Cabinet Workshop Christmas Shutdown: Leave, Suppliers and a Ready Restart

1. Set the closure dates and check the notice basis

Start by writing down exactly what is closing. Record the final production day, the first day of the closure and the planned return. Then separate the parts of the business that may run on different dates: the office, installation crews and any maintenance work booked for the quiet period.

Nominate one person to check employment coverage. Do not assign an award from someone's job title or from how your business describes itself. Coverage depends on the actual work and any enterprise agreement in place.

Two awards, two different notice periods

Two awards that cabinet and joinery workshops commonly check show how different shutdown clauses can be.

Under both clauses:

• A shorter notice period can apply if it is agreed between the employer and the majority of relevant employees.
• A direction to take paid annual leave must be in writing and must be reasonable, and it covers leave the employee has already accrued.
• An affected employee engaged after the notice is given must receive written notice as soon as reasonably practicable after they start.

Check the full clause conditions, not just the notice period. The Joinery and Building Trades Award clause, for example, is framed around a Christmas/New Year shutdown.

Fair Work's shutdown guidance explains that whether you can direct leave depends on the award or enterprise agreement. For award and agreement-free employees, a requirement to take paid annual leave must be reasonable. A planned shutdown is also different from a stand down, which is when employees cannot be usefully employed for reasons outside the employer's control.

Why November can already be late

For a closure starting Monday 21 December 2026:

These are arithmetic examples, not universal legal deadlines. The instrument that applies, its conditions and any valid shorter-notice agreement decide the actual position. If a date has already passed, get advice and make a lawful arrangement. Never backdate a notice.

Record for each group affected: closure dates, the instrument checked, the notice given and when, any outstanding issue and the person responsible. Keep individual employment records restricted to the people who need them.

2. Resolve individual leave gaps and public holiday treatment

A shutdown direction covers accrued paid leave. It does not create leave someone does not have. Prepare a confidential check, employee by employee, using projected balances at the closure date and each person's ordinary working pattern.

Under both award examples above, two options exist for an employee without enough accrued leave:

• Leave without pay for the part of the shutdown not covered by a direction, by written agreement between the employer and the employee.
• Annual leave in advance, under the separate written agreement requirements in each award (clause 28.11 in the Timber Industry Award, clause 27.8 in the Joinery and Building Trades Award).

Do not automatically convert a short balance into compulsory unpaid leave, or put someone into a negative balance they have not agreed to. If no arrangement can be agreed, get advice before the closure, not during the final pay run.

Public holidays inside the shutdown

Christmas Day 2026 falls on a Friday, Boxing Day on a Saturday and New Year's Day 2027 on a Friday. States and territories handle weekend holidays differently, so use the official calendar for the place each employee works.

Fair Work's public holiday guidance sets out two different positions:

• During paid annual leave, the public holiday is paid and is not counted as annual leave under the National Employment Standards. Those hours must not come off the employee's balance. Check whether your payroll system needs a manual adjustment to get this right.
• During agreed unpaid shutdown leave, an employee may still be entitled to payment for public holidays. That depends on whether they have ordinary hours on those days, the award or agreement provisions, the circumstances of the unpaid leave and any agreement made.

Avoid blanket statements such as "all public holidays are unpaid during the shutdown". Each arrangement needs its own check.

Worked scenario

A team member who started in August has not accrued enough leave to cover the closure. The office spots the gap in November, explains the lawful options, and the employee agrees in writing to a mix of annual leave in advance and leave without pay. Payroll records the agreement and the treatment of each public holiday before the final pay run. Nobody is surprised in January.

Record for each employee: verified balance, leave dates and hours, public holiday treatment, any written agreement, the payroll checker and a backup.

3. Confirm four supplier dates for every critical component

"Back on 7 January" can mean four different things. For each bought-in component that January work depends on, confirm:

1. The last date a complete order will be accepted.
2. The last dispatch date before the break.
3. The date deliveries restart.
4. The date manufacturing resumes.

One supplier's published dates

Trademaster's published Christmas notice shows how far apart these dates can sit:

These dates apply to that supplier's stated services, were checked on 6 November 2026 and may change. A component ordered on 7 January cannot be assumed ready for an installation that week, even though the supplier is open. Confirm your own suppliers' dates directly.

Build a confirmation table

Cover bought-in doors, benchtops, hardware, coating and finishing work, and transport. For each line, record:

• The order reference, and any approval or payment still outstanding.
• The last accepted order date.
• The confirmed dispatch and arrival dates.
• The supplier's January service dates.
• The supplier contact, and the date you checked.

