Clarity on sleepover provisions under SCHADS Award

The Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Award 2010 (the Award) provides for the performance of a ‘sleepover’. Sleepover arrangements are commonly implemented by employers covered by the Award that provide disability support services and undertake youth work.

A sleepover refers to a period during which an employee is required to remain overnight at a workplace, typically to be available to assist or provide care or assistance to clients as needed, while not being engaged in active duties for the entire period. The employee is permitted to sleep and generally required to be provided with facilities to allow them to do so but may be interrupted if the need to perform work arises.

In 2025, the Federal Court and the Fair Work Commission (FWC) was required to determine whether hours worked before and after a sleepover are one continuous ‘shift’. This has implications for the payment of shift penalties and overtime loadings.

In Jats Joint Pty Ltd v Fair Work Ombudsman (2025), the Federal Court ruled that under the provisions of the Award, sleepovers are separate and distinct periods of time that do not form part of a shift. Although the Court did not express a final view on the issue, it indicated a preference for the view that a sleepover can constitute a break between rostered shifts pursuant to the Award. The decision is contrary to the Fair Work Ombudsman’s long-standing interpretation of the Award.

In December 2025, a Full Bench of the FWC had to determine a joint application by unions and employer groups to vary the Award to clarify an ambiguity and uncertainty concerning the sleepover provisions.

The FWC granted the application to amend the Award to provide for the following:

A sleepover period cannot properly be treated as a break from work and should not be considered a break for the purposes of the Award. Where an employee is rostered to perform work both immediately before and immediately after a sleepover, the sleepover period is not a break and both periods of work should be treated as one shift for the purposes of the Award.
The Award should permit the employer and employee to agree to a longer period of ordinary hours for a shift if the shift includes a sleepover period, and for the ordinary hours of a shift performed partly before and partly after a sleepover to be up to 12 hours and the maximum period of work either before or after the sleepover be 8 hours.
Work for longer than a total period of 12 hours immediately before and after a sleepover period will need to be overtime and paid at overtime rates.
The portion of work prior to and following a sleepover is treated separately for the purposes of determining the shift loading to be paid. For example, when an employee works from 2:30pm to 10:30pm, performs a sleepover and then works from 6:30am to 10:30am, the employee would be entitled to the afternoon shift loading for the first portion of work and no shift loading for the second portion of work.

These changes will apply prospectively.

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