Casual leave entitlements

When managing leave entitlements for casual employees, it's important to examine the setup of your existing leave types first.

Unlike permanent employees, who can be assigned any leave entitlement, casual employees are treated differently. You can choose which leave entitlements are eligible for your casuals, limiting which entitlements can be assigned to their profiles. This way, you can ensure that leave types not intended for casuals are not assigned to them! 

Below we have a few use cases:

• Annual Leave - This leave type can be added to the profiles of any permanent employee if necessary. However, since casual employees do not accrue Annual Leave, you have the option to make this entitlement unavailable for them, meaning it cannot be added to their employee profiles. 
• Long Service Leave - This leave type can be added to any permanent employee's profile if needed. However,  as casual employees can accrue Long Service Leave, you will need to check that the entitlement has been set up so it can be applied to casual employee profiles. 

  This section will review the key settings required to make a leave entitlement accessible for casual employees. If you are adding a new leave entitlement or would like to examine the settings for an existing one, please refer to our article Leave Entitlements.
 

To make a leave type available for casuals:

1. Navigate to the main Payroll Settings > Leave Configuration.
2. From this page, you can either:
   • Create a new leave entitlement - This is preferred when you need an entitlement that isn't currently in your platform, or if it currently exists as an unpaid entitlement and needs a paid version.
     • To do so, select Add New. 
   • Edit an existing entitlement - If your permanent employees are already using your entitlement and just needs to be updated for casual employees.
     • To do so, locate the required leave entitlement, then select the edit (pencil) icon > Edit entitlement.
       
         Warning: If you've saved a leave entitlement as non-paid leave, you can't change it to paid leave. If you need to make this update, the best option is to create a new paid leave entitlement. 
3. Review all leave settings to ensure they apply for both casual and permanent employees. This can include:
   • Title of Leave type
   • Reportable as leave liability
   • As well as Payslip settings
     
       If you want to know more about these settings and how to update them, check out our Leave Entitlements article here. 
4. To make the leave entitlement available for casuals, update the setting:
   • Leave type can be assigned to a casual employee - Turn the toggle On.
5. When adding or updating an unpaid leave entitlement, you will have 2 extra settings available. To enable them, turn their toggle to On. These settings include: 
   • Apply to New Casual employees - This will allow the leave entitlement to appear as one of the default leave entitlements when assigning to employee profiles.
   • Apply to Existing Casual employees - This will apply the leave entitlement to all casual employees in your platform. 
6. To save, select Save.

Casual employees can be assigned leave entitlements at any point in their employment. However, the method of assigning these entitlements depends on whether the employee currently has any positions.

Let's explore both methods below: 

• For new employees - If a profile has no positions or leave entitlements assigned, you'll be prompted to add entitlements when adding a new position during the workflow. This is an optional part of the workflow.
• For current employees - You can assign leave entitlements directly from their profiles without using the position workflow, provided the employee has at least 1 position on their profile. 

  Please note: Leave entitlements will start accruing from the first pay period in which they are assigned to an employee's profile; remember to reprocess any draft payslips. Balances will not be backdated to the start of employment.

If you are adding a non-paid leave entitlement, you can add it to all employee profiles in bulk. Please refer to the 'Configuring entitlement types for casual employees' section above for further details. 
 

To add leave entitlements to a casual employee:

1. Locate the relevant Employee Profile via Approved People or the global search bar.
2. Navigate to the Employee Card > Employment Type and select + Entitlement.
3. For this step, you will set the details for where the leave entitlement will accrue against and the pay rate it will be paid from (if it's a paid leave entitlement). To do this, update the following fields:
   • Operation - Select the operation to which the leave should be costed when it is redeemed. 
   • Position - Select the appropriate position for paying the employee's leave. The pay will be based on the base rate for that position. 
   • Location - Select the relevant location. 
4. Add and review your entitlements:
   • Unpaid leave entitlements can appear automatically on this page. This will depend on whether the entitlement type has the 'Apply to New Casual employees' setting turned On in its set-up.
     • If no additional entitlements are required, you can proceed to the final step. 
   • To add any additional or paid entitlements, you can select them from the Select Entitlement field. 
     • Review and update any relevant details (e.g Accrued Amount). 
     • Then select Add & Review Entitlement.
5. To save, select Save.

