Family and Domestic Violence extending to Small Business Employers
From 1 August 2023 all employees, regardless of their employer size, will be entitled to paid family and domestic violence leave. This includes part-time and casual employees.
All employees can access 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave each year.
An employee’s paid leave entitlement is available, in full, immediately upon employment and resets on the employee’s work anniversary. It however doesn’t accumulate from year to year.
Paid family and domestic violence leave is a standalone leave entitlement. This means employees get it separately from other types of leave, such as annual leave or paid sick and carer’s leave.
Family and domestic violence means violent, threatening or other abusive behaviour by certain individuals known to an employee that both:
- seeks to coerce or control the employee
- causes them harm or fear.
The individual could be:
- an employee’s close relative
- a member of an employee’s household, or
- a current or former intimate partner of an employee.
Implementing the leave in Xero Payroll
To set up and process family and domestic violence leave in Xero Payroll, a new paid leave type can be added to the organisation’s Payroll settings using the Family and domestic violence leave category. This leave type is reported to the ATO under gross payments.
When an employee takes family and domestic violence leave, there will be no indication on the payslip that this leave has been taken. Due to the nature of family and domestic leave, any leave taken will be intentionally displayed on the employee’s payslip using the employee’s ordinary earnings rate.
While an employee is on paid family and domestic violence leave, they are to receive the same pay that they would have received if they had worked that day. This includes any allowances, overtime or relevant loadings.
Xero Payroll doesn’t currently have the capability to track leave in days or reset an employee’s leave entitlement on their anniversary date. We highly recommend tracking your employees’ family and domestic violence leave entitlements outside of Xero.
For more information on Family and Domestic violence leave, you can visit the Fair Work Ombudsman here or Contact Us for more information.
