SCHADS Award

The SCHADS Award — formally the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010 — is the modern award covering most of Australia's care workforce: disability support workers, home care workers, community services staff and crisis support roles. If you deliver NDIS supports or home care, it's very likely the rulebook your rosters live under.

What makes SCHADS distinctive

SCHADS is built around the reality that care happens in people's homes, around the clock, in visits rather than neat blocks — and it regulates rostering more tightly than most awards:

Minimum payments: each engagement attracts a minimum payment period, so very short visits still carry a floor cost.
Broken shifts: a day split by unpaid breaks is allowed within limits, attracts an allowance, and a second break needs the employee's agreement.
Sleepovers and 24-hour care: specific rules and allowances for overnight presence, separate from night shift loadings.
Remote response work: minimum payments for taking calls or working remotely outside rostered hours.
Client cancellations and roster changes: notice rules that decide whether you still pay, redeploy, or reschedule.

Living with it

SCHADS compliance is mostly a rostering problem, not a payroll one: the cost of a visit is decided when it's scheduled. Providers who plan with the award's clauses in view spend far less time untangling them at pay time.

Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010, maintained by the Fair Work Commission — rates and clause guidance via the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Tommy gives care teams one clear view of visits, breaks and overnight shifts, so SCHADS rules are visible while you roster — not discovered at payroll.

Related terms

Put a number on it: the free true shift cost calculator shows what a shift really costs once every premium and on-cost is applied.