By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
Which award covers my pool install and service staff?
There’s no single “pool award” in Australia. Coverage depends on what the staff member is actually doing on the job, not on the business’s name on the invoice. According to the Fair Work Ombudsman’s guidance on pool cleaners and repairers, the Building and Construction Award covers employees repairing, resurfacing, painting and tiling pools, the Manufacturing Award covers employees servicing pools (including checking and testing the water, and fixing vacuums, filters and pumps), and the Cleaning Award covers employees who clean pools. Separately, the Building and Construction Award summary shows pool installation can be covered as metal and engineering construction work tied to a domestic or commercial building job.
That means a pool builder running both a build crew and a service round can genuinely have staff on more than one award, depending on the day’s work, not a decision the owner gets to make once and file away.
Why does a pool build crew and a service technician sit under different rules?
Because a pool builder’s business is really two trades wearing one uniform: the build side and the service side, and the regulator treats them differently. The build side covers excavation, council approval, the concrete pour or fibreglass shell, a renovation or resurfacing job, pool fencing compliance and equipment installation. The service side covers the maintenance round: water testing, chemicals, warranty callouts, and swapping out a pump, filter, chlorinator or heating unit.
The Fair Work Ombudsman’s page on pool cleaners and repairers draws that exact line: repairing, resurfacing, painting and tiling sits under the Building and Construction Award; servicing, water testing and fixing pumps or filters sits under the Manufacturing Award; and pool cleaning sits under the Cleaning Award. If the install work includes plumbing tasks such as connecting pipes, pumps, tanks, valves or backflow prevention devices, the Plumbing and Fire Sprinklers Award 2020 can apply on top of that. A pool builder who also runs an aquatic centre or pool classes steps into yet another world again, since the Fitness Industry Award covers employers in the operation of aquatic centres and aquatic services. None of this is decided by what the owner calls the business. It is decided by what the person on the roster actually did that day.
Why does this matter beyond getting the pay rate right?
Because the award a role sits under is tied to a bigger question most pool builders never check: where that wage cost actually lands in the books. Most pool builders can quote a concrete pool build or a fibreglass install with every line item costed, excavation, shell, fencing, equipment, and still have no clear view of true margin once wages for the crew doing the digging and the fit-out are added back in properly. The same blind spot hits the service side: a maintenance round looks like easy recurring revenue on the calendar, chemicals and call-outs ticking along, until the technician’s wages, travel time and parts are actually weighed against what each job brought in.
A profit and loss that only counts materials and parts as cost of sales, while wages for the people doing the actual work sit buried in overhead, will always show a healthier gross profit margin than the business is really running. That fault doesn’t care whether the labour was swinging a shovel on a build site or testing water on a round. Wherever it sits, it hides the same problem.
How do you stop markup becoming a guess instead of a margin figure?
You start by separating markup from margin, because they are not the same number, and treating them as interchangeable is how a pool builder’s pricing quietly drifts away from reality. A fifty per cent markup on a pump, filter or chlorinator can calculate out to a much lower gross margin once the real landed cost and the labour to fit it are counted together. The same applies to materials on a concrete pour: pricing by markup alone on materials, without counting the crew’s wages against that job, means the number on the quote and the number that actually lands in profit are two different things.
This is where AI agents earn their place in a pool business rather than just automating admin for its own sake. An agent, in this sense, is software that does a job the way you would do it yourself, using your prices, your wording and your rules. Used well, AI agents can carry the paperwork of matching each job, build or service, against the wages and parts that actually went into it, the way you’d do it yourself if you had the hours free. That is a data first way of running the business: starting from what each job actually cost in wages and parts, not from a memory of how the quarter usually goes.
Picture a pool builder whose service rounds start running hotter than the crew can comfortably handle once the season turns, call-outs stacking up faster than they can be fitted in. The jobs are busy, but the margin on them isn’t moving with the demand. Once the real cost of a peak season call-out, wages, travel, parts, is separated from an off-season one, the pricing changes to match: the service rate lifts for the busy months, with the difference explained to the customer as a reason to book outside the rush, and low-margin supply-only work gets dropped in favour of only fitting and warrantying equipment the business installed itself.
Where can you check the current rules?
- Award coverage for pool cleaners & repairers - Fair Work Ombudsman guidance splitting repair and resurfacing, servicing, and cleaning duties across different awards.
- Building and Construction Award (MA000020) summary - covers pool installers and repairers doing metal and engineering construction work for building companies.
- Award coverage for insulation installers (K600060) - explains how coverage follows the employer’s industry and the work done, with the Miscellaneous Award as the fallback.
- Building and Construction General On-site Award 2020 (MA000020) full text - the consolidated modern award for on-site building and engineering work across Australia.
- Plumbing and Fire Sprinklers Award 2020 (MA000036) - covers installation of pipes, pumps, tanks, valves and backflow prevention devices.
- Fitness Industry Award 2020 (MA000094) - covers employers operating aquatic centres and aquatic services or classes.
This is general information, not legal, tax or employment advice. Check your own situation with the body named here or a qualified adviser. Award coverage can also interact with your state’s building and trade licensing rules, which the Fair Work Ombudsman doesn’t set, so check those separately with your own state or territory licensing body. A pool builder working in New Zealand sits under a different employment framework altogether and should check directly with New Zealand’s own employment regulator, since award coverage in this sense is an Australian system.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Data First Coaching doesn’t start with the award table, it starts with the pool builder’s own job and wage data through the Trade Business Intelligence, to see where build wages and service wages actually land against each job’s real margin right now. From there it’s usually clear whether the award question is the real problem or a symptom of wages sitting in the wrong place on the books altogether. The how, matching roles to awards correctly and rebuilding the books so every job carries its true labour cost, is worked through inside the Academy, with members, because the Trade Business Intelligence is powered by every member and the Academy is built for owners who are open minded, innovative and willing to share what they learn.
