What is: Accrued Day Off (ADO), Rostered Day Off (RDO) and Flextime

Flexible work arrangements for staff

Metro North Health offers staff flexible work arrangements and opportunities to accrue extra leave and pay when they work beyond minimum requirements.

Definitions

Accrued Day Off (ADO)

Employees entitled to ADOs work slightly more than their contracted hours each day and can take days off when they’ve accrued enough time. The relevant Award and Enterprise Agreement specifies how ADOs can be taken.

Rostered Day Off (RDO)

A rostered day off (RDO) is a day in a roster period that an employee doesn’t have to work. To accrue an RDO, the employee works a set amount of time more than their contracted hours each day. This extra time is banked towards an RDO at a set rate. The RDO is taken at a set point in the roster.

Flextime (Flex)

Flextime is a flexible work hours policy which allows employees to choose when they start and finish work, as long as they work the required hours each day, week and month. Only staff in certain positions are eligible for Flextime. The relevant Award, Enterprise Agreement and Policy sets out how Flextime is managed. For example, for eligible administrative staff, the Queensland Public Health Sector Certified Agreement (No. 10) 2019 states:

the maximum credit (banked but not taken) time is 3 days
the maximum debit time (taken but not banked) is 4 hours.

Standard Days

An employee may request to work only their contracted hours each week. This is known as standard days and must be at the employee’s request. An employee working standard days doesn’t bank time in any way.

Why is this important and what’s my role?

Metro North Health supports and encourages flexible work arrangements for the mutual benefit of patients, employees and the whole organisation. Flexible work options can be tailored to suit individual needs. While some employees prefer routine and predictability, others prefer flexibility.

When considering flexible work arrangements, you should take account of the needs of the individual, the team, patients and the broader organisation. All types of flexible work must be approved by the appropriate delegate before being implemented.

IMPORTANT: If implementing flexible work will change the way a roster operates, contact your local Human Resource Business Partner to first check whether certain requirements have been met. Don’t make commitments that might change a roster until you’ve consulted with HR.

What do I need to do?

Monitor your roster and your team’s working hours to make sure staff workload is reasonable and sustainable.
Make sure staff manage fatigue by taking accrued leave.
Be responsive to individual staff needs and fairly assess all flexible work requests.
Understand the difference between ADO, RDO and Flextime and requirements in the Awards that apply to your staff.