Once casual employees have been assigned their leave entitlements, they can request leave at any time through their Employee App.

The leave application process for casuals is slightly different, as they do not have a defined work pattern in their positions. When applying for leave, they need to specify the amount of hours per day they wish to take off. 

  For the full guide on how your casual employee can submit a leave application from their Employee App, please refer to our employee article Applying for Leave (Casual Employees).

Once an application has been submitted, just like permanent employees, it requires approval by an Admin User from Time & Attendance > Time Off.

  The process for approving casual leave applications is the same regardless of employment type. Please refer to our article on Manage and Approve Leave / Time Off for further details. 

When I try to assign a casual employee specific leave entitlements, they don't show up in the list.

When setting up a leave type, you can choose whether it applies to casual employees. This choice ensures that only the entitlements available to casual can be assigned.

If a leave type is not visible in the list, it means that it hasn't been made available to casual employees. To resolve this, the leave type will need to be updated. For more details, please refer to the 'Configuring entitlement types for casual employees' section above.

Why do I have to specify a position when adding leave entitlements or when ending a current position?

Since casual employees do not have a primary position, you will need to specify a position to apply for all leave entitlements.

Once set up, this position is then used to determine the pay rate for paid leave and specifies which operation and cost center the leave should be costed for financial reporting.

Can leave entitlements be added, updated, or removed for casual employees in bulk?

When setting up unpaid leave entitlements, you can select to apply them to all casual employees in bulk.

However, for paid leave, updating or removing entitlements for casuals, this is unable to be done in bulk, even through the Employee Entitlements import. This is because when you assign leave to a casual employee, you must select a specific position to apply for all leave entitlements.

To add, update, or remove a leave entitlement for a casual employee, the changes must be made via their profile > Employee Card > Employment Type.

  For more details on editing and deleting leave entitlements from an employee's profile, please refer to the Leave Entitlements article.

Can I assign a leave entitlement to 2 locations? Can I assign different entitlements to different positions? 

Unfortunately not. When you add leave entitlements to a profile, you can only select 1 operation, position, and location. These selections will apply to all leave entitlements added to that profile.

What happens when I change a permanent employee to casual?

When changing a position from permanent to casual, you will be prompted to action any leave entitlements. When this occurs, there are 3 options:

• Pay Out - This will pay out the leave balance on the employee's final payslip for their permanent position.
• Carry Over - The leave entitlement will continue accruing in the new casual position. This option can only be selected if the leave entitlement can be assigned to casuals.
• Delete - This will delete the leave entitlement at the end date of their permanent position.

  For further reading on transitioning employees from permenant to casual please refer to our article Change an employee's Employment Type.

I have added a new paid leave entitlement to a casual employee. Will the balance backdate to the start of their employment?

Whenever you add a leave entitlement to an employee's profile, it begins accruing from the current pay period.

We typically recommend adding any paid leave entitlements during the recruitment process so they can start accruing right away! If that's not done, you'll need to calculate the leave balance and update the employee's profile accordingly.

Why would I use LWOP for my casuals instead of using the availability feature?

When using availability, only once-off requests require approval by an admin team. Instead, you may prefer to have all casual time off require approval, so using an unpaid leave type (such as LWOP) may be preferred.

Additionally, you can benefit from having all your leave requests appear on the same page, making them easier to manage. However, this is a business choice, so choose which option better suits your needs.

  Contact us: If you would like to discuss your options, please reach out to our support team.

Why am I being prompted to add leave entitlements when I assign positions to my casual employees?

Casual employees can be assigned leave entitlements at any point in their employment. However, the method of assigning these entitlements depends on whether the employee currently has any positions.

• If a profile has no positions or leave entitlements assigned, you'll be prompted to add entitlements when adding a new position during the workflow. This is an optional part of the workflow.
• If a profile has at least 1 position, you can assign leave entitlements directly from their profiles without using the position workflow.