Planning for the holiday period

Planning for the holiday period

It’s that time of year again! Get your practice ready for the holidays by planning annual leave arrangements with staff.

With the Christmas period quickly approaching, now is a good time to start thinking about your plans for managing staff over the holidays. There are a few different factors to take into account, such as will you close the practice down and take leave yourself? Will you stay open, and what will you do on the public holidays? After the last few years of limited travel, do you have staff members with excessive annual leave accruals, and would you like to manage that liability? The Workplace Relations Team at AMA (NSW) are here to help you understand what options are available to you and how you can go about implementing them.

Practice close downs

The Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2020 (HPSSA) and the Nurses Award 2020 have rules around when and how an employer can temporarily close their medical practice and direct staff to take a period of leave. This is often referred to as a practice shutdown or close down and is outlined in clauses 27.5 and 22.7 respectively. 

You may direct your employees to take paid annual leave during a temporary close down, provided your direction is considered reasonable. 

If an employee does not have enough annual leave accrued to cover the period, they may be eligible to take some annual leave in advance.

In terms of what is ‘reasonable’, we recommend you consider a few factors, such as the size of the business, period of notice being given, and length of the close down period. It’s often a good idea to discuss with your employees what the business is planning to do in advance and seek their input so you can come up with a solution that works for everyone. This may involve your employee taking a period of leave without pay if they would rather not have a negative leave balance. However, please note, this can only be at the employees’ request.

When an employee is on paid leave, they will continue to accrue leave entitlements, however, they will not if they are on a period of unpaid leave. 

Public holidays

When a public holiday falls on a day that a permanent part-time or full-time employee normally works, they are to be given the day off and still paid their base pay rate for their ordinary hours that day. This does not apply to casual employees, who are only paid for the hours they actually work, including on public holidays. Employees are not entitled to be paid for a public holiday that falls on a day they do not normally work.

If your practice is staying open on the public holidays and you need to request that staff attend work, you need to ensure that your request is reasonable. In determining what is reasonable, you will need to consider the needs of the workplace, the nature of the employee’s work, the employee’s personal circumstances including family responsibilities, is the employee entitled to any penalty rates, the employee’s type of employment (e.g., full time, part time, or casual) and the amount of notice given. 

Health professionals and support staff who are required to work on a public holiday are to be paid double time and a half for those hours. Practice nurses who work on a public holiday are to be paid double time for those hours. This public holiday loading applies to casuals who are required to work on public holidays as well. If a public holiday falls during an employee’s period of leave (either annual or leave without pay) they are to be paid their base pay rate for their ordinary hours that day, and not have the day of annual leave deducted.

This year, there are public holidays on the following days over the holiday period:

• Christmas Day – Sunday, 25 December 2022
• Boxing Day – Monday, 26 December 2022
• Additional Day – Tuesday, 27 December 2022
• New Year’s Day – Sunday 1 January 2023
• Additional Day – Monday, 2 January 2023

Excessive Annual Leave Accruals

After the last few years of COVID, many practices are finding themselves in a situation where their employees have accrued significant annual leave liabilities. The HPSSA considers anything over eight weeks of annual leave as excessive and the Nurses Award, anything over 10 weeks. The preferred option is always to discuss with your employee and reach a solution together to reduce the leave balance. However, under the relevant award, when an agreement is not reached, you may be able to direct your employee to take some annual leave. An employee must be given at least eight weeks, and no more than 12 months’ notice that they are being directed to take annual leave, and the duration of leave must be at least one week. The result of the direction to take leave can not mean that the employees’ accrual will fall below six weeks.

For further assistance in assessing your options and other employment-related enquiries, please contact our Workplace Relations Team on +61 2 9439 8822 or workplace@amansw.com.au.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Felicity Buckley is a Senior Workplace Advisor and can assist employers navigate the many responsibilities you face as a private practice owner.