..

Employees can ask to cash-up up to one week of their four weeks’ minimum entitlement to annual holidays each year.

Employees can ask their employer to pay out in cash, up to one week of their four weeks’ minimum entitlement to annual holidays per year for each entitlement year. They can do this all at once, or can make multiple requests to cash-up until the entire one week is cashed up.

An employer can’t:

• pressure an employee into cashing up holidays
• raise it in wage or salary negotiations
• make cash up a condition of employment
• put a cash up request into an employment agreement, but can include the process for making a request.

Requests to cash up annual holidays

Annual holidays can’t be cashed-up unless the employee asks in writing and has completed 12 months employment. Employees may request to cash-up less than a week at a time and can make more than one request until a maximum of one week of the employee’s minimum annual holidays is paid out in each entitlement year.

For example, an employee with an anniversary date of 1 June can ask that up to one week’s holiday that they become entitled to on 1 June be paid out. Their request can be made at any point in the entitlement year that runs from 1 June to 31 May the following year.

An employer:

• must consider a cash up request within a reasonable time,
• may say no,
• must inform the employee in writing,
• doesn’t have to give a reason for their decision.

An employer can have a workplace policy that covers all or part of the workplace. This policy can state that they don’t have to consider requests for annual holidays cash up. If that is the case, then the above doesn’t apply.  Also consider what effect agreeing to cashing up leave can have on your cashflow.

Read the full article from Employment NZ 

Contact the Ontrack team for more information.