Changes to the Gardening and Landscaping Services Award – March 2020

The Fair Work Commission has recently clarified the way some Award provisions apply, and made minor amendments to the Gardening and Landscaping Services Award itself.

What Are the Changes?

• The Award allows some clauses to be varied by agreement with an individual employee. A new clause has been introduced summarising the provisions where this is possible. If you wish to vary any Award terms, contact us for further advice.

• Employees can now take their 10 minute paid rest break at any time during their shift if water restrictions are in place. Keep this in mind when providing employees with paid rest breaks.

• The Fair Work Commission has reinforced that employees who earn above the award minimum rate must be paid this higher rate when taking annual leave. Therefore you should continue to pay employees their ordinary rate when they take paid annual leave.

• All purpose allowances have been clarified. Leading hand allowance is now confirmed to be an all-purpose allowance. This should be included in the base rate of pay of the employee and when calculating any penalties, loadings or annual leave payments.

 What Do I Need to Do?

• Ensure you are complying with the above changes

• Update your Pay Rate Schedule, as this has changed in line with the above

How Can Peninsula Help Me?

Not a client? If you need help understanding and implementing these changes, please contact Peninsula on 1300 651 415 and we can give you free, initial advice on this topic. If you’d like more help implementing these changes in your business and are interested in ongoing support, Peninsula can help you.

Peninsula clients affected by the changes to the Gardening and Landscaping Services Award have been notified of these changes by email. Get in contact with Peninsula if you have any trouble understanding or implementing these changes.