours per fortnight.

The minimum payment periods for part-time and casual employees don’t apply to remote work.