Easter is almost upon us and we are surrounded by Public Holidays. This is our second of three short weeks in a row! Lovely for family time but not so good for the economy.
Many of you have been asking about Public Holiday Pay - do you need to pay the employee for the day if they work or don't work and what do you need to pay them. Let me clarify for you:
If the public holiday happens to be the employee's normal working day:
• The employee is entitled to be paid a minimum of double his normal wage for the day if he does work on that Public Holiday.
• He is entitled to be paid his normal wage rate for the day if he does not work on that public holiday
If the public holiday happens to be on a day that is NOT the employee's normal working day:
• The employer must pay that employee a minimum of his ordinary daily wage rate, plus the amount earned by the employee for the work done on that day.
Let's use Good Friday as an example and assume your team normally work a 40 hour week (Monday to Friday 8 hours per day)
If your employee does not work on this Good Friday he will still get paid for 40 hours for that week.
If your employee does work on this Good Friday he will get paid 40 hours for the week plus an additional 8 hours for working on the Public Holiday. A total of 48 hours pay for the week.
If Friday is NOT a normal working day for an employee and he is required for some reason to work on Good Friday then he would be paid his normal weekly wage plus 8 hours for the day (ie his ordinary daily wage) plus 8 hours (for the work done on the day). A total of 56 hours for the week.
With night shift workers, part of the work may be done on an ordinary day and part on a public holiday (after midnight). The day on which the majority of the shift is on is the day you use when determining whether public holiday pay is applicable. For example if the shift worked by the employee falls on a public holiday and another day (such as night shift on Easter Monday - the shift is partly Easter Monday, and partly Tuesday which is not a public holiday) then if the greater part of the shift was worked on the public holiday, the whole shift is deemed to have been worked on the public holiday. If the greater part of the shift falls on the Tuesday, then the whole shift is deemed to have been worked on the Tuesday.
Any payment for work done on public holidays must be paid to the employee on his usual payday. You may also consider an exchange of a public holiday for time off in lieu another day, by agreement with the employee.
News submitted by Jean Allen HR Consulting.