Casual Employment – Senior Adviser Q&A
Published: May 14, 2018
Confused about casual employment and not entirely confident about what it entails? Hear Senior Adviser, Laurence McLean, address some of the most commonly asked questions in the video above.
Read Transcript
Often they want to know whether an employee
actually is truly a casual employee
or whether they're maybe a permanent employee.
We have to look at a range of factors
in terms of that employee's employment,
looking at their contract that they
originally signed when they started
their employment, how many hours they're working,
their work patterns and whether there
is an ongoing expectation of work
for that person as well.
No, there's different entitlements
depending on whether you're a casual
or permanent employee.
Particularly around
annual leave.
So when you look at a casual employee,
really there's two ways to pay
annual leave to a casual employee.
You could pay them their annual leave as they go,
each pay cycle.
Or alternatively, you could also pay their annual leave
at the end of the employment relationship.
If it's a short period of employment
you probably can pay them as you go.
If it's going to be a longer period of
employment or you're not sure how
long the employment's going to be,
then it's probably safer to wait
until the end of the employment to pay that
annual leave out.
Not any different in terms of whether they
are casual or permanent, so long as they
work on that day then they
get the same entitlements.
The only difference would be that if they're a casual
employee and they weren't expected to otherwise work
on that day, then you may not have to pay
them as if it was for a permanent employee.
Essentially you'll look back at how they've
worked in the past, for example, if they
work every Monday
and the next Monday
coming up is the public holiday,
it's likely they are required to
be paid for that day.
If they work different days
or it's not clear the pattern of work
that they are doing, then basically
you're just looking at what...
what's been happening in the last couple of months
or so.
Well it is a really tricky area
and I think it's really important to make sure that
from day one, or even prior to that actually,
you're getting solid advice that's
giving you the outcomes that you want to achieve.