Paying Employees – Christmas and New Year

With Christmas day falling on a Monday this year, it makes calculating the payroll a little easier. There is no transferring of the public holidays (unless you have a specific agreement for this), so Monday 25^th and Tuesday 26^th December are public holidays as are Monday 1^st and Tuesday 2^nd January. To summarise the fundamentals:

• If your employee normally works a Monday or Tuesday, but they don’t work them on these public holidays, they get paid relevant daily pay.
• If your employee normally works a Monday or Tuesday, and they do work them on these public holidays, they get paid time and a half for the hours worked plus ordinary pay for any hours they didn’t work but normally would have, plus they get a day in lieu (alternate day). For example: Jane normally works 8 hours on a Monday (and her Employment Agreement says 8 hours). On Christmas day she works 4 hours. So she gets time and a half for 4 hours, ordinary time for 4 hours and when she takes her alternate day (which she decided to take on a Monday) she gets the whole 8 hour day off on pay.
• If your employee doesn’t normally work on a Monday or Tuesday, but they do work them on these public holidays, they get paid time and a half for the hours worked. They do not get a day in lieu.
• You can’t require an employee to work on a public holiday unless it is specified in their Employment Agreement.

A special call out to all payroll people who make sure everyone gets paid over this holiday period. Be nice to them as payroll is more complex and time-consuming this time of year, get your timesheets in on time and thank them for making sure you and your team get paid week in and week out throughout the year. Without them, everything would grind to a halt. Merry Christmas all you fantastic payroll people