Ending Employment
Whether you have a written contract in place or not, employers are required to provide permanent employees with a period of paid notice to end an employees employment.
An employee’s Award, Registered Agreement or Employment Contract sets out how much notice the employee is required to give and whether the employer can withhold money from outstanding entitlements if the employee does not give the minimum notice.
The National Employment Standards (NES) specify the minimum notice requirements for employers – as below:
| Period of continuous service | Minimum Notice Period or Payment in Lieu |
| Less than 1 year | 1 week |
| 1-3 years | 2 weeks |
| 3-5 years | 3 weeks |
| over 5 years | 4 weeks |
In addition, employees 45 years old or over and who have completed at least 2 years’ continuous service with the employer is also entitled to an additional weeks’ notice.
Some Modern Awards also contain notice provisions over and above the NES, employers should check these as well.
An Employee may be terminated without notice in the event of serious misconduct. Serious conduct is defined in the Regulations. Examples of serious misconduct include theft, fraud, assault, or refusing to carry out a lawful and reasonable instruction that is part of the job.
Notice can be paid out instead of worked, this is also known as ‘pay in lieu of notice’ or ‘paid in lieu’.
If the employer pays out the notice, the amount paid to the employee must equal the full amount the employee would have been paid if they worked until the end of the notice period. This includes:
- • incentive-based payments and bonuses
- • loadings
- • monetary allowances
- • overtime
- • penalty rates
- • any other separately identifiable amounts.
Notice during probation periods still apply!
If an employee’s employment is ended while they’re on probation, they still have to get or be paid out notice based on their length of service.
For assistance ending employment, please feel fee to give us a call on (07) 5530 1571
