When you sign up an apprentice or trainee, you have certain roles and responsibilities according to the training contract.

Range of work and supervision

For an apprentice or trainee to succeed, they need appropriate:

• supervision
• range of work
• range of facilities.

To make sure that you have the adequate training arrangements required to meet their needs, your workplace will be assessed by a registered training organisation (RTO) when developing and reviewing the training plan.

Learn more about the required resources to support your apprentice or trainee.

Pay and entitlements

Unless you are hosting an apprentice or trainee through a group training organisation, you are responsible for paying wages and providing entitlements as specified in the relevant industrial award.

Read more about wages and entitlements.

Training and study

You must release your apprentice or trainee from work and pay them to attend off-the-job training and assessment.

The training might take place:

• at your workplace
• somewhere else (for example, a TAFE campus or a private college)
• online.

You must not directly or indirectly:

• block or discourage your apprentice or trainee from participating in their training and assessment
• disadvantage them for participating in their training.

Note: If your apprentice or trainee is school-based, you may not be required to pay them for time spent attending off-the-job training. It depends on what industry award or agreement you operate under.

Find out more on paid training entitlements (Fair Work Ombudsman).

Training plan

The training plan is the document that outlines your apprentice's or trainee's training and assessment requirements needed for their chosen qualification. It is specific to their qualification and your workplace.

You are responsible for:

• jointly negotiating the training plan with your apprentice or trainee and the supervising registered training organisation (SRTO)
• delivering what is listed in your apprentice's or trainee's training plan
• updating the training plan within 28 days when it is required (i.e. due to a change of SRTO or transfer of training contract).

Training record

While your apprentice or trainee is responsible for regularly updating their training record, you and the SRTO are each responsible for checking it at least every 3 months and signing off on the skills the apprentice or trainee has become competent in since it was last updated.

It records your apprentice's or trainee's progress and specifically, which 'competencies' they have completed.

If your apprentice is not making enough progress and neither you, your apprentice or trainee, or the SRTO can resolve the problem, the department must be notified. See more about compulsory reporting (below).

Workplace health and safety

You are responsible for the health and safety of your apprentice or trainee whilst in the workplace in the same way as your other employees.

You are obliged to provide your apprentice or trainee with:

• an introduction to the workplace which covers hazard identification and risk prevention
• training in safe work procedures
• initial and ongoing supervision
• personal and protective equipment including instructions on how to effectively use and wear equipment.

You must also:

• guard hazardous plant and machinery
• prevent or minimise the risk of exposure to hazardous substances and manual handling injuries.

Under workplace health and safety legislation, your apprentice or trainee also has responsibilities, including:

• complying with your health and safety instructions
• using the personal protective equipment you provide
• not willfully or recklessly interfering with or misusing health and safety provisions
• not willfully placing at risk the health and safety of others
• not willfully injuring themselves.

Compulsory reporting

When you sign a registered training contract with an apprentice or trainee, it is one of your responsibilities to notify us when certain situations happen, such as your business being sold or your apprentice or trainee leaving during their probation period.

Learn more about compulsory reporting.

School-based apprentices or trainees

There are some very specific obligations that apply when you employ a school-based apprentice or trainee.

School arrangements

You must:

• get the school's agreement to the school-based arrangement
• make sure the arrangement impacts the student's school timetable
• submit a business case for this arrangement to us if your student is younger than Year 10. Contact Apprenticeships Info to discuss business case requirements.

Minimum hours

You must:

• provide at least 375 hours (50 days) of paid work over each 12 month period of the apprenticeship or traineeship
• provide 600 hours (80 days) of paid work if you are in the electrotechnology industry.

Employing 24 or more school-based apprentices/trainees

If you have, or intend on, employing more than 24 school-based apprentices and/or trainees, you will need approval from us prior to commencing the sign-up process. This does not apply to group training organisations (GTOs) or principal employer organisations (PEOs).

Contact your Apprentice Connect Australia Provider or us at Apprenticeships Info.

Employers in the electrical industry

Read specific information relating to your responsibilities as an employer of an apprentice in the electrical industry.

Also consider...

• Read about further responsibilities of group training organisations and their host employers.
• Parties who do not carry out their responsibilities under the registered training contract may be disciplined for engaging in misconduct. Find out more about misconduct and discipline.

When you decide to take on an apprentice or trainee, you will need to have enough resources to support them. For your apprentice or trainee to achieve competency in a particular qualification, you must be able to provide appropriate and adequate:

• facilities
• range of work
• level and hours of supervision.

Learn more about adequate training arrangements for apprentices and trainees. If you are an employer in the electrical industry, read important information about employing electrical apprentices.

Workplace assessment

It is your supervising registered training organisation’s (SRTO) responsibility to make sure your workplace can provide these resources.

During the probationary period they will come and assess your workplace for its suitability. The SRTO will complete an employer resource assessment (ERA) document about the workplace which helps the SRTO to check you are able to provide the required facilities, range of work and supervision for the apprenticeship or traineeship.

