annual leave , not gettting 4 weeks

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SepticSceptic

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#3314310 29-Nov-2024 22:34

mudguard:
SepticSceptic: If the management are running that thin, and staff are stressed,
then I suspect an insolvency or similar coming soon.

What happens if some one has taken a week of sick leave?

Cash in as much annual leave as you can, because that's real money in the hand.

That's what I'd worry about too. Having a large annual leave accrual and having it vanish.

Think SolarZero / Blackrock...

Bung

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#3314318 30-Nov-2024 06:24

Thinking more positively this article in Stuff gives a heads up to getting best value from combining leave and public holidays in 2025.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360505187/how-get-two-months-time-only-using-20-days-leave-2025

cddt

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#3314319 30-Nov-2024 06:25

1101:

One of the other staff is owed more than 3 months annual leave . I think that alone shows me how these things work there .

If the company shuts down (goes into liquidation, receivership, etc.) then you and your colleagues will very likely lose the money they owe you for annual leave.

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spacedog

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#3315148 2-Dec-2024 13:14

@1101 how is payroll being done and do you get payslips that show your leave balance and the accrual per pay period? Do they have a payroll service/software system? That's the first thing is to make sure it's accruing and being calculated correctly. New Zealand law is HORRIBLE for making calculations on annual leave and public holiday...especially for shift/roster workers. To follow it perfectly it's almost impossible to be accurately calculated and there hare huge disputes between payroll providers as to what is the 'right' way for a software system to calculate leave. It's pretty easy if you work set hours on fixed schedule. If you are a rostered/shift worker and they aren't using a good payroll software system then it's possible your accrued leave could be over/under.

Once you have figured that out, then everything else everyone says here is pretty accurate. The employer can force you to take leave at christmas as part of an annual shutdown. If that comes up to two weeks of contiguous leave that becomes a gray area in the employment law and they could try to make the case that they don't owe you two-solid weeks at another time of the yera because you got that over Xmas/NY—they'd be on shaky ground trying to pull that off, but I would think filing a Personal Grievance for that would be dodgy and certainly is not without risk to you. Also, there is no requirement for them to honor leave requests in Jan-March if that's a peak period of demand (e.g. horticulture businesses often can't grant leave because fruit/plants/crops don't care about the day of the week or stat holidays - if you are in this job sector and don't like the work demand, you have to change job sectors/careers).

Sidenote: Australia doesn't use our rules because it's too damn hard to figure out and enforce - especially the way public holiday is calculate for part-time / shift workers so they wrote their laws to be more practical. Honestly, we need to throw out our system for calculating holidays and start over because it is ripe for exploitation by malicious employers or malicious staff.

eracode

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#3315154 2-Dec-2024 13:56

The most egregious example of holiday pay errors in NZ is discussed in this earlier thread. This covered a period from 2013 to 2021.

Existing Ministry of Health employees were paid out last year. Former employees were told they would be paid out in April this year - they’re still waiting - and have had no contact whatsoever from the people running this shitestorm, even though their interest is registered.

More info here if anyone’s interested.

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sen8or

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#3315156 2-Dec-2024 14:09

Some of the confusion stems from the "ordinary pay" calculation, which is the higher of the average of the last 4 weeks or average of the last years earnings. This can be particularly advantageous for workers after a period of overtime or a high commission payment, where the amount of holiday pay is distorted through this short period of additional income. It can also work in an employees favor if they have a few quieter weeks and take a holiday, the employer still has to pay them from the last 12 months earnings (so basically, things are generally stacked in an employees favor).

The confusion also happens in regard to length of time off, its 4 weeks annual leave, not a certain number of hours or days. As per the ordinary pay calculation, any fluctuation in earnings is factored into the amount of holiday pay you will earn -

EG - If you work 60 hours in one of the 4 weeks leading up to a holiday, but you normally work 40, your holiday pay will be paid at

60 x 25 = 1500

40 x 25 = 1000

4 week earned $ 4500, therefore weekly earnings is $ 1125, hourly rate $28.125

If you normally work 2 days, but for a week or 2 before you take leave, you do 3 or 4 days, you don't get extra days leave, but your hourly rate will be higher to factor in the extra earnings.

If you normally earn commission as part of your earnings, sick leave and stat days also have to factor in the average of commission you would have earned if you were at work (similar to ordinary pay above).

I completely agree that its confusing

spacedog

482 posts

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#3315221 2-Dec-2024 18:32

sen8or:

Some of the confusion stems from the "ordinary pay" calculation, which is the higher of the average of the last 4 weeks or average of the last years earnings. This can be particularly advantageous for workers after a period of overtime or a high commission payment, where the amount of holiday pay is distorted through this short period of additional income. It can also work in an employees favor if they have a few quieter weeks and take a holiday, the employer still has to pay them from the last 12 months earnings (so basically, things are generally stacked in an employees favor).

