Managing Public Holidays

Public Holidays - A comprehensive overview!

Australia is a nation that features an abundance of Public Holidays, as such is essential to manage these holidays effectively, as different types of employment may have varying pay requirements during Public Holidays. In this article, we will explore best practices for rostering and paying your employees during the holidays.

To help streamline the process of managing Public Holidays your platform will automatically perform the following tasks:

• National and state Public Holiday rules and rates are already set up with your Awards & Agreements and will flow through to your employees' pay.
• All national and state Public Holidays are added to your platform each year. As such, will show up on your rosters. 

  Hot tip: Any regional Public Holidays, such as Show Days and local Shire Days, will need to be added to your platform by a Super User.  For the complete guide, please refer to our article Configure your Public Holidays.

In this article, we will cover:

• Key information before you start
• Preparing your platform for Public Holidays
• Rostering for your employees
• Approving different shifts for Public Holidays
• Reporting and FAQs

  For a deep dive into this topic, please watch for our On-Demand Masterclass - Managing Public Holidays in foundU. This webinar discusses how to add Public Holidays, configure Award Settings, manage Rostering and Approving Shifts for Public Holidays, and much more.

Preparing for Public Holidays

Understanding Public Holidays

When you're preparing to create rosters or approve shifts for a Public Holiday, it's important to consider the type of employment for your employees (i.e., Full-time, Part-time, or Casual). The payment employees receive can vary based on whether your business operates during the holidays.

Let's look at the options for each employment type below. 

Casuals Employees

• • If you are operating - You can roster your employees as normal. Your employee will be paid any Public Holiday rates, that are set up in your Award. 
  • If your business is closed - Casual employees are not required to be rostered on Public Holidays; therefore, they will not receive pay for a Public Holiday. 

Permanent Employees

• • If you are operating - You can roster your employees as normal. Your employee will be paid any Public Holiday rates, that are set up in your Award. 
  • If your business is closed - When building your roster, you will need to determine if your employee is entitled to receive a payment due to the closure. This can occur if the Public Holiday falls as part of an employee's regular work pattern (excluding overtime). 
    • To account for this, you can roster your employee as a 'Public holiday, not worked' shift. Please refer to the section for Permanent Employees below for further details.  

  If you want to know how Public Holidays affect your business, take a look at the Fair Work article on Public Holidays.

Public Holiday display in Rosters & Approve Shifts

To help you manage your employees during Public Holidays, upcoming days (or partial days) will be indicated by a pink icon. You can find these notifications in various areas of your platform.

• • The Roster - Seeing a Public Holiday display on a roster is a great way for managers to be alerted to build the roster appropriately to the business needs of that particular day!
  • In Approve Shifts - The icon badge in Approve shifts will remind approval managers to take care with making the appropriate selections when approving shifts on these days.
    
      Hot tip: When a Public Holiday is exclusive to a specific state, operation or roster the pink icon will only display for the relevant rosters.

     

Any Public Holidays affecting a roster will have a pink icon displayed above the day in question. A few things to note:

• • The Public Holidays that are displayed here can all be located from the main menu > Payroll Settings > Public Holidays.
  • If you can't see a pink icon on your Roster or Approve Shifts for the Public Holiday? This is not an error; this Public Holiday is not set, and it needs to be addressed.
  • Viewing the pink icons is a great way to see any gazetted Public Holidays - When a Public Holiday falls on a weekend and is moved to another day instead of the normal holiday. This helps you plan your rosters better.
  • Where Public Holidays have specific hours or apply to a specific state/region, these will also display when you hover over the pink icon.

Viewing Leave for Public Holidays

When Public Holidays approach, this is often a time that employees apply for extra annual leave, especially around times such as Easter and Christmas when there are groups of Public Holidays. Some of the common concerns for admins around this time may be:

• • Will my employee's leave balances be debited on Public Holiday days?
  • How can I be sure my employees will have enough leave balance to cover this date in the future?
  • How can I see who I have approved leave for this time already?

Let's explore these questions below.

Leave Applications

When an employee applies for leave spanning over a few Public Holidays, your platform will know that the employee does not need to use their leave balance over any applicable Public Holidays times.

