Sick Leave (NZ)

Overview

Employees are entitled to ten days of sick leave after their first six months of continuous service. An additional ten days will accrue for every twelve months of continuous service thereafter.

You can opt to roll over any unused sick leave each year or apply a Maximum Entitlement value. If a Maximum Entitlement is configured, the leave will accrue until the value is met at which point it will cap and no further leave will accrue.

Continuous Employment

Employees are entitled to sick leave accrual as long as they meet the continuous service criteria (eg have not taken more than a week of unpaid leave in their first six months).

Non-continuous employees may still be eligible for sick leave entitlement if they have worked:

• an average of 10 hours or more per week over the last six months and no less than one hour in every week during the same period; or,
• an average of 10 hours or more per week over the last six months and no less than 40 hours per month during the same period.

As Sick Leave is not calculated on a pro-rata basis, an employee will generally receive the full sick leave entitlement if they meet the continuous service criteria.

Setting up a Sick Leave Category

To set up a sick leave category:

1. Go to Config > Leave > Add New Leave Category > select a region, if prompted > Create new Leave Category.

2. Enter a Leave Category Name and a Common Name if this is different. If multiple regions are enabled for your organisation, you may like to specify the region as part of the leave name (eg Sick Leave - NZ).

3. Tick the Enabled box to make the leave category available to assign to employees.

4. Select Periodic Lump Sum as the Accrual Method then enter the accrual criteria.

5. Set the Entitlement Type to ‘Days’. You will then be able to configure if you deduct a full day or partial days, depending on how much leave has been submitted

6. A maximum entitlement (eg 20 days) can be configured which will prevent the employee from accruing more than their maximum allowed entitlement.

7. Enter the remaining settings for the leave category.

8. Click Save.

Sick leave will accrue based on the Accrual Method settings and the continuous service eligibility requirements. The system will use the Leave Category Start Date and Gap in Continuous Service values to determine when leave should accrue.

A Negative Threshold can be set to allow leave to be taken in advance. Sick leave taken in advance will offset against the accrual upon the employee’s next entitlement anniversary.

You can configure which Dynamic Rate calculation will apply when Sick Leave is processed in a pay.

Requesting Sick Leave

When Sick Leave is taken, a full daily unit will be deducted from the employee, regardless of whether a full or partial day of leave has been taken.

The system will use the data in a leave request for a partial day to determine the portion of the day to process as Sick Leave.

If Sick Leave can be taken in advance, any negative leave balances will be offset against the accrual when the employee reaches their next entitlement anniversary.