Your Guide to Public Holiday Payroll

Australia has plenty of public holidays scattered throughout the year. While many of us enjoy taking a day off or benefiting from additional entitlements, public holiday payroll can be a challenge for businesses.  

Managing different pay rates, complying with varied awards, and coordinating operational closures can be tricky. However, getting pay right keeps your employees happy and ensures you’re following Australia’s labour laws. 

Let’s explore the main steps you need to take to process payroll on public holidays correctly and how workforce management technology can help.

Know when public holidays will fall 

It’s important to know when public holidays will occur throughout the year. Australia has a number of national public holidays as well as those that are unique for each state and territory. Knowing when each national, state, territory, and regional public holiday falls helps your business plan for the change in operational tempo to come.  

You can check out a list of when the 2025 public holidays fall here. 

Communicate operational closures to your employees 

Planning on closing your business for a public holiday? Some businesses choose to close during periods with lots of public holidays (like Christmas and Easter) and it’s important to let employees know about the operational closures well in advance. This helps manage expectations and makes it easier for both employees and your business to plan how they will spend the period.  

Clear communication ensures that your employees know whether they are required to work on public holidays. Using foundU’s in-app announcements, you can share a message and website links, making it easy to keep employees aware of upcoming operational changes. You can also publish online rosters so that everyone can stay in the loop from anywhere at any time.  

Allow negative leave during closures 

You might ask your employees to take leave during an extended closure. However, there may be some team members who don’t have enough leave accrued. If this is the case, you can consider allowing a negative leave balance. This ensures that employee entitlements and pay are managed correctly even if they lack sufficient leave. You can also control any business risks by enabling this for specific employees and capping the number of hours. 

Approve leave requests early 

Approving leave requests in a timely manner makes public holiday payroll processing easier. Employees appreciate knowing if their public holiday leave is approved and it also helps you plan your payroll activities, such as early pay runs, around these days.  

Understand public holiday award requirements 

All employees have a right to be absent from work on a public holiday. If they are asked to work on reasonable grounds, different pay and entitlements will apply on these days. For example, if an employee works on a public holiday, they could be entitled to public holiday rates, an extra day off, and minimum shift lengths.  

Even if employees don’t work on a public holiday, they may be entitled to a day of pay and leave. These rights vary between different awards, as well as non-salaried permanent, salaried permanent, and casual staff. When you consider the different positions and agreements you have for all of your employees, it’s easy to imagine how complex payroll can get on public holidays. 

The first step is to use Fair Work to understand the public holiday entitlements that relevant awards, enterprise agreements, and other registered agreements can provide. You can then use payroll software to automatically apply these rules when you’re rostering and paying staff. If you’re using foundU, you benefit from built in national and state public holiday rules. You can also configure dates and rules that apply to your region and specific awards.  

Set your national and regional public holiday dates 

National and state public holiday rules are already set up within foundU’s payroll software. You can also add regional public holidays to your platform and configure the award settings. This ensures that public holiday rates and entitlements are automatically applied when you roster and pay your employees. You will also see alerts for upcoming public holidays on your work schedules and can plan accordingly. 

Plan your labour costs 

Public holiday rates can be costly for businesses. Using workforce management reporting tools and foundU’s award tests, you can plan your operational capabilities and labour costs on these days. You can view labour costs for specific days, rosters, and positions, helping you plan your public holiday budget. Running award tests before publishing your rosters can also give you a breakdown of how each employee will be paid on public holidays, reducing the chance of last-minute changes. 

Consider paying staff before the public holidays 

Early payroll processing can reduce your team’s stress on public holidays. It also gives employees access to their earnings in advance over this busy period. Using foundU, you can pre-approve shifts for casual and permanent employees, then generate pay early, provided all holiday leave applications are finalised beforehand.  

Lean on technology during public holidays 

Payroll software can help you pay your employees on time and correctly when public holidays come up. By leveraging foundU’s ability to configure award settings and schedule public holiday dates, you can reduce room for error, ensure compliance, and keep your employees happy. You can also plan your labour costs, ensuring that your business runs efficiently on these days.  

Interested in learning more? Book a demo or take an online product tour of foundU today.