Processing public holidays - New Zealand

For MYOB Advanced Workforce Management to determine otherwise working days, you need to check your holiday dates and standard hours are correct, and make sure there are shifts with the correct work types for all paid public holidays (whether the employee works or not). Once that is done you can continue finalising your timesheets as normal.

For information on employers' public holiday obligations, see business.govt.nz – Public holidays.

Setting up public holiday

1. Check your public holiday dates

Before processing public holidays, make sure you've entered them into the Holidays screen. For the 2023-24 holiday season, the holidays are:

Holiday	Calendar date
Christmas Day	Monday 25 December 2023
Boxing Day	Tuesday 26 December 2023
New Year's Day	Monday 1 January 2024
Day after New Year’s Day	Tuesday 2 January 2024

See Checking and adding public holidays for more information.

2. Check standard hours have the correct OWDs

MYOB Advanced Workforce Management uses the employee's standard hours to determine whether the calendar or alternate date counts as the public holiday. Employees that do not have standard hours set individually will use the company-wide default standard hours.

Compliance issue – Employees for whom Sunday and Tuesday do not count as OWDs

Where neither the calendar nor alternate dates are otherwise working days (OWDs), the alternate date is counted as the public holiday. Currently, there is an issue in the software causing the holiday date to be incorrectly calculated for employees for whom neither the calendar date or alternate date count as OWDs – for the most part, that's those who don't normally work on either Sundays or Tuesdays.

To workaround this issue, add standard hours for the alternate date for all employees in this situation, regardless of whether they are working, then change them back after the holiday period:

If most of your employees have unpredictable schedules, consider How to update the Default Standard Hours in Management > Settings > Default Standard Hours.
For emloyees who do have standard hours, or who are exceptions to the company defaults (for example employees who are casual or on different work patterns), How do I add Standard Hours to an employee? in Management > Employees > Roster, Time and Attendance.

Example

If your employees mostly work 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, but you have a few who work only Wednesday to Saturday, you would:

Leave your company-wide default hours unchanged to cover the larger group.
Update the standard hours as below, for each employee in the Wednesday to Saturday group.

3. Add shifts for all paid public holidays

For public holidays to be processed correctly, there must be a shift for each employee who will be paid for the day. This includes both employees who are working on the public holiday, as well as those who are being paid for the day off.

Create and publish your roster as you normally would, making sure that everyone that should get paid for a public holiday is either rostered or has taken leave. Note that public holiday timesheet entries will be created automatically where an employee is taking annual leave that starts before and ends after the holiday. Timesheets created from annual leave will already have the correct work types assigned to them.

For more information on adding shifts, see Creating a roster and assigning shifts.

4. Add work types to shifts or timesheets as needed

This section is based on the most typical pay rule and work type setups in MYOB Advanced Workforce Management. The names of the work types and some processes may differ from site to site, depending on your specific needs.

If you're unsure whether this process applies to you, contact your consultant.

Once all your public holiday shifts are added, update the work types for the following situations:

For employees who rostered to work but are not working (i.e. getting paid to take the day off) assign the work type Public Holiday not Worked to their shifts.
For employees that are working where it is not an ordinary working day, assign the work type Public Holiday Worked - Not OWD so that alternative leave does not accrue.

Work types can be assigned individually to shifts and timesheets, or in bulk to timesheets only.

Adding a work type to a rostered shift

Open the Roster screen.
Add all your shifts to the roster as normal.
Hover over a shift and click Edit (:AWFM_edit_grey:).
Select Show Advanced.
Select the appropriate Work Type from the drop-down menu.
Click Save.
Repeat steps 2 to 6 for all your rostered public holiday shifts.

Adding a work type to a single timesheet

Open the Manage Time screen.
Hover over a shift and click Edit (:AWFM_edit_grey:).
Select Show Advanced.
Select the appropriate Work Type from the drop-down menu.
Click Save.
Repeat steps 2 to 5 for all your public holiday timesheets.

Adding work types to timesheets in bulk

Approved timesheets cannot be edited in bulk, so make sure you update the work types first.

Open the Manage Time screen.
Select the timseheets you want to edit using the checkboxes on the left. To select all timesheets, select the checkbox next to the Employee heading.
Click the menu icon (:AWFM_Menu_Purple:), then click Modify.
Select the appropriate Work Type from the drop-down menu.
Click Save.

Continuing your pay run

The steps above, along with your system's pay rules, determine the payments and holiday accruals for the public holidays. Once they're done, you're ready to continue your usual pay run processes.

Public holiday worked	OWD	Work type	Payment	Alternative holiday
Yes	Yes	Not required	Paid time-and-a-half*	Accrued
Yes	No	Public Holiday Worked - Not OWD	Paid time-and-a-half*	Not accrued
No	Yes	Public Holiday Not Worked	Paid for the day off	Not accrued
No	No	Not required	Not paid	Not accrued

*These payment rates are simplified. See Employment New Zealand – Public Holiday Falls on a Sunday for more information about how mondayisation of holidays can affect public holiday payment rates.