The holiday season is a wonderful opportunity to spend time with friends and family. For each person, their time off work, and pay entitlements will differ.
For business with a 'Shut Down Period'
Many businesses will have a shutdown period over the break.
Employees can be directed to take their annual leave during a shut down if the award or registered agreement allows it. Usually the employee needs to be given a certain amount of notice. If there is no award or agreement, the direction to take annual leave must be reasonable.
If you are taking a break, you may want to consider creating an Out of Office message that will reply automatically to emails you receive in the holidays. The best practice is to thank the sender and let them know that you are away, and when you will return. If people might be contacting you with urgent enquiries, your Out of Office message should point them to another person or a number they could contact during the break. If you are planning on checking emails intermittently, you can also include this in your message, so people know what to expect.
If you are working throughout the break
For many people, including nurses, doctors, carers, retail and hospitality workers, and Santa's elves, the Christmas break is business as usual.
For the public holidays in the break – 25 and 26 December 2018 and 1 January 2019 – some employees may be entitled to penalty rates, based on their industry award or enterprise agreement. Full-time and part-time employees are entitled to a paid day off.
There is no general right not to work during this time, but you can refuse to work on a public holiday if there are ‘reasonable grounds’. For example, if you gave early notice to your employer that you would not be available due to personal circumstances, and then your employer requested that you work on a public holiday, you could refuse. For employers, there are also no automatic rights to terminate employees if they refuse to work on a public holiday. In the case of Steven Pietraszek v Transpacific Industries Pty Ltd T/A Transpacific Cleanaway [2011] FWA 3698, the employer terminated the employee for not working on Christmas and Boxing Day. Here, the Commissioner held that the employee’s refusal was reasonable in the circumstances, as he had believed he would not be asked to work.
If you have any queries relating to the issues featured in this article, please do not hesitate to contact us on 02 8917 8700 or fill out the enquiry box and we will get back to you ASAP.