Pay your staff correctly over Christmas

Here comes the Christmas/post-Christmas/New Year rush! And with the silly season comes a whole stack of confusion over salaries – who gets what, on which day?

Public holidays
This one can get confusing because many business owners believe that if a business is closed, their staff aren’t entitled to be paid for days not worked. However, according to the Fair Work Ombudsman, this isn’t the case. For example, with Christmas falling on a Friday this year, your salon will likely be closed. However, any staff that usually works on a Friday but is at home due to the closure, will need to be paid for the public holiday. 
However, if an employee is taking unpaid leave at the time of the public holiday, they won’t be entitled to be paid for it.
If your salon is open on a public holiday, both full-time and casual employees are entitled to 250% of their regular hourly pay.

Annual leave loading
Under the Hair and Beauty Industry Award 2010 employees are entitled to be paid an annual leave loading of 17.5% during a period of annual leave.

Shut down
If your salon is going to be shutting down for a break after the rush, employees will still need to apply for leave to cover this period. Once they have applied, you need to approve their request.
If staff members don’t have enough leave to cover the time period, you have the option to allow them to go into negative leave or ask them to take leave without pay.

Visit the #BEAUTYSTRONG hub at https://professionalbeauty.go-vip.net/beautystrong/

For more news and updates, subscribe to our weekly newsletter

Back to top