Award Classifier: which award, which level, and the least you can pay

What it does

Working out which award covers a role, and which level of it, means reading coverage clauses, definitions and classification schedules against what the person actually does. The Award Classifier does that reading, in two parts.

Part 1 settles the award. Describe the business and the job in your own words, say how the person is employed and who the employer is. Frank then asks two questions with fixed answers: which industry the business is in, and what it mainly does. Every option is written from the awards’ own coverage clauses and says which businesses it means and which award it leads to, so a shutdown maintenance contractor working on mine sites is placed under the manufacturing award that names maintenance work, not the mining award that covers the mine’s own staff. Those two answers take the field from every award Frank holds - federal modern awards and the Western Australian state awards - to a handful, and Frank reads only those against what you told it.

Part 2 settles the level. Once one award stands, its own classification schedule asks the rest. Where the award names the job itself - a fitter and turner, a cook grade 3 - that is the level. Where a qualification decides it, Frank asks which one the person holds. Where several levels still fit, it puts them to you in the award’s own words and reads the level either side of your pick.

The answer names the award and the level, and shows the rate the Fair Work pay guide sets for it at the current vintage:

Manufacturing and Associated Industries and Occupations Award · C10 / V5 · $29.45 an hour

Under each part sits the wording it turned on - the coverage clause, the level’s own description, and the other awards read and put aside - so the result can be checked rather than taken on trust.

Check the level either side

Every answer carries Compare the level above and below. For each neighbouring level it shows what the award actually separates the levels by: the training the award requires there, set beside the pick’s; how the work differs - who it works under, what it is responsible for, whether it guides others; the jobs the award places at that level; and what the rate gap is. If the level below asks for less than the person brings, or the level above asks for something the job does not show, you can see it in the award’s words.

What changes for you

You get a defensible answer, not a guess. Every finding is a quote located in the award. Where Frank cannot settle something, it says so and names what would settle it.

You can check the call yourself. The levels either side are laid out on the same page, so the classification is a decision you can read, not a number you are handed.

A wrong turn costs one click. Every question has Back a step. Pick the wrong industry and the awards standing before it come back, with the question asked again.

State-system employers are covered. A Western Australian sole trader, partnership or trust is placed under the WA state awards, with the award’s own printed rates.

It carries on into the tools. Send the answer to the Pay Calculator to build a roster on it, or take it into a chat with Frank to go further.

Where to find it

Award Classifier is on the left-hand rail. On a desktop, what you have told Frank stays beside the answer as it builds.

Also in this release: Plan and Profile now sit under your initials in the top right, with Sign out - the rail is for the things you work in.

The Award Classifier is included with Premium. Everything else in this release is on every plan.