If you are a national system employer, from 1 January 2010, there will be 10 National Employment Standards (or NES) that you will have to comply with. Each NES provides for minimum terms and conditions in the following areas:

• maximum weekly hours;
• requests for flexible working arrangements;
• parental leave and related entitlements;
• annual leave;
• personal/carer’s leave and compassionate leave;
• community service leave;
• long service leave;
• public holidays;
• notice of termination and redundancy pay; and
• the provision of the Fair Work Information Statement.

Need some handy tips for making sure your business is prepared for the NES?

Here are 4 key action points:

• You need to develop policies and procedures to keep employees on parental leave informed of any changes that might affect their pre-leave role, and to deal with requests to extend parental leave.
• You need to develop policies set out rules as to when employees will required to take annual leave and when they can cash it out.
• You need to prepare for the new entitlements to redundancy pay and community service leave and make provision for it in employment contracts and policies.
• You need to include the Fair Work Statement (when it is published by Fair Work Australia) in employee induction kits.

For more details on how you can make sure your business is prepared for all the Fair Work Act changes, take a 14 day FREE trial of the Employment Law Practical Handbook. Click here to find out more!

Charles Power
Editor-in-Chief
Employment Law Practical Handbook

Tags: (NES), annual leave, community service leave, Fair Work, fair work australia, flexible working arrangements, long service leave, National Employment Standards, national system employer, public holidays, redundancy pay