Rostered Days Off

Rostered Days Off are where an employer and employee agree that the employee will regularly work additional hours each pay period in order to accrue hours that can later be taken as rostered days off.

For example, an employee may work 40 hours per week instead of 38 hours in order to have an RDO every 4 weeks.

The additional 2 work hours are not paid when worked, instead being accrued and then paid when the RDO is taken. This ensures that the employee still receives a full standard pay when they take an RDO.

RDO Earnings Type

To set up Rostered Days Off for an employee, first create a new Earnings Type called “Rostered Days Taken” (this will be used on the pay run when an employee takes an RDO).

Select System > Earnings from the menu toolbar.

Highlight “Annual Leave No Loading” and then click on the Clone icon to copy it.

Change the Earnings Type Name on the copy to “Rostered Days Taken”.

Ensure that the “This represents Leave Taken” check box is ticked.

Click on the Save icon.

RDO Leave Type

Once an RDO Earnings Type has been added, also create a new Leave Type called “Rostered Days Off” (this will used to accrue RDOs and for RDO leave entries).

Select System > Leave Types from the menu toolbar.

Highlight Sick Leave then click on the Clone icon to copy it.

Change the Leave Type Name on the copy to "Rostered Days Off".

Ensure the Type of Leave is set to Sick Leave.

Ensure Earnings Type is set to Rostered Days Off.

Enter the default Annual Entitlement hours (see below for how to calculate this).

Tick the Carry Forward checkbox to carry accrued RDO balances into new tax years.

Tick the Show On Pay Advice checkbox if you want to show RDO accrual balances on Pay Advices.

Ensure that the Accounting Accrual checkbox is not ticked.

Click on the Save icon.

Add the new Leave type to employees with RDO agreements

Open Employee Maintenance, select the employee then select the Entitlements page.

Under the top section click on the Add icon and select Rostered Days Off.

Adjust the default Annual Entitlement hours if necessary (see below for how to calculate this).

Click on OK and then on the Save icon.

Calculating Annual Entitlement Hours

This figure may depend on various factors specific to your work place and you should consult your employer organisation for advice if unsure.

Because the system cannot forecast exactly when RDO days or annual leave will be taken, the annual entitlement is spread evenly over the 52 pay periods.

So, the RDO accrual amount on each pay run may not precisely match the extra hours worked for that week (i.e. it will show the fixed accrual amount of 1.75 hours whether the employee worked a 40 hour week or was on annual leave all week) but it will be correct over the 52 week period.

The same goes for the RDO accrued balance.

Taking an RDO

In a pay week where an employee takes an RDO you will create a Leave Entry, just as you do for Sick Leave or Annual Leave.

Select Rostered Day Off as the leave type, enter the actual date(s) that the RDO was taken, and enter the employee's standard day (e.g. 7.6 hours) excluding any extra hours that they normally work.

On the Pay Run

Even though an employee may be working 8 hour days instead of their standard 7.6 hours, the extra hours should not be entered on the pay run as you are not paying them at this point.

Instead, they will be accrued and will be paid (via the RDO leave entry) when taken as an RDO.

This ensures that the employee is paid a full week every week, regardless of extra hours worked or RDO days taken.

Opening Balance

After setting the employee up for RDO accrual as per the instructions above, you can enter any pre-existing RDO hours accrued by doing a Leave Balance Adjustment.

Accrual Adjustments

In the example above, with Rostered Days Off setup on the employee's Entitlements page with an annual entitlement of 91.2 hours, each time a Normal pay run is finalised for that employee a fixed amount of 1.75 hours will be added to his accrued RDO balance.

This is fine so long as the employee takes his 4 weeks annual leave each year, takes his 12 RDO days and works 8 hours instead of 7.6 every other work day.

However, in reality there will be sick days, compassionate leave days, public holidays, leave of absence etc etc that the system cannot predict and on which the employee does not work the extra 0.4 hours.

Unless the employee is able to make up the extra hours, for each day that they did not work the extra hours you will need to reduce the accrued RDO hours balance by 0.35 hours using a Leave Balance Adjustment.

Irregular extra hours

In the event that an employee works an irregular number of extra hours or does not work extra hours consistently each week, you may find it easier to turn off their automatic RDO accrual by setting their Annual Entitlement Hours for Rostered Days Off to zero (Employee Maintenance | Entitlements page) and manually add the extra hours to their RDO accrued balance using a Leave Balance Adjustment whenever they work extra hours.

Everything else would remain the same.