Setting up pay conditions for a public holiday
This article is designed for implementers, and talks about general pay condition examples.
Nothing in this page should be treated as legal or employment advice, and if you have questions about correct interpretation of public holidays, these should be referred to the appropriate government agency or your employment advisor.
There are several concerns for setting up a public holiday pay rule:
Making it easy to exempt Public Holidays from overtime calculations (if appropriate)
Making it easy to include Public Holidays in overtime calculations (if appropriate)
Making it easy to handle the interaction of Public Holidays and Leave.
Allowing for Public Holidays to be corrected in cases of agreements with staff.
Making sure duplicate public holidays can’t cause problems.
Example plan for public holiday handling
You should make sure you have the right worktypes & pay types configured for public holiday processing. The types required by the example build are below:
Pay rule layout:
Classify Unpaid Leave (unpaidleave) (If adding more leave types, add them here)
Classify Paid Leave (paidleave) (If adding more leave types, add them here)
Classify Public Holiday (publicholiday)
Classify Public Holiday Not Worked (phnw)
Classify Public Holiday Worked (AU Only)
Classify Public Holiday Worked otherwise working day (phw_owd) (NZ Only)
Classify Public Holiday Worked outside usual roster (phw_nowd) (NZ Only)
Pay Public Holiday Worked (AU Only)
Pay Public Holidays Worked - Ordinary Working day (PHW_OWD) - Pay hours worked @ 1.5 time & accrue 1 alt day. (NZ Only)
Pay Public Holidays Worked - Not Otherwise Working Day (PHW_NOWD) (NZ Only)
Pay Public Holidays Not Worked (phnw)
As stated earlier, you may want Public Holiday Worked “Casual rate” as a separate option here.
Note: You can control if a Public Holiday should be calculated automatically by controlling some assumptions during the phnw step. While the general assumption is that if a day is a public holiday and has a shift it should be paid as a day worked unless it has the public holiday not worked worktype, some businesses may prefer a “Add the working day” asusmption.
Which is best for a given business is an operational decision around how they want to handle their rosters & Timesheets.
Example build public holiday steps
Classify Unpaid Leave (unpaidleave) (If adding more leave types, add them here)
WHEN has Leave Types (Choose any unpaid leave types)
THEN assign category unpaidleave
Classify Paid Leave (paidleave) (If adding more leave types, add them here)
WHEN has shift type of Leave
AND when does not match above rule unpaidleave
THEN assign category paidleave
Classify Public Holiday (publicholiday)
WHEN ANY of the following is true:
Timesheet has work type
Agreed Alternate Public Holiday (Force Public Holiday)
Or
Timesheet portion is on a public Holiday
AND NONE of the following are true:
Timesheet has work type
Agreed Ordinary Day (Not a Public Holiday)
THEN assign category publicholiday
Classify Public Holiday Not Worked (phnw)
WHEN ANY of the following is true:
Timesheet has work type
Public Holiday Not Worked (PHNW)
OR
Timesheet is a Leave Request
ORTimesheet matches an above rule with category publicholiday
AND NONE of the following are true:
Timesheet has one of the following worktypes:
Public Holiday Worked - Ordinary Working Day OWD
Public Holiday Worked - Outside Usual Roster
Timesheet is a Leave Request
AND Timesheet matches an above rule with category publicholiday
This version assumes any day is a public holiday not worked unless explicitly told otherwise.
You may need to exclude Long Service Leave from this calculation, depending on your jurisdiction and treatment of long service leave & public holidays.THEN assign category phnw
Classify Public Holiday Worked (AU Only)
WHEN ANY of the following is true:
Timesheet has one of the following worktypes:
Public Holiday Worked
AND NONE of the following are true:
Timesheet has one of the following worktypes:
Public Holiday Not Worked (PHNW)
Timesheet is a Leave Request
AND ALL of the following are true:
Timesheet matches an above rule with category publicholiday
THEN assign a category phw
Classify Public Holiday Worked otherwise working day (phw_owd) (NZ Only)
WHEN ANY of the following is true:
Timesheet has one of the following worktypes:
Public Holiday Worked - Ordinary Working Day OWD
OPTIONAL
Is within Standard Hours.
If this is set, then standard hours will make a first assumption if something is an OWD, but this requires that standard hours are set accurately for all employees.
It may also potentially mean that all shifts come through as part of Otherwise Working Days if they are generated from rosters with temporary standard hour variations set.
AND NONE of the following are true:
Timesheet has one of the following worktypes:
Public Holiday Not Worked (PHNW)
Public Holiday Worked - Outside Usual Roster - (NOWD)
Timesheet is a Leave Request
AND ALL of the following are true:
Timesheet matches an above rule with category publicholiday
THEN assign a category phw_owd
Classify Public Holiday Worked outside usual roster (phw_nowd) (NZ Only)
WHEN ANY of the following is true:
Timesheet has one of the following worktypes:
Public Holiday Worked - Outside Usual Roster
AND NONE of the following are true:
Timesheet has one of the following worktypes:
Public Holiday Not Worked (PHNW)
Public Holiday Worked - Ordinary Working Day OWD
Timesheet matches an above rule with category phw_owd
Timesheet matches an above rule with category phnw
Timesheet is a Leave Request
AND ALL of the following are true:
Timesheet matches an above rule with category publicholiday
THEN assign a category phw_owd
Pay Public Holiday Worked (AU Only)
WHEN Timesheet matches an above rule with category phw
THEN apply the pay item Public holiday worked
Pay Public Holidays Worked - Ordinary Working day (PHW_OWD) - Pay hours worked @ 1.5 time & accrue 1 alt day. (NZ Only)
WHEN Timesheet matches an above rule with category phw_owd
THEN do Multiple Actions
Apply the pay item Public holiday worked
Apply the pay item Alternative holiday accrual
Pay Public Holidays Worked - Not Otherwise Working Day (PHW_NOWD) (NZ Only)
WHEN Timesheet matches an above rule with category phw_nowd
THEN apply the pay item Public holiday worked
Pay Public Holidays Not Worked (phnw)
WHEN Timesheet matches an above rule with category phnw
THEN apply the pay item Public holiday not worked
Considerations when customising above option for Public Holiday setup:
Public Holidays and overnight shifts.
You may want to change the definition of Public Holidays according to the above rules slightly if you have overnight shift workers, depending on exactly how you treat your public holidays.
Default Public Holiday Worked or default Public Holiday Not Worked.
Which of these is best for your business depends on how your payroll controls work for approving work on public holidays/if your business routinely trades on a public holiday.
If the business does not normally trade during public holidays, you may want to default to not worked.
If your business routinely trades on public holidays, defaulting to worked may be more appropriate.
Otherwise working day considerations (NZ Only)
Due to the complexity oof the tests determining is a true casual employee should otherwise have worked on a day, these determinations need to be made manually. Again whether a worked public holiday should be assumed to be an otherwise working day or not depends on what most closely matches your businesses process/desired level of control by the Payroll team.
Should unpaid leave be excluded from public holidays?
Depending on the type of leave applied for by an employee, and specific business rules, you may want to exclude periods of unpaid leave from public holiday determinations.
Interactions with Overtime and Ordinary Hours calculations
Due to differing treatments of overtime, you may want to calculate ordinary working hours and overtime after classifying public holidays before paying any public holiday items so you can exclude either ordinary hours or overtime from actual public holiday payouts.