Reasonable Additional Hours Under Australian Employment Law: What Employers Need To Know

When you’re running a small business, “the work” rarely fits neatly into a 9-5 box.

A customer needs an urgent job done. A supplier delivery runs late. A deadline comes forward. Or your team is lean (because that’s often how small businesses start), and everyone occasionally needs to pitch in.

In Australia, it’s common for employees to work extra time from time to time. But it’s also a legal risk area if you don’t set expectations properly or you push beyond what the law considers fair.

This is where many business owners pause and ask: what are “reasonable additional hours” under Australian employment law?

Below, we’ll break it down in plain English, from a small business perspective: what “reasonable additional hours” means, how to assess reasonableness in your workplace, how awards and contracts fit in, and what practical steps you can take to stay compliant while still getting the work done.

What Does “Reasonable Additional Hours” Mean For Employers?

Under the National Employment Standards (NES) in the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), a full-time employee’s standard hours are generally 38 hours per week, plus “reasonable additional hours”.

For part-time employees, ordinary hours are their agreed hours (and awards/agreements may set how additional hours can work). Casual employees don’t have a guaranteed ongoing number of hours, but there are still legal boundaries around rostering practices and fatigue, and awards often deal with overtime thresholds.

In practice, “reasonable additional hours” is the legal concept that allows you to ask an employee to work beyond their ordinary hours when it’s reasonable - and it also allows employees to refuse to work those additional hours if the request is unreasonable.

It’s not a single number that applies to every business. Instead, it’s a balancing exercise that depends on the circumstances.

Why This Matters For Small Businesses

Many small businesses informally rely on flexibility. The risk is that flexibility can turn into:

• systematically long hours becoming “normal”;
• burnout and safety incidents;
• underpayment claims (especially where awards apply);
• disputes about performance management or refusal to work overtime; or
• employee turnover when expectations were never clearly set.

Getting your approach right early usually costs far less than fixing a problem after a complaint or a resignation.

What Is Considered “Reasonable Additional Hours”? The Key Legal Factors

If you’re trying to work out what is considered reasonable additional hours, the Fair Work Act sets out factors that must be considered. Think of these as the “reasonableness checklist”.

In broad terms, additional hours are more likely to be reasonable where they are truly needed, planned where possible, fairly compensated (or appropriately included in salary), safe, and consistent with what the employee agreed to.

The Employee’s Health And Safety Risk

This is a major factor. If extra hours create a genuine risk of fatigue, stress, or unsafe work, then “reasonable” can quickly become “unreasonable”.

From a business perspective, this isn’t just an employment law issue - it’s also a work health and safety (WHS) issue. Long hours can increase accident risk and errors, particularly in physical, driving, customer-facing, or high-concentration roles.

Practical tip: use your systems (rosters, timesheets, job scheduling) to monitor patterns, not just one-off late nights.

The Business Needs

It matters why you’re asking for extra hours.

Extra hours may be more reasonable if there is a genuine operational requirement, for example:

• unexpected equipment breakdown;
• an urgent client deadline;
• seasonal peaks (where you’ve planned as much as you can);
• short-term staff shortages due to illness; or
• emergency work to protect people, property, or critical systems.

On the other hand, if extra hours are needed because your resourcing is consistently too lean (and you’ve relied on overtime as a business model), the “reasonableness” argument becomes much harder.

The Employee’s Personal Circumstances

Reasonable additional hours aren’t assessed in a vacuum. You must consider personal circumstances, including family responsibilities.

For example, an employee with caring responsibilities may have legitimate constraints. You don’t necessarily have to exempt them from all overtime, but you should approach requests carefully, explore alternatives, and avoid punishing them for raising genuine limitations.

Whether The Employee Is Paid For The Extra Hours

Compensation is central to reasonableness - but it’s also one of the easiest areas for small businesses to get wrong.

Depending on the employee’s arrangement, extra hours might be compensated by:

• overtime rates under a modern award or enterprise agreement;
• time off in lieu (TOIL) if permitted by the award/agreement and handled correctly;
• a salary that is intended to cover reasonable additional hours (with proper award set-off, if relevant); or
• another agreed arrangement that is compliant with the employee’s minimum entitlements.

