Yes in almost every case: the Restaurant Industry Award treats attendance you required as work, and clause 11.3 means a casual is engaged and paid for at least 2 consecutive hours each time they turn up, even for a 90 minute session.
Skai Solutions built this page from the award text itself, clause by clause, because the general question has no general answer and the specific clauses do. Below: what the award says, what a single unpaid session costs, the apprentice obligations that never appear in a pay table, and the one trial period the award actually contemplates.
It does not say the word "training" in a general clause, and that is exactly why operators get this wrong. The award works the other way round: it defines when an employee must be engaged and paid, and training you require is one of those times.
The operative line is clause 11.3 of the Restaurant Industry Award MA000119. A casual employee "must be engaged and paid for at least 2 consecutive hours of work on each occasion they are required to attend work". Read the last six words slowly. The trigger is attendance you required, not service you rostered. A Tuesday afternoon menu briefing you told six casuals to turn up to is an occasion they were required to attend work.
For part time staff the award sets a floor of three hours a shift and a ceiling of 11.5 (clause 15.1), so a short unpaid session does not fit anywhere in a part time roster either. There is no clause anywhere in the award that lets you require attendance and not pay for it.
Here is the arithmetic, and it is Skai Solutions' own worked example from published award rates rather than a measurement, so substitute your own numbers.
Six casual food and beverage attendants at Level 2 are required to attend a 90 minute menu session on a Tuesday. Clause 11.3 says each is engaged and paid for at least two consecutive hours, not 90 minutes. The Level 2 casual rate from 1 July 2026 is A$33.85 an hour, being A$27.08 ordinary plus the 25% casual loading.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Minimum paid engagement, per person | 2 hours |
| Casual Level 2 rate, 1 July 2026 | A$33.85 per hour |
| Cost per person for the session | A$67.70 |
| Six people | A$406.20 |
| Same session run monthly, twelve months | A$4,874.40 |
Two things fall out of that table. The first is that you paid for 12 hours and used nine, because the two hour minimum bites on every attendance. The second is that it is cheap compared with getting it wrong: unpaid time that should have been paid is a wage underpayment, and it accrues quietly across every person and every session.
The practical fix is not to stop training. It is to stop holding training as a separate attendance. Fold it into the front of a rostered shift, where the hours are already being paid and the two hour minimum is already satisfied. That one change takes the cost of the example above to zero while the training still happens. If your rosters are too tight to absorb it, that is a rostering problem, and our page on minimum shift hours in hospitality sets out how the engagement rules constrain a short shift.
If you employ an apprentice cook, clause 12 goes further than paying for time, and this is the part almost no hospitality content covers.
Clause 12.7(a) requires the employer to release an apprentice from work to attend training or any assessment under their training agreement "without loss of pay or continuity of employment". Clause 12.7(b) then says that time spent attending that training or assessment "is to be regarded as time worked for the employer for the purpose of calculating the apprentice's wages and determining the apprentice's employment conditions". Trade school day is a paid working day. It is not leave, and it is not unpaid.
Clause 12.7(c) is the one that costs money rather than hours. The employer "must reimburse an apprentice for all fees paid by the apprentice themselves to a registered training organisation (RTO) for courses that the apprentice is required to attend", plus the cost of any textbooks the apprentice is required to study and you have not provided. Clause 12.7(d) puts a deadline on it: the later of six months after the apprenticeship starts, six months after the relevant stage starts, or three months after the RTO training starts.
Two more that catch rosters. Clause 12.6 says that except in an emergency you must not require an apprentice to work overtime or shiftwork at a time that would stop them attending training under their agreement. And clause 12.8 puts block release travel on you: if the training needs an overnight stay, you pay the reasonable travel costs to and from it, reduced by anything the apprentice received under a government apprentice assistance scheme.
None of that is in the pay table, so it does not show up when you budget an apprentice off the hourly rate alone. Our page on hospitality award rates carries the rate tables; clause 12 carries the rest of the bill.
