{"id":2910,"date":"2024-04-12T10:11:31","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T00:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reef.org.au\/?p=2910"},"modified":"2024-04-12T10:11:32","modified_gmt":"2024-04-12T00:11:32","slug":"important-changes-to-the-real-estate-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reef.org.au\/important-changes-to-the-real-estate-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Important Changes to the Real Estate Award"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Background to the changes<\/mark><\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n An application was filed with the FWC, requesting that it amend certain clauses in the Award in order to provide more clarity around an employee\u2019s minimum pay<\/strong> and car allowance<\/strong> entitlements in circumstances where the employee is required by the employer to either start or finish work at a location other than the employer\u2019s business premises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The application was made on the basis that the current construction of the Award was vague and unclear in relation to these matters and, as such, required the intervention of the FWC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More specifically, the application requested that the FWC amend the Award to remove any doubt or ambiguity about the following two matters:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In its decision, the FWC stated that the variation was necessary \u201cto ensure that it makes clear when employees are working and the circumstances in which they are paid motor vehicle allowances<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Importantly, the FWC noted that \u201cthe variations simply clarify provisions of the Award that employers should already be applying<\/em>\u2026.and covers only excess travel<\/u><\/strong> and associated expenses rather than all travel<\/em>\u201d (see the meaning of \u201cexcess travelling\u201d below).<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the interest of members, the actual Award variations are as follows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Variation Decision<\/mark><\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Award variation decision inserted the following new clause 17.11:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 17.11 Excess travelling<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n (a) If the employer requires the employee to start or finish work at a location other than the employer\u2019s business or office premises, the employee must be paid for time reasonably spent by the employee travelling to or from the location which is in excess of the time normally spent by the employee in travelling between the employee\u2019s usual residence and the employer\u2019s business or office premises, on each occasion such excess travel is undertaken.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n (b) Such excess time is to be treated as working time under clause 13 \u2013 Ordinary hours of work and rostering, or clause 19 \u2013 Overtime and is counted for the purposes of the minimum engagement for casual employees in clause 11.1, and paid at the ordinary rates prescribed in clause 14 or the overtime rates in clause 19, as appropriate.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n (c) In addition to the payment for excess time spent travelling as provided in clause 17.11(a), if the employer requires the employee to use the employee\u2019s own motor vehicle in the course of employment, the employee will be paid the applicable motor vehicle allowance in accordance with clause 17.2(b), 17.2(c) or clause 17.3 as agreed between the employer and the employee.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n For further clarity, Clause 17.2(a) of the Award was varied, by inserting the underlined words, as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n (a) If the employer requires the employee to use the employee\u2019s own motor vehicle in the course of their employment, including to undertake excess travelling as described in clause 17.11<\/u><\/strong>, the employee must be reimbursed for the use of their motor vehicle in accordance with clause 17.2(b), 17.2(c) or clause 17.3. Clause 17.2 does not apply to the use of a motor scooter or motor-cycle.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n What is meant by the term \u201cexcess travelling\u201d?<\/mark><\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As the variations apply exclusively to excess travel time, it\u2019s relevant to consider what is meant by this term. Excess travelling relates to the time and expenses that an employee may incur when they are required by the employer to start or finish work at a location other than the employer\u2019s business premises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This might be best explained by way of the following scenario:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alice is a real estate salesperson with REEF Real Estate. Alice lives 10 kms from the office of REEF Real Estate. In morning and afternoon traffic, it would normally take Alice around 20 minutes to undertake her journey to and from work to home.<\/em><\/strong> A summary of other main features from this decision<\/mark><\/u><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The practical impact of these Award changes for your agency<\/mark><\/u><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As the Award variation only seeks to clarify obligations that already existed under the Award, and which align with REEF\u2019s past and present advice, for most members there will be no practical impact from this decision. This is because:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, the employer has the right to decide where employees start and finish work. If employees start and finish work from the office then there is no excess travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new award provisions do however highlight the need for employers to understand and recognise that where their employees (who are covered by the Award) commence or finish work other than at the employer\u2019s office and this is done with the knowledge, direction or consent of the employer (however this may be given), the work performed at the location, and\/or excess travel time spent getting to the location, should be considered part of the employee\u2019s ordinary hours of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For those members who do specifically direct an employee to undertake excess travel time (or any other extra hours) in addition to their ordinary hours of work<\/strong>, overtime provisions will continue to apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For those members who are paying either a per cents Km allowance or the standing charge plus km allowance, employees will need to be reimbursed for any excess travel in line with the decision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In view of the Award variation, REEF has modified a number of our template documents we provide to members via our web-based People Management System. In this regard, we wish to advise members that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Need Help in understanding the matters outlined in this notice?<\/u><\/strong> Important changes have been made to our industry\u2019s principal award \u2013 the Real Estate Industry Award 2020 (the \u201cAward\u201d). The changes detailed in this notice were recently announced by the Fair Work Commission (FWC) and have now taken effect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2275,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reef.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2910"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reef.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reef.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reef.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reef.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2910"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/reef.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2918,"href":"https:\/\/reef.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2910\/revisions\/2918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reef.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reef.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reef.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reef.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
Alice is specially directed by her employer to conduct a 7.30am listing presentation at a location which is 25 kms from Alice\u2019s home. Alice goes straight from home to conduct the listing presentation. It takes her 45 minutes to undertake this journey. Accordingly, Alice will travel 15 kms more than normal to get to the location of the listing presentation and spend 25 minutes extra to get there.
The 25 minutes extra travel time that it takes Alice to get to the listing presentation (compared to the time usually required to travel to the office) is considered \u201cexcess travelling\u201d time. This 25 minutes must be treated as part of her 38-hour working week and paid as such by Alice\u2019s employer.
If Alice is paid a motor vehicle allowance calculated on a per km basis, she will also be entitled to receive a motor vehicle allowance calculated on the excess travel distance of 15 kms.
NOTE: If Alice receives a motor vehicle allowance calculated as a \u2018lump sum\u2019 prescribed by the Award (as is most common in our industry), there will be NO extra reimbursement for travel costs.<\/strong><\/em> \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
If you have any questions about this variation or implementation of points 1 or 2 above, please call one of the advisors on 1300 616 170 or email reefhelp@reef.org.au<\/a> <\/a>and they can provide you with further information and advice. \u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"