As you can see in the below example, Melanie has asked for the period spanning Dec 25- Dec 31 and the system has not debited her annual leave over the Public Holidays.

Employees' Leave Balances

Employees will often book time off around Public Holidays well in advance; when this is the case they may be concerned about their available leave balances at this time.

When an employee applies for leave in their Employee App, depending on the date of their future leave application, the system will project their available leave balance at this time based on the current work pattern set on their position.

  Hot tip: Future leave balances will change if the employee's normal pattern of work changes, as well as if they apply for more leave between now and the future application. 

If your employee is concerned about their future leave balance, the best place to check is the Estimated balance column on the Time off page.

In our example above, you can see that:

• • Cheyne Butler has applied for 129.20 hours and will have an estimated balance of 462.43 hours at the time this leave will take place. Cheyne has sufficient leave
  • However, Amy Tobin has applied for 53.20 hours of leave but will only have 47.92 hours of leave at this time. Amy has insufficient leave, and a portion of this leave (if approved) will be unpaid.

  Please note: Employees are also warned that they may not have sufficient leave when making a leave application.

Viewing Leave around Public holidays

There are a few options for viewing employees' Leave around a Public Holiday period. We suggest you try these out and see what works best for your business. These include:

• • Using the Calendar View
    • You can view and approve all leave applications from Time Off with a calendar view.
    • This feature allows you to observe leave coverage for either a week or a month, which is particularly helpful during times with several Public Holidays, like Easter and Christmas.

• • Using the Time Off filter and Export
    • From the Time Off page, you can filter leave applications (Pending, Approved and Declined) for a specific date range; this can help narrow down a search when dealing with a large number of leave requests. 
    • Once filtered, you can select all of your leave requests to export them to one handy csv. 

    • This exported list is only current at the time of Export. Please perform the above actions for the most up-to-date information.

    • This may be your preferred method to communicate leave requests with your wider buisness externally from foundU. 

• • Using the External Calendar Link
    • Using this feature, you can display pending and approved leave applications on your external calendar, such as Outlook!
    • This will assist with visibility within the business and can allow you to see who's away at a glance!
    • This will be especially helpful around Christmas and New Year's periods as your External calendar will also show Public Holidays.
    • It Will show approved as well as pending applications, giving you more insight into whether or not you can approve more leave for people in your business at this time.

• • Using the display features on your roster
    • Once you have approved your leave applications and are ready for rostering, you can tailor your display using the features ('Leave and unavailability' and 'Pin empty rows to the top'). 
    • Using both of these settings together will allow you to view an employee's approved leave on your roster even if the employee has no shifts.
    • This is particularly useful in preventing your rostering managers from rostering employees who are away on leave over a holiday period. 

Communicating Public Holidays

Communication around Public Holidays can make everything run smoother for both your admins and employees! 

Here are some suggested messages for your Admins:

• • "Check your regional Public Holidays are displayed on your roster for the upcoming Show days!"
  • "Please don't forget to roster employees who should be paid at the normal rate on the Public Holiday!"
  • "Here is the guide to ensure that we approve shifts correctly on Public Holidays!"
  • "We are running pay early, as our normal payday would be Dec 24th; please have all shifts preapproved by xx day to ensure your employees are paid".

And, for your Employees:

• • "Dec 27th is a Public Holiday - Please be aware our hours are reduced 10 am-4 pm "
  • "Public Holiday restricted hours and surcharge apply today"
  • "Restricted menu today for the holiday"
    
    

Using Announcements

Announcements are the best way to communicate a message in bulk, as your message is displayed as a banner in either the employee or admin portals. This will allow your entire workforce to see the message each time they log into their portal or app.

Additionally, you can set an end date for your reminder so you don't even need to remember to take it down.

  For further reading on how to set up and manage your announcements, please refer to our article here. 

Day Notes

Day notes are a great tool for communicating with any employees who have published shifts for a Public Holiday. A key way of using day notes is to inform your employees of any expected disruptions as a result of a Public Holiday; these can include:

• • Informing of partial day Public Holidays.
  • Notifying employees of any potential hazards.
  • Setting shift expectations.

  For further information on using day and shift notes, please refer to our article on Roster building & publishing. 