One group, and it arrived in the award recently enough that most venues have never read it. Clause 31A.8 covers workplace delegates. Unless you are a small business employer, you must give a workplace delegate access to up to five days of paid time during normal working hours for initial training, and at least one day in each subsequent year, to attend training about representing other workers.
The clause comes with its own limits, which are worth knowing before you are asked. You are not required to provide paid training time to more than one delegate per 50 eligible workers in each year starting 1 July. The delegate must give you not less than five weeks notice of the dates, subject matter, daily start and finish times and the training provider, and must give you an outline of the content if you ask. You must tell them not less than two weeks before the training starts whether the paid time is approved, and approval "must not be unreasonably withheld".
For a venue with fewer than 15 employees the small business employer carve out means this clause does not apply to you at all. For anyone larger, five paid days is a real number and five weeks notice is a real deadline.
Search the award for a general unpaid trial provision and there is not one. The only "trial period" in MA000119 sits in Schedule E, which is the Supported Wage System, and it is a narrow case: an employer may employ a person under that schedule for a trial of up to 12 weeks, plus up to four weeks of work adjustment time, so their capacity can be assessed. Even there the award sets a floor. Clause E.10.3 says the minimum amount payable during the trial period "must be no less than $113 per week", a figure that took effect on 1 July 2026. And clause E.10.4 says work trials "should include induction or training as appropriate to the job being trialled".
So the one trial the award contemplates is paid, is time limited, and is for a purpose that has nothing to do with seeing whether someone can carry three plates. Induction is treated the same way as any other required attendance: if you told them to be there, clause 11.3 applies. A short observation where nobody is relying on the person's work is a different thing from a shift, but the line is a question of fact and the risk sits with you, not with them.
If what you actually want is for new staff to be useful faster, the lever is the content of the training rather than whether it is paid. Our guide on how to train restaurant staff covers that, and restaurant staff turnover covers why the training you pay for keeps walking out the door.
This is a reading of the award text, not legal or industrial advice, and your situation may turn on facts the award does not settle: an enterprise agreement, a different award, a genuine volunteer or work experience arrangement, or a dispute about whether attendance was required at all. Three honest limits worth stating.
If you are not sure which award you are on, that comes first, because the engagement minimums differ: our page on which award covers my restaurant works through it. And if staff are being paid to sit through a phone handling session, it is worth asking what the phone is costing you the rest of the week. A Skai Solutions AI phone agent answers every call, takes bookings into your system and is live in five days.
Do you have to pay staff for training in Australia?
If you require the employee to attend, yes. The Restaurant Industry Award MA000119 clause 11.3 says a casual must be engaged and paid for at least 2 consecutive hours of work on each occasion they are required to attend work, and the award contains no clause permitting required attendance to go unpaid.
How long is the minimum paid time for a training session?
Two consecutive hours for a casual under clause 11.3, on each occasion they attend. A 90 minute session therefore carries a two hour pay obligation per person. Part time staff have a three hour minimum shift under clause 15.1.
Does an apprentice get paid for trade school?
Yes. Clause 12.7(a) requires the employer to release an apprentice to attend training or assessment without loss of pay, and clause 12.7(b) treats that time as time worked for calculating wages and conditions.
Do I have to pay my apprentice's course fees?
Clause 12.7(c) requires the employer to reimburse all fees the apprentice paid themselves to a registered training organisation for required courses, plus required textbooks you did not provide. Clause 12.7(d) sets the deadline.
Can I run an unpaid trial shift in a restaurant?
The award has no general unpaid trial provision. The only trial period in MA000119 is in Schedule E for the Supported Wage System, it is capped at 12 weeks plus up to 4 weeks adjustment, and clause E.10.3 sets a minimum payment of $113 a week from 1 July 2026.
Is a workplace delegate's training paid?
Unless you are a small business employer, clause 31A.8 requires up to 5 days of paid time during normal working hours for a delegate's initial training and at least one day each subsequent year, limited to one delegate per 50 eligible workers.