Platform Updates
What Admins Need to Do
Non-small business employers (from 1 February 2023)
Small business employers

Platform Updates

Effective from the 30th January 2023, a new platform leave category and pay category will be available to both new and existing clients. The new paid leave category does not replace the existing unpaid leave category.

Note: The leave types' visibility is limited to the user's permission group in compliance with the confidentiality rules. Leave types will now only be visible to employees and managers who are creating and approving leave applications.

You may notice in some instances where leave types were previously displayed for example on the roster they are now either hidden or displayed as just “leave”.

Helpful Hint

We advise against deleting or replacing the existing unpaid leave category as it would be important to keep it for auditing and reporting purposes. For all new businesses created after the 1st February 2023 and before the 1st August 2023, we will make both family and domestic violence leave categories available on default (paid and unpaid). Individual businesses can refer to the instructions below depending on the number of employees they have

There are rules on the information you must not include on an employee’s pay slip about paid family and domestic violence leave. Considering the advice from Fair Work, the display of the pay category when taking paid family and domestic violence leave would appear on pay slips as Leave - Other.

Additionally, employees are still entitled to five days of unpaid family and domestic violence leave until they can access the new entitlement of ten days of paid family and domestic violence leave.

 

What admins need to do

Non-small business employers (from 1 February 2023)

Update leave types

Navigate to Management > Settings > Leave Types to add in the new Paid Domestic Violence Leave type, and remove the Unpaid Family Domestic Violence Leave.

 Update leave balances

You do not need to give the initial balance of ten days of paid family and domestic violence leave to employees on the 1st of February. The first pay run created from 31st January 2023 would automatically give all active employees (regardless if the employee has earnings or not) the initial balance. The balance will then renew as per the employee’s leave year on their anniversary date.

Payroll admins can create an adhoc pay run (or action the following in your usual pay run) to transition the employee’s entitlement to the new paid leave, by zeroing out the balance of the existing Family and Domestic Violence Leave.

Helpful Hint

You can utilise the new feature to make bulk adjustments to leave balances in the pay run

Please make sure that you check the existing and final balance of employees before making the leave adjustment and finalising the pay run.

Update leave category and leave allowance template settings

Award Leave Allowance Templates

We will update all award leave allowance templates to disable the existing unpaid leave category. You will need to action an award update for the new settings to be available.

Custom or no Leave Allowance Templates

For custom leave allowance templates, you need to disable the existing unpaid leave category manually.

For employees not assigned to any leave allowance templates, you also need to update individual leave category settings of each impacted employee.

We also advise to zero out the accrual of the unpaid family and domestic violence leave category to avoid unnecessary accrual of this leave type. 

Small business employers

Per FWO’s guidelines, the new paid leave entitlement does not need to come into effect until 1 August 2023 for small businesses (with less than 15 employees). Should the business choose to voluntarily provide the new paid leave entitlement earlier than the expected date, please refer to the section above.

Update leave balances

The first pay run created from 31st January 2023 would automatically give all active employees (regardless if the employee has earnings or not) the initial balance. As your employees are not entitled to this balance yet, payroll admins will need to create an adhoc pay run (or action the following in your usual pay run) to zero out the balance of the new paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave.

Helpful Hint

You can utilise the new feature to make bulk adjustments to leave balances in the pay run.

Please make sure that you check the existing and final balance of employees before making the leave adjustment and finalising the pay run.

Update leave category and leave allowance template settings

Award Leave Allowance Templates

We will update all award leave allowance templates to disable the existing unpaid leave category. Once an award update has been actioned, you will need to customise the award leave leave allowance templates to revert these settings, including:

• Disabling the new paid leave category
• Enabling the existing unpaid leave category
• Zeroing out the accrual of the paid leave category (until it comes into effect).

Custom or no Leave Allowance Templates

For custom leave allowance templates or employees not assigned to any leave allowance templates, you’ll need to customise and update the settings, including:

• Disabling the new paid leave category
• Enabling the existing unpaid leave category
• Zeroing out the accrual of the paid leave category (until it comes into effect).