If you’re offering TOIL, make sure you do it lawfully and consistently - a casual “take Friday afternoon off sometime” approach can create payroll and compliance issues. Many businesses build their approach into policies and contracts, supported by a clear time in lieu process.

Whether The Employee Receives A High Level Of Responsibility Or Is Paid Above Award

Senior employees, managers, and professionals may reasonably be expected to work extra hours at peak times - particularly where the role has autonomy and higher pay.

However, “they’re on salary” doesn’t automatically mean you can require unlimited extra hours with no consequences. If an award applies, you still need to ensure the employee is better off overall and not falling below minimum standards over time.

Even when no award applies, excessive hours can still create safety risks and cultural issues that hurt retention.

Notice Given And Patterns Over Time

One-off extra hours with reasonable notice are generally easier to justify than last-minute demands, repeated late nights, or constant weekend work.

Ask yourself:

• Did we give the employee reasonable notice (or was it genuinely urgent)?
• Is this occasional, or is it becoming the norm?
• Have we planned our staffing levels and deadlines properly?

In other words: the more predictable the need, the more you should plan for it rather than relying on “additional hours”.

How Do Awards, Enterprise Agreements, And Employment Contracts Affect Additional Hours?

When small business owners ask what are reasonable additional hours, they’re often really asking two questions at once:

• Can we ask for these extra hours under the Fair Work Act?
• How do we pay (or otherwise account for) those extra hours correctly?

This is where your employment documents and industrial instruments matter.

Modern Awards And Enterprise Agreements

A modern award (or enterprise agreement) may set rules around:

• what counts as “ordinary hours”;
• when overtime applies and at what rates;
• minimum break requirements and shift rules;
• time off in lieu arrangements (if allowed); and
• record-keeping obligations.

If you’re not sure whether an award covers your employee, it’s worth addressing this early. Award misclassification is a common cause of underpayments, especially where businesses grow quickly or roles change over time. Many businesses get legal support around award compliance to reduce this risk.

Employment Contracts (And The “Reasonable Additional Hours” Clause)

Your Employment Contract should clearly set expectations around:

• ordinary hours and how rosters work (if relevant);
• whether reasonable additional hours may be required;
• how additional hours are authorised (who approves overtime);
• how additional hours are compensated (overtime, TOIL, or salary arrangement); and
• any role-specific busy periods (for example, end-of-month reporting, seasonal peaks, major project deadlines).

A well-drafted clause won’t magically make unreasonable hours “reasonable”, but it helps you show that the expectation was transparent, agreed, and aligned with the role.

Breaks And Fatigue Management

Even when additional hours are lawful, you still need to manage breaks and recovery time, particularly for shift-based, physical, or safety-sensitive work.

As a baseline, awards often include meal breaks and rest breaks, and there are also general obligations around ensuring work is safe. If you’re reviewing your approach, it’s sensible to check your processes against Fair Work breaks requirements and your applicable award provisions.

When Can An Employee Refuse Additional Hours (And What Should You Do)?

Employees can refuse to work additional hours if the hours are unreasonable.

For you as an employer, the key is to treat a refusal as a signal to reassess - not as automatic misconduct.

A Practical Way To Assess A Refusal

If an employee says “I can’t stay late tonight” or “I can’t do Saturday,” work through these steps:

1. Clarify the request: How many hours? What start/finish time? What is the operational reason?
2. Check the instrument: Does an award/agreement apply? Are there overtime thresholds or minimum breaks?
3. Consider personal circumstances: Caring duties, medical constraints, transport limitations, other reasonable factors.
4. Consider patterns: Is this an occasional spike or a repeated expectation?
5. Look for alternatives: Can you redistribute work, adjust deadlines, bring in a casual, use a contractor, or rotate the overtime fairly?
6. Document the outcome: Especially if this is becoming a recurring issue.

This approach helps you make a fair decision and creates a record that you took your legal obligations seriously.

Be Careful With Performance Management

Sometimes, refusal of additional hours is legitimate. Other times, it may point to broader performance or conduct issues (for example, repeatedly declining rostered requirements that are genuinely reasonable for the role).