If the SRTO finds that your workplace can’t provide what is needed, you can:

• amend the training contract to a qualification more suited to the workplace (for the facilities or range of work you can provide)
• agree to a temporary or permanent transfer to another employer
• have simulated workplace training and assessment conducted by the SRTO
• use a group training organisation (GTO).

These options and solutions will be documented in the ERA.

However, if you can’t meet the options recommended to you by the SRTO, the training contract may be discontinued.

Group training organisations

If your business cannot offer the full range of skills an apprentice or trainee needs to work in the industry, or the amount of work they are required to complete during their training, you can use a group training organisation (GTO). GTOs can organise for you to host an apprentice or trainee or share one with another business.

Wages

Apprentices and trainees usually receive special pay rates while they complete their qualification. You can only pay apprentice or trainee wages if you have a formal, registered training contract with them.

Pay rates are set out in the award or agreement that applies to your business. It can vary based on the age, length of the apprenticeship or traineeship, how much training they have completed, and if they are an adult or school student.

Learn about apprentice and trainee pay rates and increases, pay rates after training is completed and being paid for time spent undertaking training.

Find out if the wages you pay to your apprentice or trainee are exempt from payroll tax.

Entitlements

When you employ an apprentice or trainee you must:

• pay them for work as well as time spent training on the job (supervision and mentoring),
• release them for off-the-job training while still paying them.

Find information about apprentice entitlements and trainee entitlements, including leave, public holidays, breaks, training and fees.

Working hours

Learn about the working hours for your apprentice or trainee.

School-based apprentices and trainees

School-based apprentices and trainees are a special type of employee and have their own specific wage arrangements and entitlements, including minimum paid working hour requirements.

Superannuation

You must pay your apprentice or trainee superannuation for their retirement, just like other employees.

Workers' compensation

You must insure your apprentice or trainee against work-related injuries if you own a business in Queensland. Learn about WorkCover insurance, including types of insurance and who can be covered. Find out about how to reduce your insurance premium when you employ apprentice and trainees.

Tool allowance

Depending on the type of business, you may have to provide your apprentice or trainee with a tool allowance. Use the P.A.C.T. Pay Calculator to calculate base pay rates, allowances (e.g. tool) and penalty rates (including overtime) for your apprentice or trainee.

Workers' unions and industrial action

Apprentices and trainees, like other employees, can choose to join a union and take part in industrial actions like strikes, go-slows, overtime bans or call out bans.

Apprenticeships and traineeships can be done full-time, part-time and while at school, but not by working casual hours. Typically, a traineeship takes 1 year working full-time to complete, whereas an apprenticeship takes 4 years full-time to complete.

Comparison of working hours

Full-time

Full-time apprentices and trainees work and train an average of 38 hours per week and have ongoing employment.

Part-time

Part-time apprentices and trainees are rostered to work on a regular basis, working and training no less than 15 hours per week, averaged over a 4-week cycle.

Casual

Apprenticeships and traineeships cannot be completed on a casual basis. This is to ensure that your apprentice or trainee gets enough contact with your workplace to meet the training plan requirements.

School-based

Over each 3-month period, your school-based apprentice or trainee must work an average of 7.5 hours per week as a minimum.

You must provide your school-based apprentice or trainee with:

• a minimum of 375 hours (50 days) of paid work for every 12 months of the training contract
• a minimum of 600 hours (80 days) for electrotechnology industry of paid work for every 12 months of the training contract.

To complete a school-based training contract, a trainee must have completed the minimum required hours (dependent upon the nominal term of the traineeship). School-based apprentices won't finish their apprenticeship while at school.

The nominal term of a school-based apprenticeship or traineeship is generally double that of the full-time apprenticeship or traineeship.

When you take on an apprentice or trainee, you will have to sign both an employment contract and a training contract. They cover different aspects of your working relationship.

Employment contracts

An employment contract sets out the terms and condition of employment, which generally includes:

• job title and description
• place and hours of work
• salary or wage
• whether the job is full-time, part-time or casual
• reporting relationships
• leave entitlements (sick, holiday, maternity or paternity, public holidays)
• termination process.

Learn about what should be in an employment contract, ensuring it meets legal minimums, and where you can get help to build one.

Training contracts

A training contact, in comparison, outlines your obligations to provide training for the qualification that your apprentice or trainee plans to achieve. It includes:

• start or 'commencement' date
• probationary period
• duration, or 'nominal term' of the training contract
• qualification details
• signatories (you, your apprentice or trainee, and parent or guardian).

The training contract, once registered, is also needed:

• to determine eligibility for government incentives and allowances
• to pay apprentice or trainee pay rates.

Training contracts must be registered by us.

Training contracts can only be cancelled by mutual consent or, if only one party applies for cancellation, by us, after we consider the circumstances.

Read more about training contracts.