Award break settings

Before you begin setting up break rules in your platform, it is crucial to carefully review Fair Work for your specific Award's rulings relating to breaks.

This step is important as these break rulings may not be specific to your Award, and it is essential to have a clear understanding of the applicable rules and regulations before implementing any changes to your platform.
 

Other features to assist with managing breaks

In the upcoming sections, we will explain how to add break settings to your Awards. The rules will apply mainly to employees who do not have an approved break within the set time. 

However, your platform provides additional features that can help to manage break times and durations when rostering and approving shifts. Utilising these features may impact when the break pay rules will trigger. 

Additional features include:

• Break Settings (Time & Attendance defaults)
  • 'Default to rostered break details over clocked break details for shift approvals' setting.
    • When Yes is selected, this setting uses the rostered break start time and duration as the default approved break time and duration for approved shifts.
       
    • When No is selected, the shift's clocked time and duration will be used as the default approved break time and duration for approved shifts.
• Break Scheduler (Time & Attendance defaults)
  • It is a rostering tool that allows the automatic creation of breaks on rostered shifts. These rules will automatically add break start times and durations to shifts.
• Editing Approve Shifts
  • Managers can make changes to break times and durations by editing in Approve shifts. 

  Please note: The following sections will explain how break settings are applied when the above-mentioned features are not taken into account.

  The video below has audio narration. Please ensure your volume is turned on to fully understand the demonstration. 

When creating or reviewing an Award on your platform, it is important to carefully review the settings of each Award to make sure they are applied according to your interpretation.

When it comes to breaks, the setting we are discussing determines a fallback start time for a break and is used specifically for when a shift is approved for an unpaid break, but no start time is specified or break clocked. 

This can occur in one of the following circumstances:

• An employee submitted a shift, but no start time for unpaid breaks was provided
• An employee has not clocked for an unpaid break, and no break start time has been rostered
• An admin has edited a shift in Approve Shifts, and no break start time has been added

When a shift is approved without a break start time defined, this setting will automatically apply a break start time directly to the payslips. 

When setting this up, remember to consider when you want breaks to apply, as it can affect other pay rules, such as delayed meal breaks or shift penalties.

The options for this setting are to apply the break:

• At the start of the shift
• Four hours after the start of the shift
• At the end of the shift

  To learn about the other important Award Settings, please refer to our article for more information.

To edit the fallback break setting in an Award:

1. Navigate to the main menu > Awards & Agreements and select the relevant Award to open the dropdown menu.
2. Select Settings.
3. In the Award Settings page, scroll down to the setting 'At what point in the shift should an unpaid break be applied?' and select the appropriate option:
   • 4 hours after start time
   • Shift Start
   • Shift End
     
       Please note: This setting applies to unpaid breaks. Additionally, when an employee has multiple unpaid breaks, this setting will apply them sequentially.
     • For example, if the first break is applied from 12 to 12:30 pm, and then the second will be 12:30 to 1 pm. 
4. To save, select Save from the taskbar. 

  Hot tip: Once saved, you may want to reprocess any relevant draft payslips to ensure the updates pull through.
 

When setting up positions in an Award, one of the important automations for breaks is to apply rulings for delayed meal breaks.

This setting pays employees a different rate when they have not taken a break within a specific threshold. The increased rate will apply until the employee has a break, finishes their shift, or triggers overtime.

This pay rule can be referred to as a few different terms depending on your business or industry, these can include: 

• Meal break penalty
• Unpaid break penalty
• Break breach
• Breach penalty
   

Considerations

When setting up a delayed meal break pay rule in your Award, please consult your Fair Work Award to make sure that the pay rules you are setting up are in your interpretation of the Award.  

Some key items you should check, from Fair Work, before updating your pay rules include:

• Confirming whether the rate is Ordinary or Overtime for your Award
• Determining if casual loading applies during a delayed meal break
• Ascertain if shift penalties apply during a delayed meal break
• Review your rate labels in your platform and check that it has been added to your Award

  For further reading on rate labels, please refer to our article on Building an Award or Agreement, here.
 

Setting up delayed meal break pay rules

After you’ve confirmed your break penalty pay rules, the next thing to do is update any related positions. We suggest updating one position first, then applying the pay rules to save you some time. 

To set a delayed meal break to a position:

1. Navigate to the main menu > Awards & Agreements and select the relevant Award to open the dropdown menu.
2. Select Positions & Pay Rules.
3. Select Edit on the relevant position.
4. On the left-hand side, navigate to the Unpaid breaks section and apply the following:
   • Occurs within - This sets the maximum hours before the delayed break will trigger.
   • Otherwise pay - Sets the pay rate for the delayed break.
   • Pay label (optional) - Applies a custom label to payslips for delayed meal break hours. Can be useful when the same rate is used for multiple award rules.
5. Repeat for Saturday, Sunday, and Public Holidays (if applicable).
6. Once updated, select Save. You will be navigated back to the Positions & pay rules page. 
7. To apply the delayed meal break pay rules to other positions in your Award, select Apply. Then choose any relevant positions and Save to update.