Navigating public holiday pays

How do I know which day my employee should observe the public holiday?

If the public holiday falls on a weekday, nothing changes and the holiday is observed on this day.

If a public holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the public holiday is moved to the following Monday (or in some cases Tuesday if there are two consecutive holidays). This is known as Mondayisation.

The only exceptions to this rule are:

In both of these cases, the employee should take the original weekend date as their public holiday.

You can check out Employment NZ’s Mondayisation Flowchart for help determining which date your employees should observe the public holiday.

What do I do if my employee works on a public holiday?

If any of your employees work on a public holiday, you are legally required to pay them at ‘time and a half’ or 1.5 times their standard rate for this day.

If you’re with Thankyou Payroll, you would record this as ‘Public Holiday wrkd’ in their timesheet and the calculations will be made automatically for you.

If the public holiday is an otherwise working day, you also need to allocate a day of alternative leave to their leave balance. 

What do I do if my employee takes a public holiday off?

This one’s easy. If the public holiday is an otherwise working day, simply pay your employee at their usual rate for that day.

If you’re with Thankyou Payroll, you would record this as ‘Public Holiday off’ in their timesheet and the calculations will be made automatically for you.

If the public holiday is not an otherwise working day for your employee, you do not need to do anything.