Dashboard Communications

Public Holidays can be unpredictable, so for any urgent communications, you can send an email or SMS to your rostered employees during a Public Holiday. This can be done through the 'People working today' card on your Dashboard. 

Common situations, this can be useful for:

• • Calling in employees to start early or come in late.
  • Notifying employees of travel hazards. 

  For further reading on the different ways to communicate using the 'People working today' card and other useful features for your Dashboard, here. 

Rostering for Public Holidays 

Casual Employees

When it comes to Public Holidays and casual employees, the choices you have are pretty straightforward. Casual workers generally don’t receive the same entitlements as permanent employees, so it's important to know how this affects their pay and rostering during Public Holidays.

For casual employees, you will need to consider the following:

• • If your business is closed - Your casual employees do not need to be rostered. As they are not rostered they will not receive pay for a Public Holiday. 
  • If your business is operating - You can roster your employees as normal. Your employees will automatically be paid any appropriate Public Holiday rates, that are set up in your Award. 

Additionally, in the image below, you can see that the roster analytics will provide an estimated wage cost using holiday rates for work performed on Public Holidays.

  To learn more about items included in your roster's analytics, please refer to our Roster Analytics article. 

Permanent Employees   

When building out your roster for Public Holidays, it is important to roster all hourly employees who you wish to be paid, whether it be for penalty rates or ordinary hours. This includes:

• • All casual or non-salaried permanent employees who will be working.
  • Non-salaried permanent employees who will not be working but need to be paid for their ordinary hours.  
  • Salaried employees - If you regularly roster your salaried employees, they can still be rostered for a Public Holiday. This can assist in communicating to your employees if it is a working day or not.
    
    However, rostering your salaried employees does not affect the rate at which they are paid. So, please consider the following:
    • Shifts for salaried employees do not push through to Approve Shifts for approval.
    • Salaried employees' pay rate for Public Holidays is based on the  'Use normal rate' Toggle on the Employee Profile. Please see the Salaried Employees section below for further information. 
      
      

'Public holiday, not worked' shifts

Permanent Employees and Public Holidays can be a bit trickier, as permanent employees who do not work on a Public Holiday may still be entitled to be paid. 

 For permanent employees:

• • Working on the Public Holiday - They are entitled to be paid Public Holiday rates as per the Award for hours worked.
  • Not Working the Public Holiday - If they normally work on the day a Public Holiday falls, they are entitled to 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.

If you need to determine if this is a normal day of work (e.g. Mondays) for your employee, you can:

• • Either consult the work pattern in their position to see if Monday is a normal day of work for them, or
  • Look at the previous 5 Mondays - If the employee in question has worked 3 out of 5 then this is a normal day of work for them.

  If you want to know how Public Holidays affect your business, take a look at the Fair Work article on Public Holidays.

To assist you when building your rosters for Public Holidays, you will have the option to designate a shift as  'Public holiday, not worked'. This unique type of shift will do the following: 

• • Display as pink on the roster for quick identification. 
  • Flow through to Approve Shifts, once approved will pay base rate ordinary time. 
  • In the Employee App, display the shift as 'Paid day off', to your employees.  

  Hot tip: On Public Holidays such as Christmas Day and Boxing Day, when many businesses are typically closed, it is important to consult the above and consider if your permanent employees need a shift rostered so that you can approve their hours for ordinary time.

Rostering a 'Public holiday, not worked' shift:

1. Add shifts to your roster using your usual process; this can done by:
   • Adding shifts directly to your roster.
   • Copying from a previous week.
   • Loading a template. 
2. If you have copied a roster or used a template, delete any shifts that aren't required.
3. On the Public Holiday, edit for any shifts required to be 'Public holiday, not worked'.
4. Slide on the toggle 'Not required to work on public holiday. Paid as normal day.' 
   • This toggle only displays for permanent employees on Public Holidays.
5. Select Create shift / Save shift.
6. The shift will now display in pink on the roster as 'Paid, not worked'.
   • To save time building your roster, you can also copy this shift to other permanent employees.

At any time, if you need to change the status of a 'Public holiday, not worked' shift, you can do so via one of the below methods.

• • Edit the rostered shift, and turn off the 'Not required to work on public holiday. Paid as normal day.' toggle. Then, republish the roster.
  • Change the status of the shift in Approve shifts (see below section on Approving Public Holiday shifts).

