Hospitality Award Quick Reference

Who the award covers

The Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020 covers most employers in pubs, hotels, motels, restaurants attached to hotels, catering businesses, casinos and similar venues, along with their employees — front of house, kitchen, gaming, housekeeping and administration. Stand-alone restaurants and cafes are usually covered by the Restaurant Industry Award instead, and fast food outlets by the Fast Food Award, so confirming which award applies is the first job. Getting this wrong means every rate you pay downstream is built on the wrong foundation.

This page is general information about how the award is structured, not advice on your specific roster — the award itself and the Fair Work Ombudsman are the authorities for anything you rely on.

Classification structure

The award classifies employees by stream and level, and the level drives the minimum rate:

• Introductory level — new entrants learning the job, for a limited period before moving to Level 1.
• Food and beverage, kitchen, guest services, admin and other streams — each with graded levels reflecting skill, qualifications and supervision. Cooks, for example, progress through grades tied to trade qualifications.
• Managerial staff (hotels) — a separate classification for salaried managers.

The most common misclassification is leaving experienced staff on a lower level than their actual duties justify. Classify by what the person actually does, not the title on their contract, and record the reasoning.

Penalty rates, loadings and when they apply

The award applies additional rates for evening work, weekends, public holidays and overtime, and a casual loading on top of the base rate for casual employees. The triggers matter as much as the numbers: penalties can stack differently for casuals versus permanents, and overtime rules differ for full-time, part-time and casual staff. The percentages change over time — always pull current figures from the Fair Work Ombudsman's pay and conditions tool rather than a saved spreadsheet or last year's roster template.

Allowances and other extras

Common allowances under this award include split shift allowances, meal allowances when overtime runs long, tool and equipment allowances for cooks, uniform and laundry reimbursements, and higher-duties payments. Allowances are a frequent audit finding because they're small individually and easy to miss in payroll setup — check which ones your roster actually triggers and confirm the current amounts with the FWO.

Hours, rosters and minimum engagement

The award sets minimum shift lengths for part-time and casual employees, rules around split shifts and breaks between shifts, and requirements for agreeing part-time hours in writing. It also permits annualised salary arrangements for some classifications — but these carry reconciliation and record-keeping obligations, so a salary doesn't remove your award exposure, it just changes how you prove compliance.

Common compliance traps

• Flat rates that don't cover the worst-case shift — a flat hourly rate must beat the award for every hour actually worked, including weekends and nights.
• Stale rates after the annual wage review — minimums move each year; payroll needs a scheduled update, not a memory-based one.
• Casuals working regular patterns without attention to casual conversion obligations.
• Unpaid trial shifts beyond a brief skill demonstration.

Award compliance is one of the back-office functions that quietly consumes owner time — if payroll queries keep landing on your desk, that's a capability question, not just a payroll one. See our people and payroll services and the back-office capability gap.

Where to get the current numbers

Use the Fair Work Ombudsman's Pay and Conditions Tool for current rates, penalties and allowances, and the Fair Work Commission's published award document for the clause wording. Check after every annual wage review decision, and whenever an employee's classification, age or duties change.