HR Practice For Payroll Practitioners

HR Practice for Payroll Practitioners

Not returning from parental leave

Employee not returning to work from parental leave If an employee does not return from parental leave, the first day of parental leave becomes their termination date. Any annual holiday entitlement earned after that date would be lost. Any annual holiday entitlement and accrual that was present before the termination date would need to be paid out to the employee in their termination pay. Example: Employee does not return to work from parental leave Hope applies for 52 weeks of extended leave as she has been in the job for 14 months and this has been approved. Forty-nine weeks into her extended leave, she contacts her employer and tells them she won’t be returning.

Extended leave (52 weeks)

49 Weeks

First day of parental leave becomes her termination date.

Anniversary date for 4- weeks’ entitlement

If the employee does not return from parental leave, any entitlement earned while on parental leave is lost, and the termination date becomes the first day of parental leave. Section 46. Failure to return to work If an employee who takes up parental leave and whose position is kept open by the employer — (a) fails, without good cause, to return to work at the end of that period of parental leave; or (b) informs the employer, before the end of that period of parental leave, that the employee has decided not to return to work at the end of the period of parental leave — the employee's employment shall, subject to any agreement between the employer and the employee, be deemed to have been at an end as from the day on which the period of parental leave began.

© New Zealand Payroll Practitioners Association, Sep 2024, Ver 12

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