  Hot tip: You can customise how Public Holiday Not Worked shifts display on payslips. More information about this can be found in this article.

Rostering Use Cases

When building your rosters for a Public Holiday, there are 3 specific use cases that need to be considered. We will discuss each of these below, which are:

• • When a permanent employee works a Public Holiday.
  • When a permanent employee works part of a Public Holiday.
  • When a permanent employee does not work a Public Holiday but still needs to be paid. 

SCENARIO A

In this scenario, we will look at how to roster a permanent employee who is working on a Public Holiday.

Samuel, a full-time employee, typically works on Wednesdays. This coming Wednesday is New Year's Day, a Public Holiday. As the business will not be closed, he will need to work.

How will Samuel need to be rostered?

• Roster Samuel as per usual.
• The shift will appear in his Employee App as a regular working shift, informing Samuel that he is working the Public Holiday. 
• Approve Samuel's shifts as per usual. These will automatically apply any relevant Public Holiday rates to his payslip.

    

SCENARIO B

In this scenario, we will look at how to roster a permanent employee who works part of a Public Holiday.

Samuel, a full-time employee, typically works on Wednesdays. This coming Wednesday is New Year's Day, a Public Holiday.  Due to the holiday, there will be restricted business hours; as such, he can only be rostered for part of his regular shift on the Public Holiday. 

How will Samuel need to be rostered?

• Samuel will require 2 shifts to be rostered. 
  • The first shift will be rostered as per usual for his working hours.
  • The second shift will be a 'Public holiday, not worked' shift to account for hours not worked due to the restricted hours but needs to be paid. 
• In Samuel's Employee App, these will appear as 2 separate shifts, informing that:
  • He has one regular working shift for the Public Holiday, and
  • The rest of the day is a 'Paid day off'.
• In Approve Shifts, the 'Public holiday, not worked' shift will pull through automatically. You will need to review and approve both shifts. 
  
  • His first shift will apply any relevant Public Holiday rates to his payslip.
  • The 'Public holiday, not worked' shift will apply his base ordinary rate to his payslip. 

SCENARIO 3

In this scenario, we will look at how to roster a permanent employee who does not work a Public Holiday. 

Samuel, a full-time employee, typically works on Wednesdays. This coming Wednesday is New Year's Day, a Public Holiday.  Due to the holiday, the business will be closed. 

How will Samuel need to be rostered?

• Samuel will need to be rostered for a 'Public holiday, not worked' shift. 
• The shift will appear in his Employee App as 'Paid day off', informing Samuel he does not have to work. 
• In Approve Shifts, the 'Public holiday, not worked' shift will pull through automatically. You will need to review and approve the shift. This will apply Samuel's base ordinary rate to his payslip.

Salaried Employees

Depending on the preferences of your business, Public Holiday rules may be different for specific employees. To assist you with this, within an employee's position, you'll have 2 additional settings for  Public Holidays.

• • Use Normal Rate  - If enabled, the employee will be paid their Ordinary Base rate when working on a Public Holiday. 
  • Deduct Leave - If enabled, the employee's leave balance will be reduced when a leave application includes a Public Holiday.

These are generally only used for employees on annual salaries (the salaried toggle is turned on); however, they can also be used for non-salaried employees. 

Use Normal Rate

Your business may have contractual agreements where certain employees are paid ordinary rates on Public Holidays. Enabling this setting will ensure this happens seamlessly.

To do so:

1. Navigate to People > Approved People > select the relevant employee to go into their profile.
2. Select the Employee Card icon > Employment Type tab and edit the existing position. Select Next to proceed to the Work pattern page.
3. Enable the toggle 'Use Normal Rate', select Next, then complete the workflow. 

You have now enabled the employee to be paid their Ordinary Base Rate on Public Holidays and this will automatically flow through to payroll. 

  Please note: This setting will override any other platform setting on Public Holidays.

Deduct Leave

You may have an employee who never works on Public Holidays as part of their regular work pattern. Therefore, if they take leave during a Public Holiday, leave would need to be deducted.

