Rebecca Harris is the General Manager

Cashing out annual leave

It seemed like an ok(ish) idea at the time when four weeks annual leave was announced. Good for employees in that they have more opportunity to refresh and enhance their work/life balance which clearly is now at the top of employees’ priorities lists.

The impact of four weeks annual leave has been huge on us this year. It took a while to figure out why we were running round chasing our tails, not getting far and also “feeling” understaffed. The writing was on the wall even prior to the disruption of the September quake.

Even though we close down for two weeks and statutory holidays over the Christmas period the impact of the remaining leave owing on, for example a 12-person department, is that potentially every second week of the year they will be one person down.  

This, especially during the colder months, coupled with the increases in bugs flying around air conditioned offices and (what appears to be) lower immune systems results in increased sick leave, making our temporary staff and short term contract expenses go through the roof. Never in my 12 years with this group of companies have we had so many temporary staff.

And, might I add (in case you didn’t think about it already) this skyrocketing expense is on top of paying the staff to not be here! Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying at all that employees shouldn’t be entitled to this amount of leave. (I’m an employee myself and need this amount of leave myself especially after a year of worrying about this stuff.) What I’m saying is, and it has been said before, not much consideration of the expense to businesses was given at the time of the decision.

Even a little more flexibility to cash out annual leave (if requested), rather than taking the actual time off would be a really big help. As I understand it, the proposed Holidays Amendment Bill provides for this. Having passed through its first reading and now with the select committee, if passed the bill will come into force on April 1, 2011. Personally, I can’t wait!

This decision will take the pressure off the extra expense of hiring additional staff to sit in all the empty chairs. Next step is to then try and deal with the hygiene and the winter coughs, colds and runny noses.

You can only tell people so many times to put their hands over their mouths, use hankies and wash their hands, but whether they do it or not is a different story. I see three and four year olds who are more adept at coughing into their bent arms than most adults, who should understand and know better.

Talking with other employers, it’s pretty common for the first thing mentioned when a cold goes around the office for the company to cough up (excuse the pun) and provide sanitisers or flu shots. Better yet, why don’t we wrap everyone up in cotton wool. Some things just can’t be controlled!

Here’s hoping the decision is made early in the year for the cash out of annual leave, and that the flu season doesn’t give us a double dose as it appeared to this year! It would be nice to be able to function normally next year, with the required level of staff!

See ya 2010 — it’s been a blast!

Bring on 2011.