Setting up your Public Holidays

Public holidays

Setting up your public holidays with foundU is easy!

Your national and state public holiday rules and rates are already inbuilt with your Awards & Agreements and will flow through to your employee's pay.

All you need to do is ensure that your public holiday dates are updated for any regional and additional public holidays.

In this article we will go through:

• Adding regional public holidays to your platform
• Customising how Public Holiday Not Worked shifts display on payslips
• Paying salaried employees their ordinary base rate
• Extra award interpretation (EBA for public holidays)

Looking to manage your employee's leave and public holidays click here!

Adding regional public holidays to your platform

All key (national) public holidays are stored in your platform and your platform is automatically updated with the Australian Government's holidays.

For all regional and additional public holidays, you will need to check and customise your public holidays so that they align with your business.

Regional holidays will need to be applied and may not be listed in your key public holidays. For example, a 'regional show day'.

To review your public holiday set-up:

1. Navigate to the full menu by selecting the hamburger icon > Payroll Settings > Public Holidays.
2. You can use the Search bar to find specific holidays.
   • You can also use the Delete button to delete any public holidays if needed.
      

     

To add a new public holiday:

You'll have the option to add public holidays in the following ways:

• General
• To a specific operation/s
• Specific operation job
• Specific operation roster

To add new holidays, scroll down to Add New Entry and select the relevant tab.

You have the option to add public holidays in the following ways:

General Tab: Holiday that can be applied nationally or state-based.

1. Enter the Date of the holiday.
2. Enter the name of the holiday in the Description.
3. Enter the Location. e.g. NAT = national, WA | NT = multiple states.
4. Apply to Specific Awards (optional) if you would like to apply the public holiday to a specific award you are able to specify the award.
5. Select Is a partial holiday if you would like to enter a specific time from when a partial holiday applies
6. Click Submit to save.

Specific Operation Tab: Holiday applied per client/operation.

1. Enter the Date of the holiday.
2. Enter the name of the holiday in the Description.
3. Select the Operation /client.
4. Enter the Location. e.g. NAT = national, WA | NT = multiple states.
5. Apply to Specific Awards (optional) if you would like to apply the public holiday to a specific award you are able to specify the award.
6. Select Is a partial holiday if you would like to enter a specific time from when a partial holiday applies
7. Click Submit.

Specific operation job: Holiday applied per operation, per job.

1. Enter the Date of the holiday.
2. Enter the name of the holiday in the Description.
3. Select the Operation /client.
4. Select the specific Job it applies to.
5. Apply to Specific Awards (optional) if you would like to apply the public holiday to a specific award you are able to specify the award.
6. Select Is a partial holiday if you would like to enter a specific time from when a partial holiday applies
7. Click Submit.

Specific operation roster: Holiday applied per operation, per roster.

1. Enter the Date of the holiday.
2. Enter the name of the holiday in the Description.
3. Select the Operation /client.
4. Select all Rosters to apply to.
5. Apply to Specific Awards (optional) if you would like to apply the public holiday to a specific award you are able to specify the award.
6. Select Is a partial holiday if you would like to enter a specific time from when a partial holiday applies
7. Click Submit.

Specific employee(s): Holiday applied per employee and state.

1. Enter the Date of the holiday.
2. Enter the name of the holiday in the Description.
3. Select the Employee/s it applies to.
4. Enter the Location. e.g. NAT = national, WA | NT = multiple states.
5. Apply to Specific Awards (optional) if you would like to apply the public holiday to a specific award you are able to specify the award.
6. Select Is a partial holiday if you would like to enter a specific time from when a partial holiday applies
7. Click Submit.

Customise how Public Holiday Not Worked displays on payslips *NEW

When rostering & approving shifts for permanent employees you have the option to choose whether the shift was worked or not. This will determine whether the employee is paid public holiday penalty rates or their base rate. 

You have the option to customise how your 'paid not worked shifts' display on the employee's payslip. 

Payslip Display

The default behaviour is to group the hours into ordinary time. In the example below, this is displayed as 'Day Shift' and you can see that there are 40 hours at this rate. 

However, if you'd like to separate this out into its own line, this can also be done.

In the example below we have set a custom label of 'Public Holiday Not Worked'. In this case, there are 8 hours attributed to the public holiday & 32 hours for the rest of the week. The rate of pay is the same but this provides greater detail on the payslip for your employees. 

Set A Custom Label

To configure a custom label:

1. From the main menu, navigate to Platform Settings > System Settings.
2. Locate the setting titled 'Set custom pay label for public holidays not worked' and enter your desired label.
   • Press Ctrl + F and search for the setting to locate it quicker!
     
     
   
3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and Save. 

  Note: Only one custom label may be applied to your platform. This is not able to be different per operation. 

  Note: The custom label will also be represented in reports when grouping by rate labels. 

Salaried employees: Paying employee's ordinary base rate (normal rate)

You can apply normal pay rates for salaried staff on public holidays where required. To do this:

1. Navigate to People > Approved People.
2. Either find the specific employee using the search bar or Show Filter to search on Employment Type = Salaried, scroll down and click Apply Filter.
3. Click on the employee's name to go into their profile.
4. Select the Employee Card icon, open the Employment Type tab and edit the existing position, click continue to proceed to the Work Pattern page.
5. Slide the toggle 'Use Normal Rate'.

You have now enabled the platform to be paid their Ordinary Base Rate on public holidays and this will automatically flow through to payroll on public holidays.

  Please note: This setting will override any other platform setting pertaining to public holidays.

SCENARIO

We'll use the following example to look at how this setting will behave.

Amy 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 Amy's position we want to:

1. Enable the 'Salaried' toggle is enabled (the employee will not appear in Approve Shifts).
2. Enable the 'Use Normal Rate' toggle.
3. 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, Amy 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. 

Extra award interpretation (EBA for public holidays)

Depending on your award interpretation as per your Enterprise Bargaining Agreements (EBA), you can turn on additional interpretation options.

With additional interpretations enabled you will have the below options:

• Shift was worked - pay penalty rates: Shift will be paid at public holiday rates.
• Shift was not worked - pay normal rates: Shift will be paid as if it has been worked. Any shift allowances or penalty rates for shift work will apply. 
• Shift was not worked - pay only base rate: Shift will be paid at employees base rate. They will not receive any shift allowances or penalty rates for shift work. 

To enable extra award interpretations:

1. Navigate to the full menu (hamburger icon top left), Platform Settings > System Settings.
2. Find 'Extra award interpretation options for permanent employees when approving shifts on public holidays' (use Ctrl F to search if needed).
3. Turn on.
4. Click Save Settings.

Now when you navigate to Approve Shifts and approve a shift on a public holiday you will be prompted for the different options for how you'd like to pay this day.

In addition to 'Shift was worked - pay penalty rates' and 'Shift was not worked - pay normal rates', you will now also have:

• Shift was not worked - pay only base rate