I'm sure the biggest issues is the Public Holiday 'normal working day' calculations. The ordinary pay can be a problem, but it's much easier to calculate and code in payroll software. The 'otherwise normal working day' calculation, is for all intents and purposes, unprogrammable in terms of developing a reliable piece of logic and software coding that could accurately handle it. There are also other issues that spawn out of this as relates to calculating leave entitlement and hourly wages...especially if someone changes to/from shift-work to a fixed schedule.

I have personally spoken AT LENGTH with MBIE, the Labour Inspectorate and two of the biggest payroll providers in the country and the whole situation when it comes to Casual employees, part-time, and shift/rostered employees is an utter and complete clusterƒ(_)©|<.

The normal working day calculation is also exploited by employee and employer alike. Some employers will deliberately roster some staff off the day before and day after a public holiday to avoid public holiday pay liability. Staff that are part-time and self-roster (something that is much more common than you might expect) will deliberately try to get their shifts wrapped around a public holiday to get paid...even if it's a day of the week they don't work on very often—so if the employee only works 3x8-hour shifts a week on days they select, but then they wrap those days around a public holiday, they would be required to be paid another full 8 hour shift which could turn their 24 hour work week into getting paid for 32 hours and having a day off.

The simplest solution is to do what Australia does and say Casual Employees are simply not eligible for public holiday pay - but that can be exploited by some employers. So the fairer solution is that casual workers get a small increase to the PAYG holiday from 8% to a number that mathematically equates to cover the stat holidays and then just be done with it. For shift workers it's more complicated because they are on accrual for annual leave, but it would just be better if the government said that workers in this category can be paid for Public Holidays in a PAYG format for just the 12 stats and let them accrue their annual leave as normal.

Some business owners would cry about a rule like this if they have to pay more for some random person that only works for them for a few weeks as a casual, but, honestly, the increased cost and complexity to software/payroll systems and being out of compliance is probably overall worse than just paying a few bucks more in the matter of PAYG holiday to keep public holiday pay clean/fair for all.

This is not even to mention the overall cost to the economy, government, business and taxpayers since we spend a boatload of time and money on MBIE and the Labour inspectorate policing/enforcing this and then penalties/cost and drag on productivity efficiency this moronic system creates.

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1101

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#3315242 2-Dec-2024 19:41

spacedog:

@1101 how is payroll being done and do you get payslips that show your leave balance and the accrual per pay period?

Yes , my payslips show I have 5 weeks owing.
The beginning months of the year is when we are least busy , the last 1/4 of the year is the very busy season for us.

So you would think we would be encouraged to take our holidays at the beginning of the year . But no , the owner has said he doesnt expect anyone to be asking for time off for the 1st 3 months , as he thinks the XMAS break is more than enough for anyone.

Ive found the holiday request form. Im going to put in a request for 2 weeks in Feb.
I know that will p*ss him off .
Just asking for 2 weeks will seem over the top to him.

As I mentioned above, one of the managers has alleady tried to reason with him regarding holidays & gotten no where .

I may need to mention to him the law says 4 weeks . He wont appreciate being told that.

spacedog

482 posts

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#3315296 2-Dec-2024 20:07

1101:

spacedog:

@1101 how is payroll being done and do you get payslips that show your leave balance and the accrual per pay period?

Yes , my payslips show I have 5 weeks owing.
The beginning months of the year is when we are least busy , the last 1/4 of the year is the very busy season for us.

So you would think we would be encouraged to take our holidays at the beginning of the year . But no , the owner has said he doesnt expect anyone to be asking for time off for the 1st 3 months , as he thinks the XMAS break is more than enough for anyone.

Ive found the holiday request form. Im going to put in a request for 2 weeks in Feb.
I know that will p*ss him off .
Just asking for 2 weeks will seem over the top to him.

As I mentioned above, one of the managers has alleady tried to reason with him regarding holidays & gotten no where .

I may need to mention to him the law says 4 weeks . He wont appreciate being told that.

@1101 Sounds like they are using software/payroll that is probably accurate/legitimate. Politely make your request for two weeks. If he rejects it, politely ask again and point out that you were advised 2 weeks back-to-back is part of the legal entitlement. He can say, "No, you can't take two weeks now, but you can take two weeks at xxxx time." You can't really do much else if he offers an alternate time for you to take two weeks back-to-back. If it gets contentious just remain polite and stick to the 'high road' and never give it up. If it goes poorly, keep calm, take notes and then send yourself an email with your notes and the time/date of what happened, what he said and what you said. Contemporaneous notes are useful during a mediation / personal grievance and may even be taken into consideration by a mediator - I say email it to yourself on the date/time it happens because it gives a verifiable time stamp on your notes (e.g. if you have a gmail account that you are emailing yourself on).

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