What you need to know
After an employee has been working for you for six months, they're legally entitled to at least 10 days of paid sick leave a year.
You must do the following:
- Allow employees to accumulate up to 20 days of sick leave. This means employees can carry over 10 days of unused sick leave into the next year.
- Allow employees to use sick leave to care for a sick or injured spouse, partner, dependent child or any other dependent individual.
- Pay a sick employee what they’d get if they’d worked a normal day, including bonuses and overtime.
You can do the following:
- Let employees take sick leave in advance if they’ve worked for you for less than six months.
- Choose to let employees carry over extra sick leave, beyond the 20-day requirement from year to year.
- Offer more than 10 days of paid sick leave a year.
Every employee would be entitled to 10 days of sick leave each year (if they qualify) regardless of working pattern.
Taking sick leave in advance
Steve has been working at Toni’s Hair Salon for five weeks when he catches the mumps. He can’t come to work but isn’t yet eligible for sick leave.
Toni gives Steve the option of taking annual or sick leave in advance, or taking unpaid leave. Because Steve wants to save his annual leave for a family trip to Australia, he opts to take his future sick leave. Toni also asks for a doctor’s certificate. As Steve has been sick for less than three days, Toni must foot the bill for this.
If an employee is injured
If an employee gets injured at work, they don’t need to take sick leave. Once the accident is registered with ACC and they’ve acknowledged it, you must pay your injured employee at least 80% of their normal wages for the first week off work.
If an employee gets injured outside of work, they can choose to take:
- sick leave for the first week they’re off work
- annual leave or leave without pay.
After the first week, ACC will pay them 80% of their usual salary while off work.
Injured employees can ask you to pay them one day of sick leave each week if they want to and they have the sick leave available. You have no other obligation to pay them while they’re on ACC, but if your employee returns to work on part-time duties, you may need to make a contribution towards their salary.
Asking for doctor’s certificates
You can ask for a doctor’s certificate:
- after an employee has been sick or injured for three consecutive days
- before they've been sick or injured for three consecutive days, but only if you cover the cost of getting the certificate.
Your employee can choose which doctor they'd like to see.
If they can't provide a doctor's certificate or other proof that they're really sick, you don't have to pay them for their sick leave.
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