The Public Service Association of NSW (PSA) is aware that members at Service NSW are not being paid overtime for time worked past the end of their rostered shift, if that time is less than 15 minutes (in Service Centres and Middle Office) and eight minutes (in Contact Centres). We understand this is due in part to the ‘ “rounding rules” that have been applied to the relevant systems used by employees in Service NSW.

Under the Service NSW (Salaries and Conditions) Employees Award 2024, clause 19 provides the following:

19. Overtime
    19.1 Full-time employees shall be paid overtime for all time worked:
    (a) outside the spread of operating hours of duty as set out in clause 11 – Spread of Operating Hours, for which they are rostered.

              (b)       before or after the daily ordinary hours of duty set out in the roster               described in the provisions of clause 17 – Rosters and worked within the spread     of hours of duty as set out in clause 11 – Spread of Operating Hours.
19.2 Part-time employees and casual employees shall be paid for time worked in excess of the full-time hours of the classification, or outside the spread of operating hours of duty as set out in clause 11, at the appropriate overtime rate.

Clause 11 of the Service NSW Award identifies the relevant spread of operating hours as set out below:

11. Spread of Operating Hours

The standard hours of work shall be worked within the spread of operating hours as follows:

11.1 Service NSW Service Centres

(a) Monday to Friday     6:30am to 7:30pm

(b) Saturday     7:30am to 3:30pm

11.2 Service NSW Contact Centres

(a) Monday to Saturday     6:30am to 7:30pm

11.3 Service NSW Corporate Office

(a) Monday to Friday     6:30am to 7:30pm

Clause 19 prescriptively identifies conditions relating to overtime, crucially, it does not include any minimum amount of overtime which must be worked before payment arises. It is the PSA’s position that SNSW is required to pay overtime to employees for all hours worked which meet the circumstances in cl 19.1, this includes where an employee works less than 8 minutes past the end of the rostered shift. A failure to pay this overtime worked is a breach of the Service NSW Award.

What is the PSA doing?

The PSA have written to the Department of Customer Service (Department) concerning its position and requested that the Department:

1. take urgent steps to remove the relevant Rounding Rules within all systems utilised by SNSW employees to ensure that all time worked before or after an employee’s rostered shift can be claimed and paid as overtime in accordance with cl 19.
2. undertake an audit of all records to ensure all time worked before or after each employees shift has been treated as overtime (subject to the other conditions applying to overtime in the SNSW Award); and
3. based on this audit, pay its employees within SNSW for any identified overtime which it has failed to pay in accordance with cl 19.1(b), as soon as reasonably practicable upon completion of the audit.

The PSA is seeking further information from members about the current application of the rounding rules and impact on the payment of overtime, and is giving consideration to commencing proceedings against the Department for contravening the Service NSW Award. To assist in this process, we need evidence from members across all three work areas: Contact Centres, Service Centres, and Middle Office, about how these rules have impacted you.

Please take five minutes to complete our short survey. You can access the survey HERE.

For any questions or assistance, contact the PSA Member Support Centre on 1800 772 679 quoting reference number 10007778.