The different types of leave in the National Employment Standards
The Fair Work Ombudsman
Helping the community understand and comply with Australia’s workplace laws.
We all know about annual leave and sick leave but are you aware of all the different types of leave in the National Employment Standards (and when they can be accessed)?
Annual leave
Annual leave (also known as holiday pay) allows an employee to take accrued paid??time off from work. Full-time and part-time employees get 4 weeks of annual leave each year based on their ordinary hours of work.
Casual employees are not entitled to annual leave.
Annual leave can be taken by agreement between the employer and employee, and any refusal by an employer to an employee’s annual leave request must be reasonable.
Employers can direct employees to take annual leave in some situations where reasonable such as:
Community service leave
Community service leave is for all employees (including casual employees) to have time off for certain community service activities such as voluntary emergency management activities or jury service.
With the exception of jury service, community service leave is unpaid. Learn more about payment for jury service here: https://www.fairwork.gov.au/leave/community-service-leave/jury-duty
To take community service leave, an employee must give their employer:
An employer may request an employee who has given notice, to provide evidence that they're entitled to the community service leave.
Compassionate leave
Compassionate or bereavement leave is available to all employees. Full-time and part-time employees get paid compassionate leave and casual employees get unpaid compassionate leave.
Employees can take compassionate leave if:
Employees are entitled to 2 days of compassionate leave each time they meet any of the above criteria.
Family and domestic violence leave
Employees who work for a business that had more than 15 employees on 1 February 2023 can access 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave each year. Employees are entitled to the full 10 days upfront, meaning they won’t have to accumulate it over time. The leave doesn’t accumulate from year to year if it isn’t used.
Employees of a small business (less than 15 employees on 1 February 2023) will be able to access this paid leave from 1 August 2023. Until then, they can continue to take unpaid family and domestic violence leave.
An employee experiencing family and domestic violence can take paid leave when they have to do something to deal with the impact of family and domestic violence and it’s not practical for them to do so outside of their work hours.
?Pay slips must not mention paid family and domestic violence leave, including any leave taken and leave balances. An amount paid to an employee for taking paid family and domestic violence leave has to be recorded on a pay slip as:
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An employer can, if requested by their employee, record the time taken as paid family and domestic violence leave as another type of leave on their pay slip (for example, annual leave).
Long service leave
An employee may be entitled to long service leave after a long period of working for the same employer.
Most employees' entitlement to long service leave comes from long service leave laws in each state or territory. To find out about long service leave entitlements, contact the long service leave agency in your state or territory:
Some employees are entitled to long service leave under the terms of a pre-modern award or portable long service leave scheme. Enterprise agreements may also include long service leave entitlements.
Parental leave
Employees (including casuals) can take up to 12 months unpaid parental leave when they (or their spouse or de facto partner) give birth to a child, or they adopt a child under 16 years of age. They can also request up to an additional 12 months of leave.
Employees are able to take parental leave if they:
o???before the date or expected date of birth if the employee is pregnant
o???before the date of the adoption, or
o???when the leave starts (if the leave is taken after another person cares for the child or takes parental leave)
Casual employees need to have been working for their employer on a regular and systematic basis for at least 12 months and must have a reasonable expectation of continuing work with the employer on that basis, had it not been for the birth or adoption of the child.
To take parental leave, an employee must generally give their employer notice in writing at least 10 weeks before they expect to start their unpaid parental leave (and confirm their leave dates at least 4 weeks before the expected start date). Different notice requirements may apply for employees taking flexible parental leave or concurrent leave.
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Public holidays
Employees are entitled to take a day off on a public holiday such as Christmas Day, Easter or Labour Day public holidays.?????????????????????????????
Employees (except casual employees) who normally work on the day a public holiday falls will be paid their base pay rate for the ordinary hours they would have worked if they had not been away because of the public holiday.
An employer can ask an employee to work on a public holiday, if the request is reasonable. An employee may refuse a request to work if they have reasonable grounds. If an employee does work, their award or enterprise?agreement will usually include additional public holiday entitlements.???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Sick/carer’s leave
Sick and carer's leave (also known as personal leave or personal / carer's leave) lets an employee take time off because of a personal illness or injury, or to provide care or support to a family or household member who is ill or injured or affected by an unexpected emergency.
All employees except casuals are entitled to paid sick and carer's leave.?The yearly entitlement accrues based on an employee’s ordinary hours of work and is 10 days per year for full-time employees, and pro-rata for part-time employees.?
Employees must provide notice as soon as possible that they’re using paid sick and carer’s leave. Employers can request evidence to support the leave like a medical certificate or statutory declaration. If an employee doesn’t provide reasonable evidence when requested, they won’t be entitled to the leave.
Employees (including casual employees), are entitled to 2 days unpaid carer’s leave for each permissible occasion. Full-time and part-time employees can only take this leave if they’ve used up their paid leave entitlement.
Find more info about each type of leave on our website by following the links. We’re always excited to nurture the workplace knowledge of our followers - share your leave questions in our comments below ??
Trustee Support Specialist @ MUFG | 10+ years Experience in Superannuation | Lover of Dad Jokes
1 年Some sort leave for our pets would be great. Not everyone wants or can have kids, so a pet helps fill the spot. Not to mention, they're family after all.