Professional Employees Award 2020 (MA000065)

This article provides guidelines about when to use the different work types and tags that are included as part of the pre-built Professional Employees Award 2010 package. For further information about the Professional Employees Award 2010, refer to: Professional Employees Award

Key Updates to Award

Last Updated: July 2022

Key_Updates

Installing and Configuring the Pre-Built Award Package

For details on how to install and configure this Pre-built Award Template, please review the detailed help article here.

While every effort is made to provide a high-quality service, YourPayroll does not accept responsibility for, guarantee or warrant the accuracy, completeness or up-to-date nature of the service. Before relying on the information, users should carefully evaluate its accuracy, currency, completeness and relevance for their purposes, and should obtain any appropriate professional advice relevant to their particular circumstances.

Coverage

This award generally covers employers throughout Australia with respect to their employees performing professional engineering and professional scientific duties. Please see section 4 of the Award for more details on the scope of coverage of this award.

Work Types

Annual Leave taken

Choose this work type when annual leave was taken.

Personal/Carer's Leave taken

Choose this work type when personal / carers leave was taken.

Long Service Leave taken

Choose this work type when long service leave was taken.

TIL Leave taken

Choose this work type when time in lieu leave was taken

RDO Leave taken

Choose this work type when a roster day off was taken.

Compassionate Leave taken

Choose this work type when compassionate leave was taken.

Community Service Leave taken

Choose this work type when community service leave was taken.

Leave without pay

Choose this work type when a permanent employee takes leave without pay.

Hours worked

Use this work type to represent ordinary hours, unless another work type is more specific.

Public holiday not worked

Choose this work type when the day was a public holiday but the employee has a day off (permanent employees only).

Kilometres travelled

Enter the number of units travelled for business purposes. One unit is equivalent to 1 kilometre.

Tags

The following tags are available for application to employees under the Professional Employees Award 2010.

TIL

Choose this tag if the employee has agreed to receive time in lieu instead of pay for additional hours.

Key Updates

January 2023

July 2022

The Award has been updated to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2021-22 decision. This also includes updates to expense-related allowances. Information on the Determinations can be found here and here. These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2022. Please install these updates AFTER you have finalised your last pay run prior to the first full pay period commencing on or after 1 July 2022.

Unpaid Pandemic Leave has been disabled as this entitlement has now expired within this award. Additional information can be found on the Fairwork website.

January 2022

The Unpaid Pandemic Leave pay category has been updated and counts as service for entitlements under awards and the National Employment Standards.

If any staff have used this category previously, please adjust their Annual, Personal and Long Service Leave balances for any period of unpaid pandemic leave previously taken.

November 2021

The Award has been updated in line with the ATO's requirements for STP Phase 2 reporting. The reporting of gross earnings are now being disaggregated into distinguishable categories. The Pay Category payment classifications have been updated in line with the ATO specification categories found here. For further information please see our STP support article.

October 2021

The award pay rate template Permanent - Graduate professional/medical research employee - level 1.1 - 3 year degree rate has been updated to $27.09 & Permanent - Graduate professional/medical research employee - level 1.1 - 4 or 5 year degree to $27.29, in line with Fairworks' latest pay rates.

July 1 2021

The Award has been updated to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of 2.5% detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2020-21 decision. This also includes updates to expense-related
allowances. Information on the Determinations can be found here and here.

These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2021. Please install these updates AFTER you have finalised your last pay run prior to the first full pay period commencing on or after 1 July 2021.

Updates have also been made to the Leave Category Family & Domestic Violence Leave, so that the balance is displayed in days instead of hours in line with the National Employment Standards.

Once the update is installed, all employee’s FDV leave balances will be displayed in days not hours. This will mean that an employee’s balance may now show as 38 days. In order to correct the balance please see How to Fix Family & Domestic Violence Leave Balance Data.

This update is to ensure that any new installs of this award conducted since 1 July are now captured with the SG increase from 9.5% to 10% for all pay categories. If you have installed this award between 1 July 2021 to 8 July 2021 for the first time, please ensure you select "NO" to preserve custom pay categories. If you were using this award prior to 1 July 2021, then you do not need to select "NO." Further information can be found in Incorrect SG rate used in pay runs article here.

 

May 2021

The award pay rate templates have been updated to ensure that the legislated superannuation guarantee (SG) rate will increase automatically from 9.5% to 10% effective from 1 July 2021. Please ensure you install this update prior to 1 July 2021 for this change to take effect.

What does this mean? Any pay run with a date paid on or from 1 July 2021 will automatically calculate SG at 10% of OTE. Additionally, on the 1st of July, we will update references to 9.5% on all applicable screens. For more information, including any exclusions, check out this article from the ATO.

1 November 2020

The Award, as part of Group 2 Awards, has been updated to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of 1.75% detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2019-20 decision. Information on the Determinations can be found here.

