It’s the middle of winter and for many the thought of a tropical island holiday is the only thing that keeps them getting out of bed on these chilly and bleak mornings.   We know that all full-time employees receive four weeks annual leave per year with part time employees receiving the pro-rated equivalent.  Now Virgin, Netflix and Melbourne-based Inventium have all upped the ante and now offer unlimited annual leave – should you?

Sally is sick. Really sick.  Sally can’t come to work and has now run out of sick leave entitlements.  Sally doesn’t know when she’ll be back at work, so you’re scratching your head wondering ‘what do I do now’?  Sally is one of your customer service team who are drastically under the pump now with a key employee missing from their team…. Sally calls to say that she has to have surgery.  Sally now has complications with her surgery and won’t be back at work for the foreseeable future….. Sally is really sorry.


We hear you screaming from here! It’s frustrating and really hard to keep your business operating at optimal      levels.  Customer service levels are being impacted and the rest of the team are feeling overworked…  To get a temp up to speed will take time and money which will be a lost investment when they are no longer needed.  Sally is still employed so you can’t just replace her.  Or can you?

One fine Tuesday morning, George doesn’t show up for work.  There’s no phone call, email or text message to advise he won’t be in so by 10:30 am, you try contacting him.  There’s no answer so you leave a message.  You also try calling his next of kin as advised on his HR file but they don’t respond either.  Further attempts are made over the course of the next three days to contact George but you still don’t know where he is or if he is coming back.  You have a business to run and you need people to either show up for their rostered hours or advise that they need to utilise some of their personal leave.  So what can you do?

​An employee has just approached you with a request to ‘cash out’ a portion of their annual leave.  Roger doesn’t want to take the time off – he just wants the cold, hard cash in this instance.  He’s got seven weeks up his sleeve and he’s requested to cash in one week of his accrued annual leave.  Do you want to agree to this request and are you obligated to sign off on Roger’s request?