USA
AU
UK
ES
FR
BR
TH
INNight shift loading
Night shift loading is the extra percentage a modern award adds to an employee's base rate for ordinary hours worked at night. It recognises that overnight work is harder on people — and it's an award entitlement, not a discretionary bonus.
How awards define it
Each award draws its own lines, and they genuinely differ:
- When night starts and ends. The hours that attract the loading are defined per award — hospitality's late-night penalties, for example, sit on different times to SCHADS's night shift span.
- Who counts as a shiftworker. Many awards reserve shift loadings for employees whose roster meets a definition of shiftwork, with separate (often higher) loadings for permanent night work.
- How it stacks. Whether night loading combines with casual loading or weekend penalties — and how — is an award-by-award question.
The percentages change as awards are varied, so check your award's shiftwork clause or the Fair Work Ombudsman's Pay and Conditions Tool rather than working from memory.
Rostering night work fairly
Beyond pay, night work carries fatigue and safety duties under work health and safety law. Reasonable gaps between shifts, predictable patterns, and loadings itemised clearly on the payslip keep night work sustainable — for the person doing it and for the business relying on them.
Shiftwork and night penalty clauses of the applicable modern award under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) — see the Fair Work Ombudsman's Pay and Conditions Tool.
Tommy makes night patterns visible across the whole team, so loadings, rest gaps and who's carrying the overnight load are easy to see and share fairly.