The Basics of Casual Employment
Casual employment can be described as an arrangement whereby an employee is enagaged to work on a 'shift by shift' basis, which might be week-to-week, day-to-day, shift-to-shift, hour-to-hour, or for any other agreed period.
Each separate engagement / shift of a casual employee generally amounts to a separate contract of employment, which starts at the beginning of the engagement / shift and ends at the conclusion of the engagement / shift.
An important feature of casual employment is the payment of an hourly wage rate that includes a 'casual loading' (normally an additional 25%), which is paid to casual employees instead of the accrual of various leave entitlements (including annual and personal leave) that full-time and part-time employees would normally accrue.
Generally, an employer may offer a casual employee employment work on a particular day or days, and when offered, the employee can elect to refuse the engagement. There is usually no firm advance commitment as to the duration of the employee’s employment or the days (or hours) the employee will work.
Traditionally, it had been thought that casual employees were only engaged on an irregular and non-systematic basis. However, under current laws, casual employees will still be ‘casual’ even where their hours of work are regular and certain – in such cases, they may also accrue some of the rights and entitlements of permanent employees, including:
- long service leave;
- the right to request flexible work arrangements and to take unpaid parental leave; and
- protection under unfair dismissal laws.
Coversion from Casual to Permanent Employment
Some Modern Awards provide for the right of a casual employee to request to convert their employment from casual to either full-time or part-time employment. In order to determine whether the Award that applies to you contains such a clause, see either the 'Casual Employment' or 'Types of Employment' clause in that Award.
If your Award contains such a clause, you should follow the steps below:
Step 1: You first need to determine whether the casual employee is eligible to formally request the conversion. A casual who has been engaged to perform work on an occasional or non-systematic or irregular basis will not be eligible.
A regular casual will need at least six (6) months’ of service to be eligible, and you can extend this period to twelve (12) months by agreement with the casual employee. This agreement can only be reached after the casual is first employed and during the first four (4) months' of service.
Step 2: Give the employee written notice of the right to request a conversion to permanent employment by the end of the seventh month of their employment.
Caution - If you do not give the employee this written notice, the employee retains the right to convert at any time. Once the employee receives this notice from you, they will have 4 weeks to request that their employment be converted to either full-time or part-time. If the employee does not do so within this time period, the employee will be deemed to have elected against any such conversion.
Step 3: If you receive a written notice from the employee within the 4 week period indicating that he or she wishes to convert to full-time or part-time employment, you will have four 4 weeks to either accept or refuse their request. If you refuse their request, your refusal must not be unreasonable, and you must discuss the reasons for the refusal and make a genuine attempt to reach agreement on any disputed matters.
Step 4: If you agree to the request, you must discuss and agree with the employee about whether the employment will be full-time or part-time, and if it will be part-time employment, the number of hours and the pattern of hours that will be worked. The employee will be entitled to the same number of hours and times of work as previously worked when he or she was a casual employee.
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