To do so:

1. Navigate to People > Approved People > select the relevant employee to go into their profile.
2. Select the Employee Card icon > Employment Type tab and edit the existing position. Select Next to proceed to the Work pattern page.
3. Enable the toggle 'Deduct Leave', select Next, then complete the workflow. 

You have now enabled your platform to allow leave to be deducted from an employee when a leave application spans a Public Holiday. This will automatically flow through to payroll on Public Holidays.

  Please note: This toggle should be enabled with caution as employees will have leave debited on all Public Holidays if they have a leave application spanning that date.

SCENARIO

We'll use the following example to look at how the 'Use Normal Rate' setting behaves.

Megan is a salaried employee. When setting up her position, we want to ensure that she is not paid Public Holiday rates. We also want to ensure that leave is not deducted when leave is taken over a Public Holiday.

When setting up Megan's position, we want to:

• Enable the 'Salaried' toggle (the employee will not appear in Approve Shifts).
• Enable the 'Use Normal Rate' toggle.
• Ensure the 'Deduct Leave' toggle is disabled so the leave balances aren't reduced when a leave application includes a Public Holiday.

With these settings, Megan will now be paid her ordinary base rate on Public Holidays and her leave balances will not be deducted if leave was taken over a Public Holiday. 

Approving Shifts for Public Holidays

Approving Shifts

The process for approving casual and permanent employees differs slightly. With the new approval options for permanent employees, you'll find the process more straightforward.

Below, we will cover:

• • Key checks for permanent (non-salaried) employees
  • Approving casual employees

This section excludes salaried employees because their shifts aren't displayed in Approve Shifts and don't need approval.

Permanent Employees

As you can see from the diagram below, when Approving Shifts on Public Holidays, you will need to consider how the permanent employee should be paid. These are:

• • The employee worked a shift - Pays penalty rates.
  • The employee has a 'Public holiday, not worked' shift - Pays employees base ordinary rate. 

In both cases, if the employee needs to be paid (ordinary or penalty rates), they will need to be rostered a shift (so you have something to approve) first.  Once published, the options selected (green published shift or a pink 'Public holiday, not worked' shift) will automatically be applied in Approve Shifts.

For further details, please refer to the 'Permanent Employees' section above. 

This means that when you approve shifts for Public Holidays, you’re simply reviewing to ensure the right shift type has been applied. Sometimes, the shift may need updating, and this can be:

• • When a permanent employee was called in/ shift needs to be added to Approve Shifts. 
  • An employee who has a rostered 'Public holiday, not worked' shift then came into work, or vice versa. 

Updating a 'Public holiday, not worked' shift:

1. Locate the shift that requires an update, and select the Pencil (edit) icon. 
2.  From the edit shift drawer, update the 'Not required to work on public holiday. Pay as normal day' toggle. 
   • Turn the toggle off - This will treat the shift as a worked shift. Public holiday rates will apply. 
   • Turn the toggle on - This will mark the shift as a 'Public holiday, not worked' shift and pay the employee's base ordinary rate. 
3. To save, select Save and approve xx hours.

  Please note: For casual employees, the 'Not required to work on public holiday. Pay as normal day' toggle will not appear.

If you see 2 options while editing your shifts, it means that your platform has additional award interpretation enabled.

This could happen because certain Enterprise Agreements will pay their Public Holiday shifts differently than modern awards when they are not worked.

  For assistance regarding these approvals, please refer to this article.

Casual Employees

When it comes to Public Holidays and casuals, the process is very straightforward.

• • If a casual employee works on a Public Holiday, you will approve the hours they work and they will be paid at the applicable Public Holiday rate. This will seem the same as approving a shift for a casual on any other day.
  • If they don't work, they will not be entitled to be paid. 

Approving Shifts

Once you have reviewed the Public Holiday shifts (checked that your permanent employees have the correct shift type) they can be approved. This can be done by either:

• • Individually, by selecting the tick icon.
  • Be approved in bulk per roster by selecting Select all shifts. 

  Hot tip: If you do bulk approve and have found that you have made an error, use the 'Edit' pencil to make a change.

Paying Employees Early

To ensure that your Public Holidays run smoothly you may want to generate and pay your employees early. This is often the case around Christmas, New Year or Easter when often Public Holidays may fall on your normal payroll day.

