Important information from the Department of Labour

Public Holidays 2010/2011

The general rule for public holidays is that they are taken on the day they fall. There are four public holidays that are treated differently.

These are Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day and 2nd of January.

When any of these four public holidays fall on a Saturday or Sunday the first step is to look at your employees’ work patterns. You need to determine if the public holiday falls on an employee’s ‘Otherwise Working Day’. You can use the Department of Labour’s Holidays Online Tool to help you with that. You can then use this chart to help you determine which day the public holiday will be taken.

	Not an otherwise working day	Is an otherwise working day
Christmas Day (Saturday 25th December)	Christmas Day taken on Monday 27th December *	Christmas Day taken on Saturday 25th December
Boxing Day (Sunday 26th December)	Boxing Day taken on Tuesday 28th December *	Boxing Day taken on Sunday 26th December
New Year’s Day ( Saturday 1st January)	New Year’s Day taken on Monday 3rd January *	New Year’s Day taken on Saturday 1st January
New Year Holiday ( Sunday 2nd January )	New Year Holiday taken on Tuesday 4th January *	New Year Holiday taken on Sunday 2nd January

*If the day that the public holiday is taken on is not an otherwise working day for that employee then the employee observes that public holiday as an unpaid public holiday.

Additional information on Public Holidays,
Use the Holidays Online Tool
Get information on the proposed changes to the Employment Relations Act 2000 and Holidays Act 2003

New Web Resource for Business Owners
The Department of Labour has recently launched a new web resource called Infozone: Business Essentials. This is a resource that provides simple straight forward employment relations and health & safety information for business owners and self employed people. It tells you what you need to know, what steps to put in place and then provides downloadable templates, documents and spreadsheets to apply to your business.

Click here to view the website: Infozone: Business Essentials www.dol.govt.nz/infozone/businessessentials/

How to handle parental leave requests from your staff

If you have received a request for parental leave here are three things to do to get started.

Find out what your employee is eligible for
Respond appropriately to requests
Understand how parental leave effects other leave entitlements

1. Find out what your employee is eligible for

The Department of Labours online calculator can help you determine if your employee is entitled to take parental leave and receive government funded parental leave payments.

The maximum rate of payment for government funded parental leave is adjusted on 1 July each year. On 1 July 2010, the maximum payment will increase from $429.74 to $441.62 per week (gross).This means that employees will be entitled to either their gross weekly rate of pay or $441.62, whichever is lower.

Employees must apply to Inland Revenue for payments and to their employer for the leave.

2. Respond appropriately to requests

As an employer you are required to reply to your employees parental leave request in writing and your response should cover:

Whether the employee is entitled to take parental leave, and if not, the reasons why not
The main legal rights and obligations they have, especially those relating to when they can start their leave
Whether the job can be kept open or not. If it cannot, the letter should explain that they are entitled to dispute that. It should also explain that they will have preference for placement in similar jobs for six months after the end of the parental leave.

Templates for responding to an employees request

3. Understand how parental leave effects other leave entitlements:

Employment is treated as continuous during the period of parental leave.
Annual leave and sick leave continues to accrue while an employee is on parental leave. If an employee becomes entitled to annual leave while on parental leave or during the 12 month period after they return, special rules apply.

The payment rate that attaches to this entitlement will be at the employee’s average weekly earnings for the 12 months before the annual holiday is taken. The average weekly earnings calculation would not be compared to the ordinary weekly pay as would normally occur. Find out more about accrual of annual leave during a period of parental leave.
No special rules apply to sick leave that is accrued while an employee is on parental leave.

Get more information on parental leave

Click here to review important information for Employers from the Department of Labour including:

Minimum wage rates and when they come into effect
ANZAC and Easter – are your employees entitled to a paid day off?
Shop trading restrictions