National Employment Standards

The National Employment Standards is a set of 11 basic entitlements that were introduced as part of the Labor government’s Fair Work Act 2009.

The National Employment Standards (also known as the “NES”) and national minimum wage make up the minimum entitlements for employees in Australia.

The 11 minimum entitlements of the NES are:

• Maximum weekly hours
• Requests for flexible working arrangements
• Offers and requests to convert from casual to permanent employment
• Parental leave and related entitlements
• Annual leave
• Personal/carer’s leave, compassionate leave and unpaid family and domestic violence leave
• Community service leave
• Long service leave
• Public holidays
• Notice of termination and redundancy pay
• Fair Work Information Statement and Casual Employment Information Statement

Casual employees only have the right to some NES entitlements, including:

• Offers and requests to convert from casual to permanent employment
• Unpaid carer’s leave
• Unpaid compassionate leave
• Unpaid family and domestic violence leave
• Unpaid community service leave
• Fair Work Information Statement and the Casual Employment Information Statement.

In some states and territories, long serving casual employees are eligible for long service leave.

An award, employment contract, enterprise agreement or other registered agreement cannot provide for conditions less than the national minimum wage or the NES; nor can they exclude the NES. All employees in the national workplace relations system are covered by the NES regardless of the award, registered agreement or employment contract that applies. Workers who are not covered include:

• a person engaged as an independent contractor 
• some state public sector employees

While the entitlements associated with the NES are fairly straightforward, knowing what other entitlements might apply to your employees can be challenging. Most employers want to do the right thing but how do you know what’s right and who has the time to do the research anyway? Solution? Give Bare Bones Consulting a call or shoot us a message through our “Contact Us” page. We’ll point you in the right direction.