Paying employees early can have multiple benefits, such as:

• • Relieving added stress on your payroll team around holidays
  • Allowing your employees to access their earnings before a holiday period

How you pay employees early will depend on what type of employee they are.

Salaried Employees 

To ensure that your Public Holiday payroll runs smoothly, you can generate and pay your salaried employees early.

If this is the case, please complete this Early Pay Request with the new date for when you would like the foundU team to trigger your Salaried employee's draft payslips. Once triggered, you can then process their pay as per normal.

This form will need to be completed for each pay period you wish to generate early. 

Non-salaried Employees

For your casual and permanent (hourly) employees, you can approve shifts as usual and then generate payslips at your desired date. For future shifts, they can be pre-approved, this will create a new payslip for their relevant pay period which can be generated at any time.

  Please note: You may need to enable the setting that allows the pre-approval of shifts if you don't usually use this feature. You can always disable it after you have used it for this occasion if you don't want managers approving shifts in advance.

  Hot tip: If you have annual leave accrual overrides set for an employee, if you generate two payslips in the same period it will apply the minimum accrual to both. Export your entitlements to quickly see any employees with accrual limits configured. 

Public Holiday Reporting & FAQs

Testing your Public Holidays

As part of your payroll checks, you may like to check why your employees are being paid the way they are on the Public Holiday. Using the Awards Test feature, you can see how each employee will be paid on the Public Holiday based on their position and shift approval. 

 Permission Reminder: The following permissions are required to view the awards test page. 'Access Award Tests' and 'View Employee Pay Rates'.

To use the Award test feature:

1. Navigate to Payroll > Award test.
2. From the following fields, select all relevant options:
   • A Roster
   • Over a period of
   • Period ending
3. Then select the Begin analysis button.
4. To customise your summary, choose your preferred options from the coloured badges. 

In the below example, all of our employees' shifts were approved as per normal, except Gemma, who was approved as 'Public holiday, not worked' as the creche at the cafe was closed and she was not required to work.

In the example below, you can see the employees on the Back of House Roster and their breakdown for the Public Holiday. Adam and Aimee both worked the Public Holiday, and we can view this on the Award Test, whereas Gemma was paid at her normal rate for her normal hours of work.

  If you would like to learn more about using the Award test feature, please read our helpful article, which provides more details.

Public Holiday Reporting

For your reporting needs, there are a few options available to you that you can refer to in order to see your Public Holiday payments. However, each report has its specific use. These reports are:

  Permission Reminder: 'View Employee Pay Rates' and 'View Financial Report Centre' permissions are required for the following reports. 

Pre-Payroll

• • Labour Management Report (LMR)
    • This report uses data from Approve Shfits to provide you with a breakdown of your ongoing labour costs. The benefit of this report is that it can show you labour costs for a specific day. This can allow you to filter for a specific Public Holiday. However, it does not distinguish between a worked shift and a 'Public holiday, not worked' shift.
      
      
    • To see a breakdown of labour performed on a Public Holiday, you can use the following grouping combinations:
      
      • Daily Wages - Use the Operation ID, Day and Date groupings. 
      • Daily Roster Costs - Use the Day and Cost Code/ Purchase Order groupings. 
      • Daily Operation Costs - Use the Day and Operation ID groupings. You can even filter for specific operations by selecting them in the Operation field in the Filters section.  
  • Draft Payslip Export
    • You can export all of your draft payslips straight from the Pay Page. When exporting your payslips, the Line Item options will separate out Public Holiday ordinary time earnings and overtime into separate columns.
      
      
    • Additionally, if you have set up a custom payslip label for your 'Public holiday, not worked' shifts in your award, this will also be displayed as a separate column in the Payslip Export. 
      

Post-Payroll

• • Advanced Payroll Activity Report (APAR)
    • The Advanced Payroll Activity Report is your one-stop shop for post-payroll reporting. Using this report, you can break down your payroll data to see your Public Holiday costs by using the Line Item grouping. This will display your Public Holiday ordinary time earnings and overtime as separate line items in your report. 
      
