Overview
Public holidays and their related payment/s can be broadly broken down into one of four categories.
- User does not ordinarily work observed public holiday day, has the day off (no payment outcome).
- User does not ordinarily work observed public holiday day, is present at work (pay @ 1.5x multiplier).
- User ordinarily works observed public holiday, has the day off (pay ordinary earnings).
- User ordinarily works observed public holiday, is present at work (pay @ 1.5x multiplier + 1.0 Alternative Holiday Accrued).
If you have an questions relating to public holiday handling; please raise this with your payroll contact; who will aim to assist you.
⚠️ NOTE: Sometimes you may pay at different pay rates (e.g. higher/lower class/industry rates) for the nature of work being performed. If this is the case; please refer to your organisational documentation to learn more how to manage public holidays and the various payment rates in the timesheets.
⚠️ NOTE: This article aims to explain the principals to handling public holidays in Tempus. The example/s focus on a user with a basic working pattern. Users who have a more complex working pattern (e.g. an irregular working pattern), please contact our support desk to confirm the exact public holiday configuration for a user.
⚠️ NOTE: It is important to remember that if a Public Holiday falls on an otherwise working day and the employee doesn’t attend to work, they’re entitled to be paid for that day as “Public Holiday Not Worked”. For example, annual leave, sick leave, or alternative day off should not be used scenario.
⚠️ NOTE: If you use Tempus time clocks, please ensure that your end users are selecting the correct work type on the public holiday itself (e.g. if they are clocking, then they are likely working, so they should be clocking their time with the work type 'public holiday worked' work type).
Example User & Use Case for the Public Holiday's
To assist in understanding how to enter in public holidays given the various scenarios, we will provide the following user and use case example. We have a company who operates 9am to 5pm, 7 days a week, and for the purposes of the example; are permitted to trade on all public holidays. The upcoming public holidays are Good Friday, and Easter Monday.
This company has a user "John" who works 4 days a week for the company Saturday - Tuesday and has that configured in their users working pattern in Tempus:
John has a default singular rate of pay (e.g. hourly rate) and has NO higher or lower class duty rates (e.g. NO industry rates).
User does not ordinarily work observed public holiday day, has the day off
For the Good Friday public holiday, if "John" did not work that day (because it's ordinarily their day off) then their timesheet should be reflective of not working (e.g. blank).
This will result in no payment outcome nor no alternative holiday accrual for the Good Friday public holiday.
User does not ordinarily work observed public holiday day, is present at work
For the Good Friday public holiday, if "John" did work that day (e.g. was called into work last minute due to someone else calling in sick) then their timesheet should be reflective of the times they worked (e.g. 9am to 5pm) and the work type should be Public Holiday Worked.
Tempus will then pay either the Average Daily Pay (ADP) rate or Relevant Daily Pay (RDP) rate (as configured for the user/organisation) by the total paid hours in the timesheet for that day; at the configured rate multiplier (typically 1.5x or 'time and a half' for Public Holidays).
NOTE: As the rate is determined in the pay run (ADP or RDP), the timesheet shift costs will show the Public Holiday Worked line item as $0.00 cost.
However when the timesheet is imported into the pay run, the rate is determined (ADP or RDP), and the Public Holiday Worked line/s will have earnings associated with them.
Tempus will then review more than one 'data point' in determining if this is to be considered an "Otherwise Working Day" for purposes of Alternative Holiday Entitlement. Examples of these data points include (but are not limited to):
- The users configured working pattern to determine if they ordinarily would work on (that specific) Friday.
- Working patterns for the prior 12 Friday(s). Generally speaking; if the user has worked at least 50% of the prior 12 Friday(s) then this may be considered an Otherwise Working Day.
- For John this should not be the case as per their working pattern, however if John had kept getting called into work on a Friday because of others not being at work (e.g. sickness in the team) then despite John's working pattern stating he does not ordinarily work a Friday; their more recent work history (e.g. most recent 12 Fridays) might suggest otherwise.
If one of these criteria is met, then Tempus would ordinarily grant 1.00 days of Alternative Holidays.
User ordinarily works observed public holiday, has the day off
Moving forward, "John" worked Saturday & Sunday (as usual) then for the Easter Monday public holiday, has this day off. You need to enter in the timesheet details (e.g. start and end times, break/s time/s) as if "John" had worked. However; set the work type to Public Holiday Not Worked.
Tempus will then pay either the Average Daily Pay (ADP) rate or Relevant Daily Pay (RDP) rate (as configured for the user/organisation) by the total paid hours in the timesheet for that day.
NOTE: As the rate is determined in the pay run, the timesheet shift costs will show the Public Holiday Not Worked line item as $0.00 cost.
However when the timesheet is imported into the pay run, the rate is determined (ADP or RDP), and the Public Holiday Not Worked line/s will have earnings associated with them.
As "Johns" was not present at work on the public holiday, no review for awarding/accrual of an Alternative Holiday Day is required.
User ordinarily works observed public holiday, is present at work
Moving forward, "John" worked Saturday & Sunday (as usual) then for the Easter Monday public holiday, was also present at work. You need to enter in the timesheet details (e.g. start and end times, break/s time/s) that "John" actually worked; and set the work type to Public Holiday Worked.
Tempus will then pay either the Average Daily Pay (ADP) rate or Relevant Daily Pay (RDP) rate (as configured for the user/organisation) by the total paid hours in the timesheet for that day; at the configured rate multiplier (typically 1.5x or 'time and a half' for Public Holidays).
NOTE: As the rate is determined in the pay run (ADP or RDP), the timesheet shift costs will show the Public Holiday Worked line item as $0.00 cost.
However when the timesheet is imported into the pay run, the rate is determined (ADP or RDP), and the Public Holiday Worked line/s will have earnings associated with them.
Tempus will then review more than one 'data point' in determining if this is to be considered an "Otherwise Working Day" for purposes of Alternative Holiday Entitlement. Examples of these data points include (but are not limited to):
- The users configured working pattern to determine if they ordinarily would work on (that specific) Monday.
- Working patterns for the prior 12 Monday(s). Generally speaking; if the user has worked at least 50% of the prior 12 Monday(s) then this may be considered an Otherwise Working Day.
- For John this should be the case as per their working pattern, as they have hours set for their working pattern for a Monday.
If one of these criteria is met, then Tempus would ordinarily grant 1.00 days of Alternative Holidays.
Handling On Call Scenarios for a Public Holiday
If your organisation has 'on call' scenarios for a Public Holiday; you may need to trigger the accrual of 1.00 Alternative Holiday manually. Further information can be found on employment.govt.nz website HERE.
- An employee who works ordinary duties for you (e.g. full time) and was on call during a public holiday (which is an otherwise working day for the employee), and had to limit their activities on that public holiday off (e.g. stay at home and not go to the beach) might be entitled to an alternative holiday as well as their average daily pay (or) relevant daily pay at 1.0x (e.g. "public holiday not worked").
- If an employee is employed for only being on call/working on public holiday holidays, they may not be entitled to an Alternative Holiday. In that scenario, please inform our support desk so we can ensure the alternative day does not trigger.
If you need to force an alternative holiday to be accrued, enter the users 'public holiday not worked' time as usual, then create an additional line for the public holiday, and use the work type "Alternative Holiday Accrual (Force)".
This will force the accrual of 1.0 alternative holiday, irrespective of the default interpretation for the 'public holiday not worked' shift.