Alternative Days (NZ)

Overview

When an employee works on a public holiday and it is a day that they would have usually worked, they are entitled to accrue a full day off at another time.

This ‘Alternative Day’ is accrued regardless of how long the employee worked on the public holiday and is based on the employee’s normal working day.

For example, if an employee normally works eight hours on Mondays and they only work two hours on a public holiday which falls on a Monday:

• the employee is paid for the hours worked on the public holiday at their standard public holiday rate.
• the employee will accrue a whole working day off as an Alternative Day on full pay. If they take the Alternative Day on a day that they would otherwise have worked eight hours, they are paid for the full eight hours.

For more information on Alternative Days and when employees are entitled to take them, please visit the Employment New Zealand website.

Recording Alternative Days

It is up to you whether Alternative Days are recorded in your portal in hours or days. This provides you flexibility to decide whether employees are allowed to take full or partial days off.

Setting up a Leave Category

You will need to set up a leave category for Alternative Days with the below settings:

Accrual Method	Percent of Time Worked
Entitlement Percent	If you're converting Days worked to Days accrued (1 to 1), enter 100%. This will accrue one day from one unit and is the recommended method. For Hours to Hours (eg 8 to 8), enter 100%. This will accrue one hour for each extra unit that is added. For Hours to Days, enter the proportional percentage. For example, 12.5% for 8 hours to 1 day will accrue 1 day for every 8 extra units. You will need to use the percentage relevant to what you have entered in the Rules Engine.
Rate Calculation Method	Dynamic Rate Use this method as the employee is entitled to be paid at their Relative Daily Pay (RDP) or Average Daily Pay (ADP) for the day that they take off. Subtract Full Day Select this if you want to spend one day regardless of how many hours an employee puts on their timesheet when they apply for the Alternative Day.

As well as setting up the leave category, you will need to create a rule to ensure that Alternative Days are recognised by the system and paid accordingly.