Clerks Award Working From Home Clause: Decided, Not Yet in Force

The Commission started the matter on its own initiative on 29 August 2024, after the Modern Awards Review 2023-24 named the Clerks Award as the award under which working from home is most likely to occur. The Full Bench was Justice Hatcher, President, Deputy President O’Neill and Commissioner McKinnon. It heard the case on 10 and 11 February 2026 and issued its decision on 27 August 2026.

The decision settles the policy: the award will be varied. The wording is still a draft. The determination published with it ends by saying it comes into operation on “XX Month 2026”, and the Commission’s news item describes it as published for comment. Submissions were limited to drafting and technical issues and closed at 5:00 pm (AEST) on Thursday 17 September 2026.

On 25 September 2026 the Commission’s news listing showed nothing on the matter after the decision itself, and the Fair Work Ombudsman’s copy of the award, last updated 8 July 2026, had no clause 5A. The case page has not been updated since 18 September 2025. We will update this page when the final determination is issued.

The draft inserts a clause headed “Requests for working from home arrangements” immediately after the award’s individual flexibility clause. In plain terms, it has nine parts.

• 5A.1 An individual employee may request, and an employer may agree to, an arrangement to work from home.
• 5A.2 Working from home means working at the employee’s residence, or at another location the employee chooses and the employer approves.
• 5A.3 The request must be in writing and must name the day or days the employee proposes to work from home.
• 5A.4 By agreement, the arrangement may modify four award rules: working ordinary hours continuously (13.6(a)), ordinary hours at the employer’s discretion (13.6(b)), and the timing of rest breaks (15.2) and meal breaks (15.3).
• 5A.5 It may also fold in facilitative agreements the award already allows: a wider spread of ordinary hours, making up time taken off, changed shift start and finish times, and time off instead of overtime pay.
• 5A.6 An agreement must be in writing and state the days, the location, any modified award terms, any facilitative agreement, the start date, and how either party can end it.
• 5A.7 It must be made without coercion or duress.
• 5A.8 The employer must keep the agreement as a time and wages record and give the employee a copy.
• 5A.9 The clause does not limit individual flexibility arrangements under clause 5.

Two notes follow. The first says an eligible employee may also request a flexible working arrangement under s 65 of the Fair Work Act. The second says disputes about requests under the clause may be dealt with under the award’s dispute resolution clause, clause 40. The Full Bench saw no reason to exclude any classification, so the clause would apply to every employee the award covers.

Nothing on a Clerks Award payslip changes because of this decision. Clause 5A sets no rate, no loading and no allowance, and it carries no working from home expense or equipment payment. Employer groups asked for the first aid, uniform laundry and overtime meal allowances to be cut back for staff working at home, and the Full Bench found no proper basis on the evidence to vary any of them.

It also left the spread of ordinary hours alone. It said the proposals to widen it were likely barred by s 135A of the Fair Work Act, because widening the spread would remove an overtime entitlement. It added that hours an employee chooses to work outside the spread for their own convenience, without any employer direction, do not attract overtime under clause 21.1(c).

The minimum weekly, hourly and casual rates for every clerical and call centre level are on Clerks Award Pay Rates, and none of them moves with clause 5A.

The decision names the receptionist as its example of a clerical role where working from home may not be practicable, because the work requires in-person contact with customers, clients or other employees. That was one of its reasons for refusing a presumption in favour of approval. A receptionist on the Clerks Award could still make a written request under clause 5A once it is in force, and the employer could still agree.

The levels a receptionist is paid at, under the Clerks Award in an office and the Health Services Award in a medical practice, are set out on Receptionist Pay Rate. A medical receptionist on the Health Services Award is outside clause 5A, which varies the Clerks Award only.

The Full Bench will consider the submissions on the draft and then issue a final determination. That document will fix the operative date. Under s 165(3) of the Fair Work Act, as the draft recites, it will take effect for each employee from the start of their first full pay period on or after that date, not from the date itself.

The Modern Awards Review said the term may serve as a model for other awards, with or without adaptation. No other award has been varied, and this page covers the Clerks Award only. Until the determination is made, nothing on Receptionist Pay Rate or any other Clerks Award page on this site changes.