Long service leave at half pay

Mary_7034598

How do I pay LSL at half pay on Hosted payroll? Full-time employee wants to take 2 days per week at half pay while working 3 days at full-time rate.

Acctd4

Leave values are time-based rather than amount - Employee will still be using the same quantity (hrs) of their LSL regardless, so it should be paid at their normal hourly rate.

Kris_Williams

@Shaz - if he wants to take it at half pay and such extend the time it takes to use his LSL, would he not just be paid for 4 hours a day at the full rate instead of 8 hours a day. Just thinking of what happened when my husband retired and he did the same thing

Mary_7034598

Employee is entitled to take LSL at half pay and thus extend the time. My problem is that payroll won't allow me to enter different rates for Salary and LSL. If I try paying full rate but halve the hours as Kris suggested the lrave accruals will not calculate correctly. Employee should accrue holiday, personal and LSL while on leave.

Mary_7034598

• Sorry, that should read *leave

Kris_Williams

but shouldn't he only accrue leave on his normal hours, not on his LSL?

Mary_7034598

Fair Work Ombudsman site says:

Annual leave accumulates when an employee is on:

• paid leave such as:
  • paid annual leave
  • paid sick and carer's leave
  • paid family and domestic violence leave
• community service leave including jury duty
• long service leave.

Kris_Williams

yes I was just reading up on that, I see your dilemma. How are you accruing AL on LSL at the moment, per hour?

Mary_7034598

I haven't had anyone take LSL before so I haven't set that up

Kris_Williams

so you will have to setup a pay rate called LSL and enter the employees balance to start with I think. Still thinking about the next step😜

I would think that it would accrue leave at the same rate as normal hours, but when he takes 8 hours of annual leave you will only enter 4 hours

Acctd4

Hmm … I've not come across anyone doing that before. Maybe it's not so common here in WA - Is there specific legislation that references utilising only half LSL at half pay ? 🤔

Unfortunately, the way the program is configured, it doesn't allow for this scenario automatically 😬

Kris_Williams

my husband did that when he retired from the railways, took half pay so he continued to get paid for 2 years, and as a result accumulated further leave whilst off for that time

Acctd4

Is LSL already set up & being tracked within the program ?

Mary_7034598

LSL is not currently tracked but that is not my issue. I can set that up. I need to know how to get payroll to pay LSL at adifferent rate to salary. I have items for Salary, Holiday salary, Personal salary, LSL etc. but it won't accept different rates.

Kris_Williams

that seems strange, did you try setting up as an hourly rate. Might have something to do with the fact that you are using a Salary item. Shaz will be able to answer this I think

Acctd4

OK - I've thought about it & it will still work …

You need to set it up as an Hourly Payroll Item though - not Salary - in order to specify your own rate.

All other leave entitlements will accrue as normal eg if you pay an employee for 4 hours (instead of 8) LSL at half pay, they will still accrue all leave on those 4 hours ☺️

Mary_7034598

Thanks Kris & Shaz, new hourly items seem to be the answer. I will need to check accruals though - if I pay at half rate I will need to pay for 8 hours

Acctd4

I was they they were only going to be using half their accrual (eg only being paid for 4 instead of 8) but the full hours is much better system-wise ☺️

Kris_Williams

I think if he's only taking half the LSL you should be paying him 4 hours at the full rate, otherwise how can you track what he has left? I'm still scratching my head a little

Acctd4

Yep, I think Kris makes a good point - 4 hrs @ full rate will equate to the same monetary amount as 8 hrs @ half rate, but for the purpose of accurately tracking leave, the required amount of hours needs to be used in order to decrease as intended.