Employee Choice Pathway: Everything You Need To Know

Casual employees now hold the power to request permanent employment

From 26 February of this year, new changes came into effect for casual workers, carving the way for them to become more actively involved in the right to transition to permanent employment.

Eligible casual employees are now able to provide written notice to their employer to change to full-time or part-employment under the new Employee Choice Pathway. While the right to casual conversion is nothing new, the power has now shifted to the employee to initiate this process.

Once an employer receives a request from an employee to convert to permanent employment, the employer needs to respond to the request within 21 days. Employers should take note that the bar for an employer to refuse the casual conversion is high and any rejection reasoning will need to be more than just a mere inconvenience and will need to be reasonable and legitimate.

Importantly, not all casuals will be eligible to request this transition to part or full time employment. The following requirements must be satisfied:

· the casual employee must have worked for an employer for more than six months or 12 months if the employer is a small business;

· any work performed by the employee before 26 August 2024 will not count towards service for the purpose of eligibility to access the employment pathway;

· the casual employee must believe they no longer meet the definition of a casual employee;

· the casual employee must not have a current dispute with their employer about changing to permanent employment; and

· the casual employee must not have had any previous notification refused about changing to permanent employment in the past six months.

For small businesses, this change does not come into effect until 26 August 2025.

Employers need to be proactive and start preparing for if and when these requests for casual conversion start filtering through. Businesses should be considering their operational requirements and be ready to respond to these requests promptly to avoid penalties.