Uphando Forensics

Everything You Need To Know About Leave

An employee is entitled to 21 consecutive days annual leave on full pay in every leave cycle. An annual leave cycle is a period of 12 months with the same employer, calculated from the employee’s commencement of employment, or from the completion of that employees previous leave cycle. The entitlement is 21 consecutive days annual leave on full remuneration, in respect of each annual leave cycle, and if an employee works a five-day week then this is equal to 15 working days, or if the employee works a six-day week then it is equal to 18 working days. Whatever number of working days falls within the 21 consecutive days, is the number of working days on full pay that the employee must be granted for annual leave purposes.

Granting Annual Leave

An employee is entitled to take all leave accumulated at any point in their cycle, on consecutive days. In the absence of an agreement to the contrary, annual leave is taken at a time that suits the employer.

An employer may not force/ allow an employee to take annual leave during their notice period prior to termination of employment.

If an employer has a period of annual shutdown, they may stipulate that annual leave has to be taken to coincide with this. If an employee has exhausted their annual leave before this time, the shutdown period may be treated as unpaid leave

Unused Annual Leave

Any unused annual leave may be carried forward to the following 12 month cycle but must be taken within the first 6 months, during which time the employer may not refuse a request to take such leave.

The employee and employer may not agree that unused leave be paid out in lieu of being taken. The only time that unused leave may be paid out is upon the termination of the employee’s service.

Do I get paid during Annual Leave?

An employee must be paid in full during leave.  Leave pay should be paid before the leave starts or on an employee’s normal payday. If an employee leaves the job he/she must be paid for any leave accrued.

Should you require HR assistance please contact Uphando Forensic & HR Services