Fair Work Commission

The AWRS has collected a range of data about the organisation of work, including the days of operation, which could act as an indicator for whether penalty rates would apply to the operations of an enterprise. Further indicators of this could include the range of shift arrangements that enterprises reported, such as early morning, evening and night shifts and shift lengths that exceed 8 hours.

As depicted in Table 4.5, almost half (49%) of all enterprises in the AWRS operate on weekdays only, and around one-third (31%) of enterprises operate 7 days per week.

Days of operation was defined as days when employees are paid to undertake work relating to the major products and/or services of the enterprise.

Just over three-quarters (76%) of enterprises operate within standard business hours only, although some of these enterprises may operate on weekends too, which could be identified within the dataset.

Almost three-quarters of enterprises in the AWRS reported operating from 1 workplace only. Of note, data collected from this sub-set of enterprises may be comparable to workplace-level studies of employment and workplace relations.

Source: AWRS 2014, Structure and operations.

Base for number of worksites analysis = 3054 enterprises. Enterprises that answered 'don't know' are excluded from the analysis.

Base for days of operation = 2757 enterprises. Enterprises that answered 'don't know' are excluded from the analysis.

Base for organisation of work hours = 2749 enterprises. Enterprises that answered 'don't know' are excluded from the analysis.

Of the enterprises that reported having shift arrangements, Table 4.6 shows that three-quarters (75%) indicated that shifts are allocated mainly according to organisational needs, but with some flexibility to accommodate employee preference.

Source: AWRS 2014, Structure and operations.

Base = 963 enterprises. All enterprises that reported having shift arrangements.