PAID OVERTIME FOR HAIRDRESSERS + BEAUTICIANS

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Posted December 3, 2018

As we hurtle into December, Christmas season is in full swing for the Hair and Beauty Industry. You don’t need us to tell you how hectic Christmas season is, we know you’re feeling it in salon at the moment. And with all those extra pre-Christmas-party appointments, it’s pretty likely that you’ve got some of your salon staff working extra hours in the lead up to Christmas. Now is the time to make sure you know exactly how you should be paying your staff for their overtime hours and ensure that you don’t get yourself into some hot eggnog this silly season.

 

Under the Hair and Beauty Industry Award 2010, overtime is defined as applying to both Permanent Full Time and Casual Staff Members. For full-time staff members, their hours are defined as being 38 hours per week; and so, any hours that are in addition to this are considered to be “overtime”. For these staff members, they are to be paid time and a half for the first 3 hours and double time for any hours thereafter. Pretty simple.

 

For Casual Staff member’s it is a bit more complicated. Their reasonable hours are defined as either 38 hours per week or, where the casual employee works in accordance with a roster, in excess of 38 hours per week averaged over the course of the roster cycle; or in excess of 10 hours per day. In these instances, casual employees shall be paid 175% (or time and three-quarters) of the ordinary hourly rate of pay and 225% (or double and a quarter) of the ordinary hourly rate of pay for any hours thereafter. All of these rates must also be inclusive of casual loading. In instances where you are employing casual staff members for overtime work, we do encourage you to call HABA to be sure of wage rate calculations just to be sure you’ve got it right.

 

Salon owners and salon staff can negotiate time off or time in lieu instead of payment for overtime worked, and at Christmas, this is often a strategy used by salon owners who are particularly busy. The amount of time that an employee can take is equivalent to the amount they would have been paid in overtime – for instance, any employee who worked 2 hours overtime at the rate of time and a half is entitled to 3 hour’s time off. This time off must be taken within a 6 month period, but only at a time agreed to by both employer and employee.

 

While any salon owner can require a staff member to work reasonable overtime (when paid appropriately), it’s also important to remember that staff do have the right to refusal of overtime, in circumstances where it could be a risk to their health, family, the workplace or if you give them any notice and they say they do not want to work overtime. Salons cannot force or apply undue pressure to staff to work overtime.

 

The silly season can sometimes get the best of all of us. Take this first week of December as a chance to ensure that your salon is running smoothly and efficiently as we head into the stressful silly season. Get your systems right and you too can have a stress-free Christmas!

If our members have any questions about workplace relations over the Christmas period, call the team from HABA on (02) 9221 9911 today and let us help you.