Summary

In New Zealand, most full-time, part-time, permanent and fixed-term employees are entitled to five days’ paid sick leave after they complete their first six months of continuous service. They are then entitled to an additional five days’ sick leave after each subsequent 12-month period.

However, casual employees must meet additional criteria to be entitled to sick leave:

• Has employee worked for at least 6 months?

  and

• Did employee work an average of at least 10 hours per week in the previous 6 months?

If both the above criteria are met, then at least one of the following additional criteria must also be met:

• Has the employee worked at least 1 hour per week in the previous 6 months?

  or

• Has the employee worked at least 40 hours per month in the previous 6 months?

Recommended Process

1. Set up the following sick leave tables for casual employees.

   Casual – First 6 months

   A table for the first 6 months that rolls over to the "Test for Casual SL" table.

   Field	Value
   or months	6
   Next table on cycle end	Test for Casual SL
   Entitlement (units)	0.0000

   Test for Casual SL

   This 12-month table is used to test whether a casual employee qualifies for sick leave entitlement, and it rolls over to itself.

   Field	Value
   or months	12
   Next table on cycle end	Test for Casual SL
   Entitlement (units)	0.0000

   Casual – Entitled

   This 12-month table for casual employees who qualify for sick leave entitlement year rolls over to the "Test for Casual SL" table.

   Field	Value
   or months	12
   Next table on cycle end	Test for Casual SL
   Entitlement (units)	0.0000

   Employee starts work on a casual contract.

   • Employee status = "Casual"
   • Sick Leave = "Casual – First 6 months"
2. After 6 months, the employee automatically rolls over to the "Test for Casual SL" table.
3. Run the PGPRLEAV063 - Sick Leave Qualification Report for Casual Employees to identify casual employees who qualify for sick leave. This report displays only employees who have a no Termination date and an Employee status with Status type = "Casual".

   The following table explains the report settings:

   Field	Details
   Sick Leave table	Select the "Test for Casual SL" table that employees are attached to when they are due to be evaluated for qualification criteria.
   Allowance Group	Select the allowance group that records the "Hours Worked" quantity for annual leave purposes.
   Report end date	Enter the end date for an historical 6-month date range. The report uses data from all closed pay sequences with a period end date within this 6-month date range. For example, if you enter 10/07/2012, the report will include all pay sequences with a period end date in the date range 11/01/2012 to 10/07/2012. If an employee does not have payments in any of these periods, they will fail to qualify.

   PGPRLEAV063 will look at the 6-month date range and check whether the employees meet the qualification criteria of working an average of 10 hours or more per week, including at least one hour per week or 40 hours per month. You should run the report regularly, such as after every pay run.

4. If an employee passes the qualification criteria, the report will display "Yes" in the Qualifies column. Edit the employee's record as follows:
   • Leave tab | Sick Leave = "Casual – Entitled"
   • Leave tab | Sick Leave - Start date = Today's date
   • On the Sick Leave tab, add 5 days to the existing Outstanding value.

   When you save the employee's record, the Leave tab | Sick Leave - End date will be populated automatically based on a 1-year cycle.

5. After a year the employee will roll over to the "Test for Casual SL" table and you should check their qualification criteria again.

PGPRLEAV063 will display an employee as unqualified if they do not have hours worked data. For example, if the Report end date is in the future or the employee has not completed six months of continuous service.

The report uses ‘average’ monthly and weekly values, not exact transaction dates. As a result, if PGPRLEAV063 displays an employee as unqualified due to borderline values, then you may wish to confirm their qualification criteria by checking the actual days that they worked on.