BCEA leave: what HR software must accrue

Contracts and collective agreements can give more. The Act sets the floor. What matters for software is whether it accrues each leave type by the rule that applies to your employee, and keeps a record you can produce in a CCMA dispute.

How the cycles work

• Annual leave is counted over a twelve month cycle, and can be accrued at a rate of one day for every 17 days worked, or one hour for every 17 hours worked, as an alternative to a fixed block.
• Sick leave runs over a cycle of 36 months. During the first six months of employment, the employee is entitled to one day of paid sick leave for every 26 days worked.
• Family responsibility leave is for a child's birth or illness, or the death of a close family member, and applies to employees who have worked for the employer for more than four months and work at least four days a week.

Sick leave in practice

An employer need not pay sick leave unless the employee produces a medical certificate, where the employee has been absent for more than two consecutive days, or more than twice in an eight week period. Software that records sick leave should let you attach the certificate and see how many occasions fall in a rolling eight weeks, because that is the question an HR manager asks first.

Maternity, parental and the UIF

The BCEA gives the leave. Pay during maternity or parental leave usually comes from the Unemployment Insurance Fund as a benefit, and not from the employer, unless the contract says otherwise. Payroll has to stop paying the salary during the leave and give the employee the documents they need to claim, so HR and payroll have to agree on the dates.

Part time and flexible staff

Leave accrues by days or hours worked, so an employee on three days a week accrues differently from one on five. A product that assumes everyone works a standard week will misstate the balance of every part time employee. Ask the vendor to show a part time employee's accrual during the demonstration.

What happens when someone leaves

An employer must pay out leave that an employee has accrued and not taken when employment ends. HR software that tracks the balance correctly turns that calculation into a report. Software that does not leaves you to reconstruct it, usually in the middle of a dispute.

When leave must be taken

An employer must allow annual leave to be taken, by agreement, within six months after the end of the leave cycle in which it accrued. That sets a clock on every balance, so the useful report is not just who has days, but whose days are about to become a problem. Ask whether the product flags balances that are large or ageing.

What to show in a dispute

• The employee's start date and the leave cycle that applies to them.
• The accrual rule used, and the record of every day taken or paid out.
• Any medical certificates and approvals attached to the days.
• The final calculation, if the employee has left.

Keep the records

The Act requires employers to keep records of time worked, pay and leave for three years. A leave balance that you can show an employee, and a history that you can produce for the CCMA or a labour inspector, is the real product here.

Questions to ask a vendor

• Does it accrue annual, sick, family responsibility, maternity and parental leave by the rule above, and can it be changed where your contract gives more?
• Does it run the sick leave cycle over 36 months?
• Does it calculate leave pay on termination?
• Does it keep the record for three years, and can you export it?
• Does payroll read the same leave data, so that pay and leave agree? See a payroll software checklist.

BCEA leave accrual is the headline compliance item for the HR sector. Ask each vendor to show you how it accrues each leave type before you commit.