      
    • To help filter your data further, you can include your preferred groupings from below:
      • Operation - To view high-level costs per operation. 
      • Cost Code/ Purchase Order - To view costs per roster. 
      • Employee - To breakdown all line items per employee, this will include all line items for the employee. 
    • Additionally, if you have set up a custom payslip label for your 'Public holiday, not worked' shifts in your award, this will also be displayed as a separate line item in this report. 

FAQs

I need my employee's leave balance to be deducted over the Public Holiday as it is a part of their contractual agreement. How can I set this up?

The platform will only deduct leave on a Public Holiday if a leave application is approved and the 'deduct leave' toggle is switched on in the employee's current position.

You can check this by going to the Employee Profile > Employee Card > Employment Type > Current Position > Edit Pencil > Select Continue until you arrive at the work pattern step. Here adjust the 'Deduct Leave' toggle to 'on' if you would like Leave deducted on Public holidays. 

When should I use the 'Use Normal rate' toggle in an employee's profile?

When this setting is enabled, the employee is paid their ordinary base rate when working on a Public Holiday. This setting overrides anything approved in Approve Shifts.

If you need to, you can edit the position to turn this toggle off.

How can I be successful at making sure everything is seamless around a Public Holiday on my platform?

There are a few key things to be across:

• Remember to add regional Public Holidays to your platform!
• Permanent employees should often be paid their normal rate for the day on a holiday closure. Ensure you roster them a shift on your roster, so that you can approve this and they still get paid at their normal rate.
• There are a few options to choose when approving a shift for permanent employees' on Public Holidays! Use this guide to ensure you make the correct selection.
• Correctly applying the 'Use Normal rate' toggle in your employee's position settings.

Why do I still need to roster a permanent employee on a Public Holiday if I simply want them to be paid the normal rate?

To create a shift that flows through to Approve Shifts. Only salaried (automated) employees will be paid without being rostered and approved.

We have a state holiday coming up. Do I need to add this to my platform, as it's not a national Public Holiday?

If it's a state-based holiday, don't worry, we have this covered! You only need to add in the regional Public Holidays that are generally unique to a shire, suburb or postcode!

What happens if I need to pay my employees early (we are closed for the holiday)?

• Contact support and we can run the automated employees early!
• You will need to pre-approve shifts for permanents and casuals.

I forgot to add a regional Public Holiday to my platform. It is now payday and I have just realised!

Let's step this out - If your payslips are still in draft:

• Go in and add in your regional Public Holiday Payroll settings> Public Holidays. Use the Help article.
• In Approve Shifts:
  • Decline previously approved shifts - then re-approve them to capture the Public Holiday. (For casual and permanents who worked)
  • Consider the permanent employees who did not work - are they entitled to Public Holiday Not worked hours? If so Add in a shift in Approve Shifts and approve as 'Public holiday, not worked' but turning on the 'Not required to work on public holiday. Paid as normal day' toggle. 
• By declining & re-approving the shifts, the changes will flow through to payroll.

I forgot to add a regional Public Holiday to my platform. I have already paid my employee; how can I resolve this?

If you have processed pay already, for any affected employees, you'll need to edit each payslip or create an adjustment, to reflect the correct pay for that Public Holiday. 

When are the Public Holidays added to my platform for the next year? Just curious as my employees are already applying for leave around Public Holidays.

We will add these in for you around September each year for the upcoming calendar year! This may seem a bit late however, we need to wait for the the government to 'release' these Public Holidays officially before we can load them into your platform.

If you want to check if they have been added, go to the main menu > Payroll settings > Public Holidays. Use the calendar view to navigate to the relevant year and month.

In our platform, the employees use submit shifts. Can my employees create or edit shifts to be a 'Public holiday, not worked' shift?

For Public Holidays, your employees can review and submit shifts as if it were a regular working day. Your employees do not have the ability to select if a shift is a 'Public holiday, not worked' shift?

These shifts will still flow through to Approve Shifts where you admin can edit them and turn on the 'Not required to work on public holiday. Paid as normal day' toggle. This will prevent any errors from your employees selecting the incorrect rate.  

If I generate pay early for a Public Holiday, how does it report via STP?

STP packets are processed by payment date (the day the employee was paid), regardless of the period end date.

This means that when you process your payroll early, your STP packet will be created when you generate pay, and you can process it as normal.