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ARTICLE · 03 FEBRUARY 2010

Flexibility and the Fair Work Act

HopgoodGanim
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The Fair Work Act 2009 introduced new provisions designed to allow for flexibility in the workplace. Employers and employees can tailor modern awards and enterprise agreements in certain respects to suit their particular circumstances by using ’individual flexibility arrangements’ (IFAs). The National Employment Standards provide employees with children who are under school age, or who are disabled and under 18 years old, with the right to request flexible working arrangements. Extended parental

AustraliaEmployment and HR
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Individual flexibility arrangements

The Fair Work Act 2009 seeks to promote workplace flexibility through the use of individual flexibility arrangements. These arrangements allow for variations to modern awards or enterprise agreements to meet the needs of employers and individual employees, while at the same time ensuring that minimum entitlements and protections are maintained.

Every modern award and enterprise agreement must include a 'flexibility term'. A flexibility term allows an employer and an individual employee to agree on an arrangement which varies the effect of the modern award or enterprise agreement to meet the genuine needs of the employer and the individual employee. If an enterprise agreement does not include a flexibility term when it is made by the parties, it will be taken to include the model flexibility term set out in Fair Work Regulations 2009.

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