These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 November 2020. Please install these updates AFTER you have finalised your last pay run prior to the first full pay period commencing on or after 1 November 2020.

August 2020

The award has been updated to reflect the High Court's decision on the accrual of personal/carer's leave which overturns the decision made by the Full Federal Court of Australia, with personal/carer's leave being calculated on working days not hours. Information on the decision can be found here. As such, we have removed the Personal/Carer's (10 days) Leave Allowance Templates and updated associated Employment Agreements. Please note, this update will not remove any of the above from a business where the award was already installed prior to 25 August 2020. However, any new award installs from 25 August 2020 will not display personal/carer's (10 days) leave details.

For further information on migrating from daily personal/carers leave accruals to hourly please refer here.

June 2020

The award pay rate templates have been updated to reflect the Australian Taxation Office's decision to increase the cents per kilometre rate for work-related car expense deductions to 72 cents per kilometre. The new rate applies from the first paid date in the 2020-21 financial year.

April 2020

The award has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision around flexibility during coronavirus. The new schedule allows employees to take up to two (2) weeks unpaid pandemic leave. A new pay category (Unpaid Pandemic Leave Taken), leave category and work type (Unpaid Pandemic Leave) have been created. Also, the rule sets have been updated, where necessary, to include/exclude the work type and leave category to some pay conditions.  Further, the Leave Allowance Templates have been updated to ensure this new leave category is enabled and is now accessible for employees to take this leave when required. 

Further, under this new schedule employees can take up to twice as much annual leave at a proportionally reduced rate if their employer agrees. The employee's pay rate and leave balance will need to be manually adjusted to half in each pay run for the period of leave.

February 2020

Due to recent changes to the interpretation of personal/carer's leave accrual under the National Employment Standards, updates have been made to the setup of the Award. Further information can be found here.

A new Leave Category called Personal/Carer's (10 days) Leave has been created. Also, new Leave Allowance Templates (LATs) have been created specific to 10 days accrual per year for each state and the LATs have been attached to the current Employment Agreements for selection options for an employee's LAT in their Employee Default Pay Run screen. Any rules impacted by Personal/Carer's Leave have also been updated with the new leave category. 

Instructions on converting the accruals to the 10 day method can be found here. 

August 2019

An update to the Pay Rate Templates to change Kilometre allowance - above ATO limit super from 9.5% to 0% as this should not attract super.

July 2019

The Pay Rate Templates and Employment Agreements have been updated to include Experienced Medical Research Level 5 for Full Time, Part Time and Casual.

30 June 2019

The Award has been updated to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of 3% from its Annual Wage Review 2018-19 decision. This also includes updates to expense-related allowances. Information on the Determinations can be found here and here.

These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2019. Please install these updates AFTER you have finalised your last pay run prior to the first full pay period commencing on or after 1 July 2019.

1 February 2019

The award has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision 4 year review of modern awards. Professional research employees employed by medical research institutes (as defined) are now covered by this award. The Fair Work Determination can be found here.

A new schedule of classifications has been included for these employees. The Pay Rate Templates and Employment Agreements have been updated inline with this change.

The changes apply from the first full pay period starting on or after 1 February 2019. 

 

1 October 2018

The Award has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision 4 year review of modern awards. The change is a newly created clause 11.4(c) -  casual minimum engagement. This now provides for casual employees to be paid for at least 2 consecutive hours of work on each occasion they are required to attend work.

This change is reflected in the "Professional Award Rule Set."

Please note that the change comes into effect on the first full pay period on or after 1 October 2018. This means that you should only install this update once you've completed the last pay period for hours worked during September 2018. The Fair Work Determination can be found here.

 

31 July 2018

The award has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision 4 year review of modern awards. The determination for the new clause in the modern award allowing employees to take unpaid leave to deal with family and domestic violence can be found here. Family and Domestic Violence leave applies from the first full pay period on or after 1 August 2018. Further information can be found at Fair Work.

Employees, including part-time and casual employees are entitled to 5 days unpaid family and domestic violence leave each year of their employment. The 5 day entitlement renews each 12 months of employment but does not accumulate if the leave is not used.

A new leave category has been created - “Family and Domestic Violence Leave” and a new Work Type - “Family and Domestic Violence Leave taken”.  The Leave Allowance Templates and any impacted rule conditions have also been updated.

 

June 2018

The Award has been updated to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s national minimum wage increase of 3.5% from its Annual Wage Review 2017-18 decision. This also includes updates to expense-related allowances.

These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2018. Please install these updates AFTER you have finalised your last pay run prior to the first full pay period commencing on or after 1 July 2018.

Additionally, the following change have been made as part of this update:

1. The Payment Summary Classification settings for Allowance based pay categories have been updated as per Single Touch Payroll (STP) requirements.

 

March 2018

1. Created Kilometre allowance pay categories - above and below ATO limits