Summary

From the 1st October 2023, all new employees working in the horticulture and viticulture sector in New Zealand under the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) Scheme are entitled to paid sick leave.

The entitlement rules differ to those defined in the NZ Holidays Act 2003.

Entitlement wise this means, RSE workers are to be given 2 days entitled sick leave from their first day of employment and then an additional 2 days each month until they reach a total entitlement of 10 days sick leave on their 4-month anniversary.

PayGlobal wise, this means that when you are setting up new RSE employees, you will need to manually set the Employee Sick Leave Outstanding units field to 2.00 before their first pay.

Sick Leave Table Setup

You will need 4 sick leave tables for a RSE worker.

Each table will need to have the:

• Payout rate/rules setup as per the Holidays Act, i.e. linked to a rate that gives you either RDP or ADP if the employee will be working so irregularly that RDP cannot be determined.
• Days in the SL cycle or months, needs the 'or months' set to '1'
• Type of units should be days (as per the Holidays Act) but can be setup in Hours too, just make sure you align your payout rate/rules accordingly and consider how a partial day will be calculated, i.e. the settings applied to the fields: Use Reduce by value for AL Qualifying hours, Concert AL qualifying hours using type of unit and 'Calculation of qualifying hours'.
• The recommended accrual method for RSE employees is 'Standard'.
• Entitlement (units) must be '2' (days) or the equivalent amount in hours.
• Min and Max accumulated units must also be '2' (days) or the equivalent amount in hours.

Table 1 should have 'Next table on cycle end' set to Table 2

Table 2 should have 'Next table on cycle end' set to Table 3

Table 3 should have 'Next table on cycle end' set to Table 4

Table 4 should have 'Next table on cycle end' left empty. This is because RSE workers are only allowed to come to New Zealand for either seven or nine months in any 11-month period, and return home between seasons. Each time they return is deemed a new employment period.

See More

See more: https://www.immigration.govt.nz/employ-migrants/hiring-a-migrant/increased-pay-and-new-sick-leave-entitlements-for-rse-workers-1-october-2023