Cleaning Services Award 2020 - A Simple Guide for Your Business

Apr 13

Who Does This Award Cover?

This Award covers employers and employees across Australia who work in the contract cleaning services industry. This includes:

Contract Cleaning: General cleaning services provided under a contract (including event cleaning for sports, concerts, or exhibitions).
Hygiene and Pollution Control: Specialist services for health and environmental safety.
Trolley Collection: Collecting shopping or luggage trolleys (provided they aren't already covered by the Retail Award).
Minor Maintenance: Basic property maintenance that is incidental to a cleaning contract.

It’s important to note that the Award applies to direct employees, trainees, and even on-hire or labour-hire workers provided to a cleaning business.

Common Roles in Simple Terms

The Award classifies employees into three main levels based on their tools and responsibilities. Choosing the right level is crucial for correct pay.

Standard Cleaning (Level 1)

These employees handle essential daily cleaning using manual or hand-held equipment.

Key Distinction: They use hand-held powered equipment like vacuum cleaners, blowers, and polishers.
Common Tasks: Mopping, sweeping, toilet cleaning, rubbish collection, dusting hard surfaces, and rearranging furniture.

Specialist Cleaning (Level 2)

These employees operate more complex machinery or work in more specialized environments.

Key Distinction: They operate ride-on powered machinery (such as floor scrubbers) or work at heights.
Common Tasks: Steam cleaning, pressure washing, cleaning the exterior of multi-story buildings from scaffolds or hydraulic buckets, and basic non-trade maintenance.

Supervisory Roles (Level 3)

These employees take on a management or coordination role within the facility.

Common Tasks: Coordinating the work of Level 1 and 2 employees, managing building plant and equipment, dealing directly with tenants or owners, and handling routine personnel or safety matters.

Types of Employment

Understanding how you hire employees determines your flexibility and your costs.

Full-Time: Ongoing work averaging 38 hours per week.
Casual: Engaged for irregular or uncertain hours. Casuals receive a 25% loading in place of paid leave entitlements.
Part-Time (The Strategic Choice): Part-time employees work fewer than 38 hours on a predictable schedule. Under this Award, you must pay part-time staff a 15% allowance on top of their base rate.

Why the 15% allowance matters: This isn't just an extra cost; it is the "price" of flexibility. This allowance allows you to roster a part-time employee for up to 38 hours in a week (or 7.6 hours in a day) without paying overtime rates. It gives you the ability to scale their hours up when needed while maintaining a stable, non-casual workforce.

Working Hours and the "Minimum Shift" Rule

In the cleaning industry, the minimum number of hours you must pay for a shift is tied directly to the size of the area being cleaned. Even if the job is finished early, you must pay for the following minimum durations:

Very small locations (under 300sqm): 1 hour. Crucial Note: You can only use this 1-hour minimum if it is not practicable to combine the work into a longer shift across two or more nearby locations.
Small locations (up to 2000sqm): 2 consecutive hours.
Medium locations (2000–5000sqm): 3 consecutive hours.
Large locations (over 5000sqm): 4 consecutive hours.

Understanding Breaks: The "Shift Penalty" Trap

The rules for breaks depend on whether an employee is legally defined as a "Shiftworker." This is a common area for mistakes.

Shiftworkers: These are employees who work a shift that attracts a specific "Shift Penalty" (such as early morning, afternoon, or night shifts during the week). They are entitled to a 20-minute paid meal break.
Non-Shiftworkers: These are employees who do not receive a weekday shift penalty. Even if they work a Saturday and receive a "Weekend Penalty Rate," they are still considered non-shiftworkers for break purposes. They receive a 30 to 60-minute unpaid meal break and two 10-minute paid rest breaks.

The 8-Hour Rule: Every employee must have at least 8 consecutive hours off between finishing work one day and starting the next. If you require them to start earlier, you must pay them overtime rates until they are released for an 8 hour break.

Pay, Penalties, and Allowances

A cleaner’s pay is built on three layers: their base rate, higher duties, and extra allowances.

Minimum Rates: Set hourly rates apply to Levels 1, 2, and 3.
Higher Duties (The 4-Hour Rule): If a Level 1 employee performs Level 2 tasks (like using ride-on machinery) for more than 4 hours in a day, you must pay them the higher rate for the entire day. If they do it for less than 4 hours, you only pay the higher rate for the hours they actually performed those tasks.
Penalty Rates: Higher rates apply for early starts (before 6:00 am), late finishes (after 6:00 pm), and any work on weekends or Public Holidays.
Common Allowances: Extra payments apply for cleaning toilets (for the majority of a shift), leading a team, using a personal vehicle for work travel, or working in artificially hot or cold environments.

The Key Things Employers Usually Get Wrong

Staying compliant means watching out for these common "traps":

The Right to Disconnect: New rules allow employees to ignore work contact outside of hours unless it’s an emergency.
Broken Shifts: If an employee works in the morning and returns in the evening (a "split shift"), they must receive a specific daily allowance. Managing these correctly is a key way to control costs.
Contract Changes (Notice as Cost-Control): If you lose a cleaning contract, you must give affected employees at least 28 days' notice. Doing this correctly and facilitating meetings with the incoming contractor can often help you avoid expensive redundancy pay claims.

Practical Tips for Staying Compliant

Written Agreements: For part-time employees, you must record their hours, days, and start/finish times in writing before they start their first shift.
Visibility: Keep a copy of the Award and the National Employment Standards (NES) accessible to all employees, either on a notice board or via a shared electronic folder.
Rostering: Post rosters in an obvious place. Any changes made by mutual agreement should be updated in your records immediately.
Budgeting: Remember that minimum wage rates under this Award typically increase on 1 July each year. Review your client contracts annually to ensure they still cover your increasing labour costs.

If you’re ever unsure about a specific situation, FiveSeven can help you get on the right track. Taking the time to get it right today prevents costly headaches tomorrow.

The information above forms part of our Understanding Your Award series and provides a high-level overview only. Further obligations may apply depending on your business and workforce. This Information is current at the time of publication Jan 2026. Workplace laws and awards may change.