A published cut-off is not acceptance of your order. An order can sit in a supplier's system while it waits on final dimensions, finish approval or payment. Ask who can deal with damage or shortages during the break, and record the answer.

The outcome: every January-critical component is either physically checked in, confirmed for an achievable arrival, or recorded as a scheduling exception with an owner.

4. Give every open job a finish, hold or restart decision

List every job likely to cross the closure. For each one, ask three questions: can it reach its next agreed milestone before the break, what will remain incomplete, and where will its components be while the workshop is shut?

Review approved work against the people available, the supplier confirmations from step 3 and confirmed site access. If you do not already build a master production schedule, the weeks either side of a shutdown are a good time to start.

Make a restart pack for every held job

The people who return in January may not be the people who stopped the work. Give each held job a restart pack containing:

• The current approved drawings and information.
• Completed and remaining operations.
• The condition and location of each component.
• Outstanding orders and customer decisions.
• The next action and the person who owns it.

Label stored parts and photograph retained work where it helps, with the job identification held in the record rather than relying on memory. The same discipline that helps you keep materials allocated to the right job during the year matters more when a bay of parts sits untouched for three weeks.

Tell customers the real status

Give affected customers an accurate status and the date of their next update. A workshop closure does not by itself change a contractual deadline. Resolve any change through the agreement that applies.

The outcome: no job is left as an unexplained pile of parts or an unsupported calendar promise. Unfinished work stays recorded as unfinished.

5. Close the workshop under a task-specific safety plan

A quiet workshop is often when maintenance gets done, which makes the close-down a safety task as well as an operational one. Decide what maintenance will happen during the break, who is authorised to do it, and what must be checked before each machine returns to service.

Assign competent people to follow the manufacturer's procedures and your own risk controls. For inspection, cleaning, repair or maintenance, a stop button is not isolation. SafeWork SA's isolation guidance explains that electrical equipment should be isolated at the main isolator rather than by the stop button on a control panel, that all stored energy should be controlled, and that each person working on isolated plant should fit their own lock or danger tag. Use the guidance from your own state or territory regulator, and do not apply one shutdown sequence to every machine.

Record:

• Unfinished maintenance and any equipment tagged out of service.
• Authorised contractors and their access arrangements.
• The checks each machine needs before it is released for production.

Follow the actual product requirements for adhesives, coatings and stored board rather than a single rule for everything. Keep fire, security and essential services running under the premises plan. Allocate waste removal and keep access routes clear.

Some compliance work cannot wait until January. If your workshop has work to finish for the 1 December workplace exposure limit changes, keep it on the December list.

The outcome: a dated close-down record with completed checks and owned exceptions.

6. Reconfirm the first week back before releasing work

Trade time stays tight after the break. HIA's September quarter report found its trades availability index at -0.50 against -0.59 in June, with trade prices up 6.6% over the year. The ABS building approvals for September show total dwellings up 5.1% for the month, with private houses down 5.3% and other private dwellings up 16.6%, seasonally adjusted. These are broad construction figures, not cabinet-shop data. The practical point holds: a lost week in January is hard to buy back.

Hold a restart review before production or dispatch resumes. Confirm:

• Who is back, and when.
• Which machines have been released after maintenance.
• Which components have arrived, and in what condition.
• Current customer and site information for each job.

Compare each held job's restart pack with the physical work. Build first-week commitments from verified dependencies only. Keep a job on hold while a critical part or site access is unresolved, and move available people to jobs that are ready.

A quick capacity check

This is an illustrative calculation, not a staffing norm or benchmark:

That shortfall exists before any missing component is counted. Committing the extra job means promising a date the team cannot meet.

Learn from this year's restart

In the weeks after the return, review the exceptions you recorded: missing components, time spent working out where a job was up to, and commitments changed after the return. Use the causes to improve next year's handover.

The outcome: first-week jobs with current dates, owners and verified dependencies, alongside a separate list of unresolved work.

Start with three checks this week

1. Confirm the leave notice position under the award or agreement that covers each employee.
2. Get order, dispatch, delivery and manufacturing dates from every critical supplier.
3. List every job likely to cross the closure.

Give each unresolved item an owner and a next action.

A successful shutdown leaves the returning team able to answer three questions: what is ready, what is held, and what must happen next. The workshop's opening date is only one part of that answer.

Frequently asked questions