Personal Leave, Sick Leave, Compassionate Leave understanding leave types

Understanding Annual and Personal Leave

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If you’re employed full-time or part-time you are entitled to Personal and Annual leave and they’re accrued as hours on our payslips. Let’s find out what these leave types are:

Annual leave

Annual leave, sometimes called holiday pay, allows (full-time and part-time) employees to take paid time off work to go on holiday and enjoy time away from work.

The National Employment Standards (NES) demands that employers give full-time and part-time employees at least 4 weeks of paid annual leave each year, based on their normal work hours. In some cases, employers may give employees more annual leave, which will be laid out in their employment contract or leave policy.

Most full-time workers get 4 weeks of paid annual leave for every 12 months of work. Part-time employees are also entitled to 4 weeks annual leave but paid on a pro rata basis. Casual workers aren’t generally entitled to annual leave. Instead of getting annual leave, casual workers are paid a casual loading on their hourly rate in addition to their normal rate of pay.

Employees can be entitled to an extra week of paid annual leave on top of this if they:

  • regularly work shifts on Sundays and public holidays
  • work for a business that operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

When employment ends, employers have to pay their employee for any unused annual leave they’ve accumulated during their employment.

Personal/Sick leave

Personal leave can be both paid and unpaid. Personal leave is also covered by the NES, which sets the minimum leave conditions for most employers in Australia.

According to NES laws and guidelines:

  • Full-time employees are entitled to at least 10 days of paid personal leave for each year of continuous service.
  • Part-time employees and permanent staff working variable hours are entitled to a pro rata amount of paid personal leave (based on 1/26th of the employee’s ordinary work hours per year).

While an employee is free to take annual leave for any reason, personal leave will only be approved under certain circumstances. Valid reasons for an employee taking personal leave include:

  • They are unfit for work and need to recover from a personal illness or injury.
  • They need to care for or support a member of their immediate family, dependant or household because of an illness, injury or unexpected emergency.

If an employee is sick or injured while on annual leave, the employee can use their paid sick or carer’s leave entitlement instead of using their annual leave. The employer can still request the employee provide notice and evidence when taking sick or carer’s leave while on annual leave. In the opposite circumstance, an employer can’t direct an employee to take annual leave while they’re taking sick or carer’s leave.

For those who are casuals or contractors, the Victorian government is currently trialling a sick leave program for casual and contract workers in certain industries. The pilot will run until 13 March 2025.

Compassionate and Bereavement Leave

All employees, including casuals, are entitled to 2 days of compassionate and bereavement leave in the event that they or a member of their immediate family or household:

  • Suffers a life-threatening illness or injury
  • Dies
  • Has a miscarriage or a stillborn

Full-time and part-time employees receive paid compassionate leave in addition to their accrued personal leave entitlements. Casual employees receive unpaid compassionate leave unless their agreement or contract allows for paid leave.

For more information about the leave types fairwork.gov.au are an excellent resource or feel free to contact us at STS Accounting. Please keep in mind we are not HR/Payroll specialists, the information is general in nature and you should seek specialist advice if unsure of your obligations.