Long service leave

When looking at the Leave Entitlements in your platform, you might notice that by default, there are three Long Service Leave types. This is due to the lack of consistent rules for Long Service Leave across States and Territories. 

For example, employees are only eligible for pro-rata LSL after 7 years in Queensland, versus 5 years in New South Wales. 

To help you manage this on your platform, we have provided three customisable entitlement types. Let us break these down for you below. 

  Hot tip: You can customise the title of each Long Service Leave entitlement and the accrued rate to suit your state's conditions and compliance. Refer to our section below to learn more about how to do that. 

When your platform is first created, it will be set up with the following three entitlements:

• Long Service Leave (Under 10 years) - This entitlement is intended for new employees of your business who have not yet been employed long enough to qualify for pro-rata LSL. It is set up to accrue in the background, and as a result, employees cannot do the following:
  • See this leave type or their accrued hours in their Employee App
  • Apply to use this leave
  • View their accrued balance on their payslip
• Long Service Leave (Over 10 years) - This entitlement is designed for employees who have been employed with your business long enough to qualify for pro-rata LSL. It is configured to be visible to employees, allowing them to:
  • View their accrued hours in their Employee App and on their payslip
  • Apply to use this for leave
• Long Service Leave (Over 15 years) - This entitlement is intended for employees who have been with your business long enough to qualify for LSL while it is accruing. It is configured to be visible to employees, allowing them to:
  • View their accrued hours in their Employee App and on their payslip
  • Apply to use this for leave

If you need to edit or update your Long Service Leave entitlements, you can easily do so from the Leave Configuration page. Reasons to update your entitlements include:

• Changing the entitlement name
• Adjusting the accrual rate
• Enabling or disabling the entitlement balance view for employees
• Applying variables like Work Cover or Leave Loading

  For further information on how to adjust these items, take a look at our comprehensive guide on Leave Entitlements!

Once you have your Long Service Leave entitlements set up according to your state's requirements, you can assign these to your employee profiles. While many industries find it challenging to retain long-term staff, some, like building and construction, still require tracking employees' entitlement accruals, as they may qualify for Portable Long Service Leave.

  Hot tip: Due to the above, we recommend that you apply a Long Service Leave entitlement to all employee profiles, regardless of whether they remain in your employment for only a short time.

There are two ways you can apply your entitlement, these are either:

• Individually from the employee's profile
• In bulk from the Leave Configuration page

  Please note: Leave entitlements can only be applied in bulk to permanent employees. For further information, take a look at our section on applying entitlements individually or in bulk.

If you ever realise that you may have missed applying Long Service Leave or any other entitlements to an employee's profile, don't worry! These small mistakes often occur, and there is a straightforward way to resolve them.

To do this, you will need to multiply the total ordinary hours (including leave paid) for your employee across their lifespan in your platform by your accrual rate.

For example, if your employees' total ordinary hours are 389, and your accrual rate is 0.0166, the calculation and total accrued value to add is: 389 x 0.0166 = 6.4574 hours accrued

There are 2 methods to find and calculate the total ordinary hours for your employees:

• Advanced Payroll Activity Report (APAR) - When using this report, first apply Filters to locate only the affected employees. Then, set the following options before exporting your report:
  • Duration - Set to "All Data".
  • Group by - Choose to group by "Employee ID" and "Line Item".
• Generated Payslip Export - When using this export, first apply Filters and select the affected employees. Then either clear the date selector to view all payslips or set the date range to the start of employment through the current pay period. When exporting from Generated Payslips, ensure you select these items:
  • Employee ID
  • Employee Full Name
  • Total Ordinary Hours (Incl. Entitlement) - If your employees do not accrue Long Service Leave or any other leave entitlement while on leave, you can select to export only Total Ordinary Hours instead. 

Please note: With both exports, you will still need to perform some manual calculations or apply a formula in your CSV file to determine the total ordinary hours and leave. 

Once any of your employees reach that employment milestone and are now eligible to view and apply for their Long Service Leave, you will need to ensure their balance is transferred to the correct entitlement type. 

To help you stay notified when you need to update your employees' entitlements, use the Communication Content below. 

• Significant Employee Milestone - Update this template to specify the number of years from an employee's start date before it is triggered.

To move an employee's accruals over:

1. First, navigate to the employee's profile by using the search bar to find them.

2. From the employee's overview page, navigate to Employee Card > Employment Type, scroll down and select + Entitlement.
   
     Hot tip: Don't forget to note down the employee's current balance to be transferred, as you may not be able to see it when actioning this. 

   

3. From the drop-down, select the Long Service Leave entitlement you wish to update their accruals to. In the Accrued Amount field, enter the employee's current balance total.

   

4. Select Add & Review Entitlement, then Save to add the entitlement to the employee's profile.

5. Find the original entitlement on the employee's profile, select the pencil edit icon.  Then Delete from profile > Delete. This will remove the no longer needed entitlement from the employee's profile and prevent it from accruing hours.

   

  Hot tip: You can view a history of these changes in the Leave Activity & Balance Reports.