Have your staff leave accruals blown out over the course of this year? Many businesses choose to have a close down at some point during the year and often it is over the Christmas and New Year’s period.
This helps manage the overflow of increased leave accrual, and ensures your staff get a decent break.

We recommend that businesses should start thinking of whether they should implement a forced closure at the end of the year to provide a period of rest and relaxation for their employees and as a means to recharge them for the new year.

A business closure will also serve as a useful opportunity to reduce annual leave liabilities within the business that may have increased as a direct result of employees cancelling their holidays and annual leave requests during 2020.

Information on directing employees to use their annual leave during a shutdown can be found in a Modern Award or registered Agreement but generally the rule of thumb is to provide at last four weeks’ notice to employees that this will take place.

It is also important to consider the length of this shut down and also, will there be a need for some employees to still remain as part of a skeletal team to ensure client/customer needs are met?