By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
Why does it matter which award covers a fencer’s crew?
Most fencing businesses sort out the award question once, when someone signs on, then file it away. The trouble starts when the crew’s work changes shape over a year: a long run of paling for a new estate one month, a pool fence and gate install the next, then a stretch of rural fencing on a farm boundary. The Fair Work Ombudsman’s guidance makes clear that award coverage follows what the employer’s business actually does, not the job title on the quote. A fencer who assumes one award covers every job it takes on can end up paying the wrong rate without knowing it, and that gap usually only shows up when someone checks the pay records much later.
Why do fencers end up under the wrong award?
The confusion usually comes from the fact that fencing sits across several industries at once, and fencers often don’t realise which one applies to them. A fencer who manufactures panels in a workshop and installs them on site can fall under a different award to one who only installs, and a crew doing a dividing fence job for a rural property can fall under something else again. According to the FWO’s article preview on award coverage, award coverage for people installing fences depends on the industry of the employer and whether the relevant award has a classification matching the employee’s duties and skills. For a business running boundary fence jobs, pool fence installs and the odd rural fencing contract in the same month, that is more than one possible answer, not one.
Which award covers your fencing business’s staff?
If you’re a fencer who generally only installs fences, your crew turns up with steel posts and panels, digs the post holes, sets the footings and leaves, the Building and Construction Award usually applies. The Fair Work Ombudsman’s page on fence installer coverage says “Employees are covered by the Building and Construction Award if their employer generally only installs fences.” If your business also manufactures the fencing, panels, gates or retaining built in your own workshop before it goes out on the trailer, the Manufacturing Award can apply instead, since the same guidance says “Employees are covered by the Manufacturing Award if their employer manufactures, repairs and installs fences.” Which one fits depends on what your business does as a whole, not on a single job, so it’s worth checking against your own crew’s week rather than guessing from memory.
What if your crew does rural or pastoral fencing work?
If part of your work is rural fencing done as farm work, a different award can take over for that stretch of the job. The [Pastoral Award [MA000035] summary](https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/awards/awards-summary/ma000035-summary) explains that the Pastoral Award covers employers in the pastoral industry whose employees fit its classifications, and fencing work done as part of farm or property work sits within that industry. Fencing tied to raising a horticultural crop, including clearing, fencing and trenching on that kind of property, can instead sit under the [Horticulture Award [MA000028] summary](https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/awards/awards-summary/ma000028-summary). A crew that splits its week between a suburban dividing fence job and a rural fencing contract on a working farm in Australia may genuinely be working under two different awards in the same fortnight, which is why the Fair Work Ombudsman treats this as an industry question first, and an occupation question only where no industry award fits. This is general information, not legal, tax or employment advice. Check your own situation with the body named here or a qualified adviser.
What does the award rate actually tell you about the cost of a job?
Knowing the right award keeps you compliant. It does not tell you whether a long run of boundary fence or a tricky pool fence install actually pays once it’s done. The award rate is the wage floor, the legal minimum, not the real cost of labour once travel, materials handling, post holes through rock and a second trip for footings are counted in. Greg’s wider teaching on margin is that the percentage you hold onto on a job should stay steady even when the dollar figure on the quote moves, because what matters is the structure under the number, not the headline. The award rate works the same way as a headline figure, it tells you the legal minimum, not whether the job pays.
Picture a fencer running two qualified tradespeople on every job, because that’s how the crew has always been staffed. It covers the award question without a second thought, but it is a costly way to get post holes dug and panels hung. Restructuring so a qualified tradesperson works alongside a second-year apprentice instead of a second qualified tradesperson changes the labour cost sitting under every quote, without changing which award applies to either of them.
This is where AI agents, software that does a job the way you would, using your own prices, wording and rules, change what a fencer actually sees week to week. An agent built on your own job and pay data can hold your crew’s real time on site against what each job type recovers, boundary runs against pool fence installs against rural fencing, so the gap between the award rate and the real cost of labour shows up before the next quote goes out, not after the job’s done and the margin’s gone. AI agents can also sit quietly behind the paperwork an award check needs, holding wage records next to the job they were paid for, which is a very different starting point to pulling it together from memory at the end of the quarter. Working from your own numbers first, rather than from memory of how the last few jobs went, is what data first coaching is built around.
Where can you check the current rules?
The awards named above are published and kept current by the Fair Work Ombudsman, including guidance on how coverage is decided when a fencing business’s work crosses more than one industry. These are the specific pages behind each award mentioned here, worth checking against your own business rather than relying on this page staying current.
- Award coverage for fence installers: the Fair Work Ombudsman’s guidance on how coverage is worked out for fence installers specifically.
- Building and Construction General On-site Award 2020 (MA000020): the award text for fencing businesses that generally only install fences.
- Pastoral Award (MA000035) summary: coverage for fencing done as part of pastoral industry work.
- Horticulture Award (MA000028) summary: coverage where fencing is tied to a horticultural enterprise.
- About awards: how the Fair Work Ombudsman decides between an industry award and an occupational award.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Data First Coaching starts by looking at what your own payroll and job data already show about how your crew’s time is actually spread across boundary fence runs, pool fence installs, gate work and any rural fencing or dividing fence jobs on the books. That is where Greg Allan starts before any conversation about which award line applies, because the Trade Business Intelligence reads your own numbers alongside what other fencing businesses in the Academy have already worked through. Getting the award right is the compliance step. Finding where your real labour cost diverges from the award rate on each job type is the step that protects the margin. The how of building that into your own systems is worked through inside the Academy, with members who are open minded, innovative and willing to share, because the Trade Business Intelligence is powered by every member.