Where it starts heading into disciplinary territory, the process matters. Rushing to warnings or dismissal without considering the legal framework can create unnecessary risk.

If you’re escalating a matter, a structured approach like Show Cause Letters can help you communicate clearly, give procedural fairness, and set expectations before making major decisions.

How To Set Boundaries And Stay Compliant (Without Losing Flexibility)

Small businesses often need agility. The goal isn’t to eliminate overtime - it’s to make sure the overtime you rely on is lawful, fair, and sustainable.

1) Define “Additional Hours” In Writing

Don’t rely on verbal understandings like “we all just stay until the job is done”. That can mean very different things to different people.

Instead, document:

• ordinary hours and how rosters are set;
• how overtime is approved;
• how it’s paid or converted to TOIL;
• any limits you want managers to follow (for example, no more than X additional hours without senior approval); and
• how employees should raise concerns about fatigue or personal conflicts.

These details usually sit in your employment contract and/or workplace policies.

2) Track Hours Properly (Even For Salaried Staff)

One of the biggest practical mistakes we see is businesses not tracking hours for salaried employees because it “feels unnecessary”.

But tracking matters because it helps you:

• spot patterns of excessive hours early;
• confirm whether a salary is realistically covering the hours worked (particularly if an award applies);
• respond to disputes with evidence; and
• support WHS fatigue management.

This doesn’t need to be complicated - it can be timesheets, an app, or roster system reporting - but it should be consistent.

3) Be Clear About Overtime Vs “Reasonable Additional Hours”

Business owners often use these phrases interchangeably, but they can mean different things in practice:

• Reasonable additional hours is the NES concept about when extra hours can be requested.
• Overtime is often an award/agreement pay concept (and may apply even if the additional hours are “reasonable”).

So, you can have a situation where additional hours are reasonable to request, but you still owe overtime rates under an award.

If your workforce is award-covered or you regularly require extra hours, it’s worth sanity-checking your approach against Australian overtime laws.

4) Consider Breaks Between Long Days (And Daily Shift Length)

Even if your weekly hours look fine, very long individual days can still create legal and safety problems.

There isn’t a single, general “legal maximum working hours per day” that applies to every job in Australia. Instead, limits on daily shift length (and required breaks between shifts) often come from modern awards or enterprise agreements, as well as WHS obligations to manage fatigue.

If you’re regularly rostering or requiring very long shifts, it’s worth checking what your applicable award says about breaks, minimum rest periods, and penalties. As a practical management rule: if additional hours are starting to push into “we’re always finishing late”, it’s often a sign you need a resourcing fix, not just a policy fix.

5) Build A Fair System For Spreading Additional Hours

If overtime is always landing on the same reliable person, you can create resentment and burnout fast (even if they don’t complain at first).

Consider:

• rotating who stays back;
• giving more notice where possible;
• offering TOIL (where permitted) in a transparent way;
• using casuals/contractors during peaks; and
• reviewing whether you need an additional hire if peaks are now “business as usual”.

This helps you demonstrate that your requests are genuinely reasonable in context.

Key Takeaways

• Reasonable additional hours are extra hours beyond ordinary hours that you can request when it’s fair and safe in the circumstances - it’s not a fixed number.
• To work out what are reasonable additional hours in your workplace, consider key factors like health and safety risk, the business’s needs, notice given, compensation, and the employee’s personal circumstances.
• Even where additional hours are reasonable, you may still owe overtime or other entitlements under a modern award or enterprise agreement.
• A clear Employment Contract and practical policies help you set expectations, approve overtime properly, and reduce disputes as your team grows.
• Tracking hours and managing breaks isn’t just admin - it’s a compliance and WHS tool that helps prevent underpayment claims and burnout.
• If an employee refuses additional hours, treat it as a prompt to reassess reasonableness, explore alternatives, and document your decision-making.

Disclaimer: This article is general information only and does not constitute legal advice. If you need advice about your specific circumstances, it’s best to get legal advice tailored to your business.

If you’d like help setting up employment contracts, policies, or advice on managing additional hours in your business, you can reach us at 1800 730 617 or team@sprintlaw.com.au for a free, no-obligations chat.