New Zealand employees (including part-time and casual employees) are entitled to 10 days paid sick leave a year, after the first 6 months of continuous employment and another 10 days sick leave for each 12-month period after that, if they meet certain obligations. For more information, see Sick leave entitlements - Employment New Zealand
Due to this, Sick Leave is generally set up as a Grant of 10 days. Grant type Leave classes use Contract Hours to calculate the number of hours to grant on entitlement. For steps on how to setup Grant Sick Leave classes for New Zealand refer to New Zealand - Sick Leave for NZ employees.
For employees who work varying hours you will need to attach a Contract Hours to the Pay Details of their employee record. As an example, you could attach the Contract Hours based on the average hours worked for the employee.
When an employee takes a day of Sick Leave and their work day hours are more or less than the Hours Per Day in their Contract Hours, there are two options for processing:
Enter Sick Leave and Other Leave with paid or unpaid Leave Reasons so that the employee is paid for the correct number of hours but the Sick Leave is reduced by one day based on the Contract Hours
Enter the number of hours you need to pay for Sick Leave and then once the pay is complete manually adjust the Sick Leave balance, so that it is reduced by one day based on the Contract Hours.
Option One - Transaction
In this option, the hours entered in the transaction will reduce leave balance based on Contract Hours per Day. As an example, an employee has contact hours of 5.33 hours per day and 3 days per week. The employee is granted 10 days leave, or 53.33 hours.
If the work day was 4 hours, you would enter the below on a transaction:
4 hours of Sick Leave using a paid Sick Leave Reason
1.33 hours of Sick Leave using an unpaid Sick Leave Reason
The employee will be paid for 4 hours but their leave balance will be reduced by 5.33 hours (or 1 day). This will appear in Leave Taken.
If the work day was 8 hour day, you would enter the below on a transaction:
5.33 hours of Sick Leave using a paid Sick Leave Reason
2.67 hours of Other Leave using a paid Leave Reason
The employee will be paid for 8 hours but their leave balance will be reduced by 5.33 hours (or 1 day). This will appear in Leave Taken.
Option Two - Manual Adjustment
In this option, the hours entered in the transaction will reduce leave balance based on keyed hours and will be manually adjusted.
If the work day was 4 hours, you would:
Enter 4 hours of Sick Leave using a paid Sick Leave Reason on the transaction
Then manually increase the Leave Taken on the employee record by 1.33 hours
The employee will be paid for 4 hours but their leave balance will be reduced by 5.33 hours (or 1 day).
If the work day was 8 hours day, you would:
Enter 8 hours of Sick Leave using a paid Sick Leave Reason on the transaction
Then manually decrease the Leave Taken on the employee record by 2.67 hours
The employee will be paid for 8 hours but their leave balance will be reduced by 5.33 hours (or 1 day).