Full time employment contract hours in Australia — what every clause must do

You have hired someone full time, or you are about to. The contract template is open, you have reached the hours clause, and you are not entirely sure what it needs to say to be both legally sound and practically useful. This is the moment where most employment contracts either earn their keep or store up trouble.

A full-time hours clause is not just a statement that someone will work five days a week. It is the anchor for payroll, rostering, overtime calculations, leave accruals, and — if the relationship ever breaks down — the starting point for any dispute about underpayment or excessive hours. Getting each element right from the start protects you and gives your employee a clear, honest picture of what they are signing.

The 38-hour ordinary hours clause

The baseline under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) is 38 ordinary hours per week for a full-time employee. Your contract should state this figure explicitly. Vague language like "standard business hours" or "as required by the role" is not enough — it leaves the overtime trigger undefined and makes payroll alignment much harder.

If a modern award or enterprise agreement covers the role, check whether it specifies different ordinary hours or a different span of hours before you write this clause. Some awards, particularly in hospitality, healthcare and retail, set their own ordinary-hours definitions. Where the award applies, the contract should reflect its terms, not just the bare statutory figure.

Key drafting choices for this clause:

State the ordinary hours figure: 38 hours per week, or the award's figure if different.
Specify how those hours are ordinarily distributed — for example, Monday to Friday, 8:30 am to 5:00 pm with a 30-minute unpaid lunch break, or across a roster cycle if shift work applies.
Name the modern award or enterprise agreement that applies, if any. Stating that "the [Award Name] applies to this employment and prevails over this contract where it provides a more favourable entitlement" prevents the contract from accidentally undercutting the award.
Avoid language that suggests ordinary hours are flexible or unlimited. That framing can obscure overtime triggers and may expose you to underpayment claims if the employee regularly works more than the stated hours without compensation.

The reasonable additional hours clause

The Fair Work Act permits employers to require full-time employees to work additional hours beyond 38 per week, provided those hours are reasonable. The statute does not set a fixed cap on additional hours — reasonableness is assessed on the facts — but it does identify the factors that must be weighed. These include risks to health and safety, the employee's personal circumstances (including family responsibilities), how much notice was given, and whether the employee can in practice refuse.

This matters drafting-wise because you cannot simply write "the employee must work all hours reasonably required." You need the clause to:

Confirm that additional hours may be required from time to time and that those hours will be reasonable having regard to the factors set out in the Fair Work Act.
Cross-reference any award overtime and penalty rate provisions — these determine when additional hours attract a higher rate of pay.
Avoid language that treats all extra hours as ordinary. If your contract blurs the boundary between ordinary and additional hours, you may inadvertently create an argument that overtime is already absorbed into a salary.

Where a role genuinely demands irregular or extended hours — project-based work, client-facing roles with variable demand — it is worth including a brief worked example of how the additional-hours obligation will operate in practice. That transparency reduces disputes and sets realistic expectations.

The hours-averaging clause

For businesses with seasonal or cyclical workloads, an averaging arrangement allows ordinary hours to be averaged over a longer reference period rather than calculated week by week. The drafting requirements depend on whether an award covers the role.

Where a modern award or enterprise agreement applies, averaging is only available if the award itself permits it and sets the averaging period. You cannot simply agree to average hours beyond what the award allows.

Where the role is award and agreement free, the Fair Work Act (s 64) permits the employer and employee to agree in writing to average hours over a period of up to 26 weeks. The written agreement must be documented — a verbal arrangement is not sufficient — and the employer must keep a copy.

Drafting traps to watch for:

An averaging clause does not suspend overtime obligations during the reference period. If the employee exceeds the averaged ordinary hours in any week, the award's overtime provisions may still be triggered for that week, depending on how the award is structured.
The clause should specify the reference period with a start date or a mechanism for setting it, rather than leaving the period undefined.
If you rely on averaging, you must track actual hours week by week so you can demonstrate compliance and identify when overtime is payable. A clause that references averaging but is backed by no record-keeping process is a compliance liability.

The breaks and span-of-hours clause

Breaks are not optional, and the obligation to provide them does not disappear because it is not written into the contract. The contract clause exists to make the award entitlement visible to the employee and to align your rostering and payroll systems with the legal requirement.

Most modern awards specify both the span of ordinary hours (the window within which ordinary-hours work can be scheduled, e.g. 7:00 am to 6:00 pm Monday to Friday) and minimum rest and meal break entitlements. Work rostered outside the span typically attracts penalty rates.

Your clause should:

State the span of ordinary hours for the role, drawn from the applicable award (or from your operational requirements if the role is award-free).
Reference meal break entitlements — whether they are paid or unpaid and the minimum length.
Note that rostering and payroll systems will be configured to apply break entitlements and span-related penalties automatically.

Leaving breaks out of the contract does not relieve you of the obligation to provide them. It just means the employee may not know what they are entitled to, and your systems may not be set up to apply them — both of which increase underpayment risk.

