Setting up and using Family and Domestic Violence Leave in your foundU platform
From February 1st 2023, a new Family and Domestic Violence leave policy will come into effect. This policy allows employees to access 10 days of paid Family and Domestic Violence leave every 12 months. When employees can access this leave from your business depends on the size of your business. For example:
- 1 February 2023 - for Employees of non-small business employers (employers with 15 or more employees as of 1 February 2023).
- 1 August 2023 - for Employees of small business employers (employers with less than 15 employees on 1 February 2023).
Key points for Family and Domestic Violence Leave
There are a few key points to be on top of with this new policy as it differs from any other Leave type in your system.
- The 10 paid days of leave renews every year on each employee's work anniversary. It doesn’t accumulate from year to year if it isn’t used.
- All employees, including part-time and casual employees, can access the leave.
- Employers need to keep a record of leave balances and any leave taken by employees.
Important Payslip requirements
Warning: It is required that no evidence of Family and Domestic Violence leave should be reported as per the payslip requirements to reduce the risk to an employee’s safety when accessing paid Family and Domestic Violence leave.
- As a result, you should not set this up as a Leave type, (this was released as an amendment to the policy on Feb 4th, 2023). Instead, pay employees at their full rate of pay for the hours that they would have worked had they not been on leave.
In the below guide, we cover our recommendations for handling all of the above with the features of your platform. We will cover:
- How to pay the employee as per the payslip requirements that won't show a record of them being on any Leave.
- Recommendations of where you may like to record the Family and Domestic Violence Leave redeemed by employees
- Determining when an employee can access more leave using your platform.
Tip: Fair Work has said that this new policy will be reviewed in 12 months' time. To keep up to date with updates on Family and Domestic Violence Leave, please be sure to subscribe to the Fair Work email updates.
From the dates this policy comes into effect for your business, all employees (casual, p/t and f/t) will be entitled to the use of full 10 days of Family and Domestic Violence leave upfront (meaning it doesn't accumulate over time).
Once an employee lets you know they need to access this leave, you can initiate the next part of the process:
- Keep a record of the leave balance and any leave taken by the employee. See the suggested options below.
- Pay the employee as they would have normally been paid had they been working by adding the relevant line items onto their payslip.
- In the scenario that HR receives the request from the employee, please consider an internal process and communication with duty managers to ensure they know the employee is not working but to approve shifts as normal.
To ensure the payslips requirements are kept in line with the employee's privacy and safety, there is no requirement to:
- Have a dedicated leave type for Family and Domestic Violence leave
- No leave type should be applied by the employee or to the employee by the admin.
Record-keeping options to store confidential information
Employers need to keep a record of leave balances and any leave taken by the employee. How you do this is up to your business. You may like to:
- Use the Employee Records area of the Employee's profile to make a confidential note on an employee's profile in foundU, and record the amount of leave taken, or
- A record-keeping procedure outside of foundU
Warning: We would not recommend using the Employee Comments section on the right-hand side of the profile as it is more visible in the Profile.
Tip: The visibility on this page is restricted by the permission 'Access employee records'. Employees cannot see these records, however, please consider the employee's privacy with any notes you make here.
When an employee needs to take Family and Domestic Violence Leave, you will need to pay them exactly as they would be paid had they been working. This is to ensure that the employee is not worse off for having taken time off, as well as to ensure the employee's safety if anyone were to view their payslip.
- As per the policy, an employer will pay employees at their full rate of pay for the hours that they would have worked had they not been on leave. This includes:
- Incentive-based payments and bonuses
- Loadings
- Monetary allowances
- Overtime or penalty rates
The recent changes to this policy shortly after it was released can be viewed in the screenshot below.
The easiest and simplest way to pay an employee as if they had worked it to do just that:
- Roster and Approve the employee's shifts as per normal
- If they are salaried - simply allow the automation to pay them
- Alternatively, if you like you can use the Award test- Real Timesheet option to determine what they would have been paid and add the relevant line items to their payslip.
- If the employee doesn't have shifts (Ie. the leave is well into the future), you can Create a Scenario to see an employee's estimated pay for a specific group of shifts
An employee's access to Family and Domestic Violence leave renews every year on each employee's work anniversary. Any leave from the remaining years does not accumulate if it isn’t used.
It will be likely that they will use this leave for multiple years, as employees have the right to use this leave type for items like:
- counselling,
- court hearings and
- attending police services
Tip: Regardless of when this policy is implemented in your business, it will always renew on the employee's start date. For example, if Gemma started on July 1, 2020. Gemma will have access to the full 10 days as of February 1, 2023 (when the policy begins), and her access to the new Family and Domestic Violence Leave would renew on July 1, 2023. More examples from Fair Work can be found here.
To manage when an employee can access this renewed amount, keep an eye on the employee's start date on the card in their profile.
If the employee needs to access more Leave of this type after their anniversary date, the admin can add a note to the Employee profile > Employee Records, and make a note of their new balance of hours.