Employing a locum vet can happen in a rush – but there are several things that an Employer in Australia should check prior to the locum starting work. This article is based on the “10 Things to ask your Locum Vet” factsheet written by Kookaburra Veterinary Employment.

1. Visa.

An overseas vet should have a valid work Visa. It is an offence to employ someone without a valid work visa, so it’s the employer’s responsibility to check. Most overseas vets should have their passport with them or be able to provide details about their visa. See www.border.gov.au for more information. You can now check to see if a worker has work rights in Australia at www.border.gov.au/Busi/Visa – you should ask for consent to check the worker’s visa details first.

2. Tax File Number.

If a vet is going to be working for you as an employee, you will need their Tax File Number. See www.ato.gov.au for more information

3. ABN.

If a vet says that they are self employed, they should provide you with their ABN – Australian Business Number. See www.ato.gov.au for more information, or consult your accountant for individual information about the best way for your practice to pay locums. Some locums are employed as casual employees, some locums are engaged as independent contractors. It’s likely that either way, the clinic will have to pay superannuation under the Superannuation Guarantee. There are Calculators online on the ATO website that help you work out whether your locum is an employee or a contractor, and in either case whether you should be paying superannuation for them. Keeping a record of your use of these calculators can support your decision if necessary.

4. CV and References.

Locum vets should be able to provide contact details for 1 or more recent veterinary referees. Clinics should make sure that any locums introduced to them have the required experience for a particular locum job. Kookaburra Veterinary Employment can provide CVs for all locums listed on their register – these CVs are provided by the locum vets to Kookaburra, and Kookaburra doesn’t provide any warranty as to the accuracy of any CV. We recommend that clinics take up one or more references for a locum prior to booking them for any work.

5. Vet Board Registration.

Following mutual recognition implementation in many States, you can now search for a particular registered veterinarian on the Australasian Veterinary Boards Council website at www.avbc.asn.au and find the State that they have primary registration with. It is good practice for vets to use their board registration number after their signature when signing certificates etc. See www.avbc.asn.au for information about registration of overseas qualified veterinarians.

NB: In Western Australia there is the requirement for a veterinary surgeon who appoints a locum to give written notice to the WA Vet Surgeons’ Board of the name of the locum, and the period of the appointment before, or as soon as possible, after the appointment commences.

6. Professional Indemnity Insurance.

The practice insurer may cover all vets working at the practice, or the Locum vet may have their own PII. It’s a good idea to make sure that all your locums and employees have adequate cover. In South Australia this is a requirement for all vets registering with the SA Vet Board.

7. Workers Compensation.

The locum vet may or may not be covered by the Practice workers compensation scheme – check with your Insurer.

8. Medical Insurance.

The locum vet may have their own medical insurance or, if from overseas, may be covered by a reciprocal agreement with Medicare.

9. Other Professional Registration.

For example, some States require vets to be licensed to use Radiation equipment.   Vets may also need to be registered or licensed to perform other duties such as microchipping, preg testing, certification for export etc.

10. Contract

Although practices and locums may not decide to formally enter into a contract, it could be a good idea to set down terms of employment and working conditions in writing prior to the start of the locum period. Things to consider include:

• Pay rate;
• after hours remuneration;
• days off;
• overtime;
• normal hours of work;
• type of payment arrangement and when the vet is to be paid;
• type of employment (casual employee, contractor);
• Superannuation;
• GST;
• Travel Costs;
• Professional registration costs;
• Responsibility for keys – for the clinic and for scheduled drugs
• Accommodation and responsibilities of the locum with respect to the accommodation and use of facilities if applicable (eg phone, internet, food in the pantry);
• provision of vehicle for work – and private use – and fuel costs;
• any provision for short term cancellation of the locum period by either party.

This list is by no means exhaustive. Contact the AVA HR Hotline for more information on 1300 788977 or email avahrhotline@whr.com.au (you must be an AVA member).

Author:

Wendy Nathan
Kookaburra Veterinary Employment

This information includes the views and opinions of Kookaburra Veterinary Employment and is of a general nature only. Factual information is believed to be correct at the time of writing, however, should not be relied upon and any person should confirm details with the relevant authorities and through their own research prior to acting on any of the suggestions in this article.

