By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
Why does getting the award wrong matter for a carpentry business?
A carpentry business that puts staff on the wrong award, or no award at all, is exposed to back pay and penalties it never priced into a single quote. The owner who treats the award as a box to tick once, at hiring, rather than a rule that sits behind every day rate and every fixed price job, often finds the exposure only shows up at an audit or when a worker asks questions. The risk is not just the wage rate itself, it is every allowance, loading and entitlement sitting on top of it, each one a real cost that has to land somewhere in the job.
Most carpentry businesses run a mix of framing, deck and pergola builds, fit-out and fix-out work, and subcontract arrangements with builders, often with an apprentice or a second tradesperson learning the trade alongside the main carpenter. Each of those job types can carry a different mix of site work, travel and downtime, and the award conditions follow the actual work done, not the label on the invoice.
What happens to the margin when the award wage isn't costed properly?
When the full cost of a tradesperson, including allowances, loadings and the downtime that comes with carrying staff, is buried in overhead instead of sitting against the job it was spent on, every quote can look healthy while the bank balance tells a different story. The quote might show a decent margin on paper, but the real cost of that crew member is spread across jobs that never saw it coming.
This compounds fast when one tradesperson is away, sick or on leave. The rest of the crew absorbs the extra workload on the next deck, the next renovation, the next fix-out, and that absorbed cost rarely gets priced into the job it lands on. A carpentry business carrying two qualified tradespeople on the tools, when the work could run with one qualified carpenter and a second-year apprentice, is often carrying a more costly staffing structure than the job needs, without that cost ever showing up clearly against any one quote.
Which award actually covers carpenters and apprentices in Australia?
Most carpenters and their apprentices working on-site for a carpentry business sit under the Building and Construction Award (MA000020). The Fair Work Ombudsman's summary of this award states that it covers employers in the building and construction industry and their employees who fit within its classifications, and names carpenters among the tradespersons it lists, alongside bricklayers, plasterers and roof tilers.
The award's own coverage clause, set out on the full text of the Building and Construction General On-site Award 2020, says it covers employers throughout Australia in the on-site building, engineering and civil construction industry, to the exclusion of any other modern award, for employees who fit the classifications in its schedule. A separate Fair Work Ombudsman page on the award describes the building and construction industry as construction work done on-site in a commercial capacity, which is the test that matters for most framing, deck, pergola and fit-out jobs a carpenter runs.
Does it change if the carpenter works in a workshop instead of on site?
Yes, if the carpentry work is mostly joinery or cabinet making done off-site rather than on a building site, a different award can apply. The Joinery and Building Trades Award 2020 (MA000029) covers carpenter, joiner and related occupations, but it explicitly steps aside where the employer or employee is covered by the Building and Construction General On-site Award 2020.
The Fair Work Ombudsman's own guidance on award coverage for joiners and cabinet makers sets out a carpenter and joiner working on-site installing kitchens in new homes as covered by the Building and Construction Award, even though the work involves cabinetry. The test is where and how the work is carried out, on-site building work, or workshop-based joinery, not what the role is called.
In New Zealand, carpentry staff sit under a different system altogether, administered through employment agreements and minimum standards set by Employment New Zealand, rather than the modern award system used in Australia. A carpenter running crews in either country faces the same underlying question: whether the wage cost, however it is set, is actually landing in the right job.
This is general information, not legal, tax or employment advice. Check your own situation with the body named here or a qualified adviser.
How do you make sure the award cost lands in the job, not the overhead?
You protect the margin by tracking what each tradesperson and apprentice actually costs against the jobs they work on, not by memory at the end of the quarter. A carpenter's own job and pay data, read together rather than kept in separate systems, is usually the only place that shows whether the wage cost on a deck build, a fit-out, or a subcontract run for a builder is sitting where it belongs.
Picture a carpentry business that had been running two qualified tradespeople on the tools for every job, a costly way to staff framing and fix-out work when one of those roles could be filled by a second-year apprentice instead. Restructuring the crew so a qualified carpenter works alongside the apprentice, rather than a second qualified tradesperson, changes what every quote needs to carry and where the real cost of the crew sits, without changing the standard of work on-site.
This is where data first thinking earns its keep: the decision about how to staff a crew is only as good as the job and pay data behind it. AI agents, which are software that does a job the owner's way, using their prices, wording and rules, can take on the non-billable work of pulling that wage, allowance and job data together so it is ready when a staffing or pricing decision needs to be made, rather than guessed at from memory. AI agents built around a carpenter's own data can also keep that award information current against the jobs it actually sits on, so the owner spends less time chasing paperwork and more time on the tools or with the crew.
Where can you check the current rules?
- Building and Construction Award (MA000020) summary - the Fair Work Ombudsman's plain-English summary of who the award covers and the classifications it uses.
- Building and Construction General On-site Award 2020 full text - the award's own coverage clause and classification schedule.
- About the Building and Construction Award - how the Fair Work Ombudsman defines on-site construction work in a commercial capacity.
- Award coverage for joiners and cabinet makers - guidance on when woodwork and cabinetry installation sits under the Building and Construction Award.
- Joinery and Building Trades Award 2020 (MA000029) - coverage for carpenter and joiner roles not covered by the on-site building award.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Data First Coaching, built by Greg Allan, starts from the carpentry business's own job and pay data through the Trade Business Intelligence, not from a general assumption about what award cost should look like. It looks at where the wage cost for each tradesperson and apprentice actually lands against the jobs they work, because that is usually where a margin problem starts, not in the quote itself. Greg teaches that paying properly for “good quality trades people is an investment” rather than a cost to minimise, because the standard and speed of the work both lift with the right crew. The how, working through a carpenter's own data to find where that cost sits, is worked through inside the Academy, with members, because the Trade Business Intelligence is powered by every member who brings their own data to it.
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