Casual conversion

Casual conversion is the legal pathway for a casual employee to become permanent — part-time or full-time — while keeping their job. Since the 2024 Closing Loopholes reforms it works as an employee choice: an eligible casual who believes their employment no longer fits the casual definition can give written notice that they want to convert, and the employer must respond properly.

How the pathway works

• Eligibility: the employee must have been employed at least six months — twelve in a small business — before giving notice.
• The test: whether the relationship still has no firm advance commitment to continuing work, looking at the real pattern of shifts, not the contract label.
• Your response: consult with the employee, then reply in writing within 21 days — accepting, or refusing on permitted grounds.
• Refusal grounds include that the employee still genuinely meets the casual definition, or fair and reasonable operational grounds.
• Disputes that can't be resolved at the workplace can go to the Fair Work Commission.

What it means for rosters

Conversion converts loading into leave, notice and predictable hours. If a casual has worked the same Tuesday-to-Saturday pattern for a year, the honest question isn't whether they could convert — it's why they haven't been offered the stability already. Steady people are worth keeping steady.

Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) Pt 2-3 Div 4A (employee choice about casual employment, as amended 2024) — guidance and the Casual Employment Information Statement via the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Related terms

• Casual loading
• Fair Work Information Statement
• Probation period