Employment related question- Annual leave and whats excessive

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gargar669

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#321509 23-Aug-2025 16:09

Hopefully this is the correct place to ask this question.

Does an employer have the right to force an employee to take next years annual leave as it is accruing this year?

I'm in the situation that my employer wants everyone's total leave balances below 10 days. If your approaching your employment anniversary date your accruing leave balance will increase slowly until it reaches 20 days. My employer believes they have the right force all employees to take this leave so that on your anniversary date only a maximum of 10 days will be available as entitled leave.

This seems a little unfair to me.

The employment laws also seem a bit vague on this issue and seems to give these types of decisions to the employer if they decide to dig their toes in. I am aware that A/L is an employer liability but surely a degree of fairness should be built into employment law. The law gives me 20 days leave a year and I would have thought I should be able to have a least this amount a some stage during the year.

Would do Geekzoners think?

Handle9

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#3406805 23-Aug-2025 16:26

The law isn't vague on this, an employer can require you to take annual leave for two reasons. The first is an annual shutdown and the second is excessive accumluated annual leave.

An employer can not force you to take leave in advance of your anniversary date unless you agree. If your payroll system shows leave accruing in advance of your anniversary date there's no problem but you can not be made to take leave in advance of the anniverary date as there is no accrual in legsilation. You get 4 weeks on your anniversary date.

https://www.employment.govt.nz/leave-and-holidays/annual-holidays/taking-annual-holidays

gzt

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#3406806 23-Aug-2025 16:32

I don't see anything similar to "excessive accumluated annual leave" in the linked document. Did I miss it?

gargar669

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#3406808 23-Aug-2025 16:45

Thanks for that link, just what I need.

What do you mean by " as there is no accrual in legsilation."

MadEngineer

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#3406810 23-Aug-2025 16:47

See if your employer will make an exception if for example you plan to take and book a few weeks off at a certain date

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

Handle9

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#3406817 23-Aug-2025 16:54

gargar669:

Thanks for that link, just what I need.

What do you mean by " as there is no accrual in legsilation."

The holidays act says:

"After the end of each completed 12 months of continuous employment, an employee is entitled to not less than 4 weeks’ paid annual holidays."

What this means is after a years service you are entitled 4 weeks leave. After the next year of service you are then entitled to 4 more weeks leave. There is no monthly accrual, it's an all or nothing entitlement.

You can agree with your employer to take leave in advance of your anniversary date, and most employers will do this in line with the equivalent accrual, but you (and they) don't have to.

You get paid out an equivalent to accrued leave if you leave part way through the year.

Handle9

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#3406821 23-Aug-2025 16:59

gzt: I don't see anything similar to "excessive accumluated annual leave" in the linked document. Did I miss it?

An employer can require you to take leave under the holidays act but they also need to behave in good faith. What that practically means is that they can't behave arbitrarily and need some form of decision making criteria as to how they make that decision.

Most employers have some sort of policy about how much leave you can accumulate and use that if they force you to take leave.

The exact wording of the legislation is:

19 When employee may be required to take annual holidays

(1) An employer may require an employee to take annual holidays if—

(a) the employer and employee are unable to reach agreement under section 18(3) as to when the employee will take his or her annual holidays; or

(b) section 32 (which relates to closedown periods) applies.

(2) If subsection (1) applies, an employer must give the employee not less than 14 days’ notice of the requirement to take the annual holidays.

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k1w1k1d

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#3406823 23-Aug-2025 17:01

Maybe your employer is trying to sell and is trying to limit the amount of staff leave on the books?

gargar669

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#3406825 23-Aug-2025 17:07

Thanks

It appears that, with the employer showing accrual on the paysheet, they seem to believe that they are entitled to count it as entitled leave. Adding that to any remaining leave and deciding that you have too much.

From your links I think they are incorrect but I expect they won't agree and it will all get a bit ugly.

I feel a bit more confident standing my ground on this now.

Stu1

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#3406831 23-Aug-2025 17:36

Pretty common in banking and govt , it’s a liability on the books. Normally if you come up with a plan to take it , they are ok. my old work would give you a bonus weeks of leave if you had it under 20 days at the 31st of Jan