How to reclassify your team under the new HPSS structure

The Health Professionals and Support Services Award classification structure changed on 1 October 2026. New health professional Levels 1 to 4 mapped to AQF 5 to 9, revised minimum qualifications in Schedule B, and revised minimum rates. We have written up what changed separately, in our Insights piece on the HPSS changes.

This guide is about the harder part: actually doing it.

Most of what has been written about this change treats it as a pay rise. It is not. It is a reassessment of every health professional you employ, one person at a time, and the rate is the last thing you work out, not the first. This is the method we work through with health and care employers. It is written so you can run it yourself.

Written for clinics and practices employing psychologists, speech pathologists, occupational therapists and other health professionals. Each step ends with a short check before you move on.

Step one. Build the facts base from three sources

You need three things for every affected employee, and you need all three, because no single one of them is reliable on its own.

1. 1A wage tracker. Current rate, hours, start date, award and classification as recorded today. This is your baseline, and in our experience it is usually the document with the errors in it.
2. 2A role profile or position description for each affected role. What the role is required to do, reviewed and signed off by whoever leads the clinical side. Not what it did three years ago. If you are starting from nothing here, our guide on how to write a position description covers what actually needs to be in one.
3. 3A short survey completed by the employee. Qualifications, registrations, how their week actually splits between direct client work and everything else, who they supervise, and who supervises them.

Then reconcile the three against each other, and expect them to disagree. A tracker and a survey can disagree on something as basic as how many hours someone works, or on a start date. Those are not trivia. Hours change the pay calculation, and the start date changes the progression point.

Step two. What actually decides the level

Four things, and the evidence for each needs to exist somewhere other than in your head.

Six traps

1. 1The job title. Titles are internal shorthand. The award classifies by qualification, duties and responsibility. Two clinicians with the same title can sit at different levels, and often do.
2. 2What they were paid last year. A rate carried over from a previous employer, or set by a predecessor, is not evidence of anything. It tells you what someone decided once, not what the award requires.
3. 3Paying above the award. You can pay well above the minimum and still have the classification wrong. The level drives progression, allowances, overtime, penalties and leave loading, not just the base rate.
4. 4Assuming the qualification level. An honours degree is AQF Level 8, not 7, and carries a higher minimum. Check the actual qualification rather than the field it is in.
5. 5Overseas registration. A qualification obtained overseas does not automatically make someone a health professional under the award. They need to meet the requirements to practise in Australia. If an eligibility assessment is in progress, find out where it is up to before you classify them.
6. 6Supervision that is not actually required. Supervision is the usual evidence for a higher level, but it has to be a requirement of the role, not something the person does informally because they are helpful. Get it in writing, and check the people being supervised describe it the same way.

Step three. The date most people get wrong

The new rates apply from the first full pay period starting on or after 1 October 2026. That is not 1 October. Depending on your pay cycle it can be more than a week later, and applying it early or late are both errors. Work out your own date and write it down before you touch payroll.

Step four. Finish it properly

A reclassification that lives in a spreadsheet is not finished. Two documents close it out.

1. 1A classification report. Every affected employee, the level they land on, and the evidence that put them there. This is what you produce if anyone ever asks, and it is the reason the evidence matters more than the decision.
2. 2An individual letter to each affected employee. What their classification is, what it means, and what happens to their pay. People will hear about this from colleagues. Better they hear it from you first, in writing.

Expect questions you cannot answer on the first pass, typically on registrations, supervision arrangements, hours and award coverage. That is normal. Chasing them down is the work, and it is the part that makes the outcome defensible.

If you would rather not run it yourself

This is a genuinely fiddly exercise, and the cost of getting it wrong is not just a back payment. An employee who is reclassified badly, or who hears about it from a colleague before they hear it from you, is a trust problem as much as a payroll one. The evidence also has to hold up months later, when nobody remembers the reasoning and the only thing left is what was written down.

This is general guidance, not advice on your situation. Classification outcomes depend on facts specific to your practice, so we recommend you reach out for tailored support before you finalise yours.

Book a free consultation or get in touch at hello@happyhumans.com.au.

Current as at 2 October 2026.