Thank you to all the vets who participated in this year’s Salary Survey. There was a total of 285 respondents, which was disappointing compared to 595 respondents in 2019. We’ve been unable to use some of the information, in particular, location related, as there was insufficient data for a representative sample.

Minimum pay rates and conditions are set in the Animal Care and Veterinary Services Award 2020, which you can find using Google, or at https://awardviewer.fwo.gov.au/award/show/ma000118

You can download a printable pdf version of this report here Kookaburra Salary Survey 2022

Methodology

The pool of vets was contacted by direct emailing the main clinic email for all the clinics in Australia in the Kookaburra database & the vets currently registered as job seekers with Kookaburra (2.000 total), and by including advertising banners with a direct link to the survey on the Australian pages of the websites www.kookaburravets.com and www.vetsuppliersdirectory.com.au , and on all the correspondence sent out from Kookaburra during the survey period. We also asked the HR departments of the major Australian corporates to assist by distributing the link to the survey to their veterinary associates, however, in contrast to previous years where they have been happy to help, none agreed to participate this year. In addition, it was posted on Facebook on one of the Australian Veterinarian network closed group pages, on the Kookaburra Facebook pages, and on Linkedin. We’d like to thank The Lincoln Institute, who distributed the link to the survey to their members.

The survey was open from June 12^th to November 7^th 2022. It was hosted on Survey Monkey and analysis of results was carried out in Survey Monkey and using Microsoft Excel Office 365. The survey was anonymous, and no IP data was collected. There was a total of 34 questions.

For a Key to the box and whisker plots used, and a summary list of charts, please see the Key

Summary

Summary and links to Charts and Diagrams

1. Key to Box and Whiskers Plot
2. Hourly Pay Rates vs Years’ Experience
3. Hourly Pay Rates vs self-assessed experience level
4. Hourly Pay Rates for different General Practice Types (Small Animal vs Mixed vs Equine) for numbers of years since graduation
5. Hourly Pay Rates – comparing all Practice Types
6. Annualised pay rate for all full time, part time, and casual respondents
7. Actual annual pay rate for all full time, part time, and casual respondents using their actual hours worked per week
8. Paid Hours worked per week – comparing full time, part time, and casual
9. Paid Hours worked compared to Unpaid hours
10. Owners/Partners compared to Associates pay rate
11. Further Qualifications – effect on pay rate
12. Further Qualifications – proportions of respondents with additional qualifications
13. Locums – hourly pay vs experience
14. Locums – casuals vs. locums/short term
15. Locums – comparison of corporate & non-corporate pay rates
16. Happiness
17. 5 year Plans
18. Happiness and owner/partner vs. associate status
19. Happiness and corporate vs. non-corporate jobs
20. Satisfaction with pay rates
21. Preferred pay rate increase
22. Discussion
23. 2019 / 2022 comparison of job classifcations
24. 2019 / 2022 comparison of pay rates

Vets working as Casuals, Part-time, or Full-time

There were a total of 239 responses in this section – some vets gave data for more than one job, and each job was included as a separate data set.

Respondents were asked to self-assess their experience level for the job they were currently answering questions for, on a sliding scale from 1 (Basic Competency) through 5 (Confident and Competent) to 10 (Highly Skilled)

Locums

For data on Locums, we combined the data for jobs classified as Casual with those who answered ‘yes’ to the question “Are you currently working as a locum / doing short term contracts (under 6 months in length)”. There was a total of 51 respondents in these 2 categories.

Happiness and Future Plans

We asked “What do you think you should be paid for this job?” and the choices were “I don’t know”, “My current rate is fair” , or “My preferred hourly rate would be ….” – and the respondent could then nominate an amount (no-one nominated less than they were currently being paid!!)

Discussion

The amount of data collected in this survey was small, therefore it’s hard to discuss the results in a meaningful way. Kookaburra collected the data in order to make it available to vets and their practices in Australia. At Kookaburra, we are interested in the differences between this survey (2022) and our previous one, before COVID, in 2019.

Are more vets moving to working part time and casual?

Have pay rates gone up?

Pay rates have increased by above 30% for locums and casuals, and around 30% for part time and full time vets, between 2019 (pre-COVID) and 2022 (3 years).

© Copyright Kookaburra Veterinary Employment

29th November 2022