The overtime and time-off-in-lieu clause

If overtime is payable under the award, your contract should explain how it will be managed. The two main options are paying overtime at the award's prescribed rates, or offering time off in lieu (TOIL) as an alternative.

TOIL is not available in all awards, and where it is available, it usually requires a written agreement with the employee, taken at a time agreed between the parties, within a specified period. Your contract clause should:

Identify whether overtime will be paid at award rates or managed as TOIL (or both, depending on the situation).
Where TOIL is offered, state that it will be subject to a written agreement as required by the award and that the time off will be taken at ordinary-time rates unless the award provides otherwise.
Avoid writing the contract as though TOIL is the default and the employee has no choice. If the award requires the employee's agreement, that agreement must be genuinely given.

If you pay an annualised salary or all-inclusive remuneration intended to absorb overtime, this clause becomes significantly more complex. Annualised salary arrangements under modern awards now carry detailed record-keeping and reconciliation obligations — including annual audits to confirm the salary has not resulted in underpayment. Take advice before drafting any clause that purports to absorb overtime into a flat salary.

The employment classification clause

The contract must state, clearly and accurately, that the employment is full time. Classification is not just a label — it determines the suite of entitlements the employee receives, the casual loading question, and whether casual conversion obligations arise.

A full-time employee, under the NES, is entitled to:

Annual leave: 4 weeks per year of service (5 weeks for certain shift workers).
Personal and carer's leave: 10 days per year, accruing progressively, carrying over into subsequent years.
Compassionate leave: 2 paid days per permissible occasion.
Community service leave: Unpaid for most activities; jury duty attracts make-up pay for the first 10 days of absence.
Public holidays: Paid absence on public holidays the employee would ordinarily have worked.
Notice and redundancy pay: Minimum notice periods apply; redundancy pay is owed depending on length of service and business size.
Long service leave: Set by state and territory law; entitlements and qualifying periods vary by jurisdiction.

The classification clause should confirm these entitlements apply, reference the NES, and note that the applicable award or enterprise agreement may supplement them. It should not attempt to contract out of NES minimums — any term purporting to do so is void.

Optional and situational clauses

Some employment relationships call for additional hours-related clauses that do not fit every contract:

Right to disconnect acknowledgement. Under amendments to the Fair Work Act, employees have a right to refuse unreasonable contact outside their working hours. If the role involves after-hours availability expectations, the contract should address these explicitly rather than leaving them implicit.
Compressed work week or alternative roster arrangement. If the employee will work 38 ordinary hours across four longer days rather than five standard ones, the contract should document this, confirm it remains full-time employment, and cross-reference any award daily maximum and overtime provisions that may apply to longer shifts.
Flexibility arrangement clause. Individual flexibility arrangements under the Fair Work Act can modify award terms (including hours of work) to suit an individual employee's circumstances, provided the employee is genuinely better off overall. These must be in writing, are terminable on notice, and cannot be used to reduce entitlements below the NES.
Consultation clause for roster changes. Some awards require employers to consult employees before changing regular rosters or ordinary hours of work. Including a brief clause acknowledging this obligation helps managers understand they cannot vary hours unilaterally without following the required process.
Record-keeping acknowledgement. A brief clause noting that time and attendance records will be kept, and that the employee should notify their manager if actual hours exceed what was rostered, supports compliance and makes it easier to manage any overtime or TOIL reconciliation.

How Artificer Legal helps employers get hours clauses right

The hours-of-work provisions in an employment contract interact with three separate legal layers: the Fair Work Act, any applicable modern award or enterprise agreement, and state-based long service leave legislation. Errors at any layer can expose an employer to underpayment claims, civil penalties, or — since 1 January 2025 — the risk of criminal liability for intentional wage theft.

At Artificer Legal, we review employment contracts against the correct award coverage for your industry and role type, identify clauses that inadvertently absorb overtime without meeting the NES and award requirements for annualised salary arrangements, and draft hours clauses that are enforceable, auditable, and written in plain language your employees will actually understand.

If you are building contract templates for a growing team, or reviewing contracts that have not been updated since the award modernisation process, contact us to discuss what a review involves and how we can help you build a compliant framework around hours of work.

The overtime and classification clauses show compliance

If a dispute ever lands on a Fair Work Inspector's desk or in the Fair Work Commission, the question is almost never whether the employee worked additional hours — it is whether those hours were properly classified, compensated, and recorded. The overtime clause, read alongside the classification clause, is where most employment contracts either demonstrate compliance or reveal the gap between what was promised and what was paid.

The broader picture is this: a full-time employment contract that correctly handles hours of work will specify 38 ordinary hours per week (or the award figure), state the span of hours and break entitlements, confine additional hours to what is genuinely reasonable, set out how overtime or TOIL is managed, and name the applicable award so that penalty rates and rostering rules flow automatically from the right source. Every clause in that chain serves the same purpose — making it possible to roster, pay, and record hours accurately, without ambiguity, and without having to renegotiate expectations mid-employment.