Getting Time Off

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Context

These guidelines are written for the context of employees in South Africa. There is principal alignment with the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA) to at least meet the minimum requirements. Many of the allocations can be increased for your particular company or for individual employees as needed.

Requesting Time Off

Time off for full-time employees can be requested through our leave tracking software. Login here with your company email:

https://app.workte.am/

Leave Types

All employees are entitled to sick days, public holidays, family responsibility leave and religious holidays. Only permanent staff will have vacation days available to them. All leave types are generally pro-rated if an employee joins part way through the year.

👩‍👧‍👦 Family Responsibility

• 3 days per year
• Can only be used for a death, funerals, etc for immediate relatives

🙏 Religious Holidays

• 5 days per year
• Can be used for key religious days not already covered by South African public holidays e.g. Eid, Yom Kippur, etc

🎊 Public Holidays

• 12 days per year usually
• If a day falls on a Sunday, the Monday will be granted as the public holiday

🤒 Sick Days

• 30 days over a three year rolling period
• Can be used by parents to take care of their sick children

🏝️ Vacation

• 21 days per year
• Notes: This includes mandatory shutdown over December, usually ~10 days

Public Holidays

• 1 January: New Year’s Day
• 21 March: Human Rights Day
• Good Friday (date changes annually)
• 10 April: Family Day/Easter Sunday (date changes annually, first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox)
• 27 April: Freedom Day
• 1 May: Workers' Day
• 16 June: Youth Day
• 9 August: National Women’s Day
• 24 September: Heritage Day
• 16 December: Day of Reconciliation
• 25 December: Christmas Day
• 26 December: Day of Goodwill

Policies

Vacation Policy

• Time off is measured in days.
• The time off calendar starts on 1st January each year.
• Half days are permitted.
• Values are rounded up to nearest half.
• Employees are limited to 21 days a year.
• The Company has a mandatory shutdown period in December of approximately 10 days, which will come out of your leave allocation.
• Employees may not take time off before it has been accrued.
• Employees may not take time off until 90 days after joining.
• A maximum of 21 unused days carry over to the following year.
• Carryover expires after 6 months into the following year.
• Employees need to give notice when requesting time off.
• Requests made within policy still need to go through approval.
• Notice periods for vacation leave:
  • 1+ days leave - 5 days notice
  • 3+ days leave - 10 days notice
  • 5+ days leave - 21 days notice
  • 10+ days leave - 28 days notice
• Users may add additional public details about their time off booking in the request form.
• Leave requests are discussed at the weekly Board Meeting on Fridays.
  • Any leave applied for by Friday morning 0900, will be discussed that week.
  • Factors that are discussed include overall impact to current/future projects and the remaining team, as well as how close the planned leave days are to any know milestones or deliverables.
  • A team lead will sometimes be asked for input as well if it will affect their team.
  • We will not unreasonably decline a vacation leave request, but there are external factors that go into a decision.
  • Requests are approved/denied by [PERSON] after the Board meeting.

Sick Leave Policy

• Time off is measured in days.
• The time off calendar starts on the anniversary of joining.
• The time off year is offset from the anniversary of joining.
• Half days are permitted.
• Values are rounded up to nearest half.
• Employees are limited to 30 days over a rolling three year period.
• Employees may borrow up to 30 days before they have been accrued.
• Employees may not accrue more than 30 days at any point.
• A maximum of 30 unused days carry over to the following year.
• Employees may not take time off until 90 days after joining.
• Employees do not need to give any notice when requesting time off, unless for planned long hospital stays and recovery periods.
• Requests made within policy still need to go through approval.
• Requests are approved by [PERSON]

Overtime Policy

Overtime works like this:

• Overtime is pre-planned on a per-project basis where applicable. Ideally no projects will fall into this category. This will be communicated as an overtime-likely project.
• There is a failure in planning or development and additional hours are needed in order to get a delivery out. This will be communicated as soon as it's known to be an issue, which unfortunately might be on the day.

Overtime is granted under these conditions:

• You communicate to your manager/lead that overtime is necessary.
• Your manager/lead communicates to you that overtime is necessary.
• Your total hours for the month are over the threshold of 152 hours, ie you worked at least 7 hours every day (130 is the minimum for a 6 hour day). If you have been on leave during that month, then the threshold of 152 hours will be reduced accordingly.

If you earn more than ~R21000 per month, then you fall outside the government mandated threshold to be legally eligible for overtime. This means that we are not required to pay overtime to employees who earn above this amount. That being said, for projects that require a significant amount of overtime (hopefully none) or where you have had to work a full day over a weekend or public holiday, we are more than likely to grant that time back as paid time off.

If you work an extra hour or two on a particular day, but your monthly total is below 152 hours, then it is unlikely to be granted as you have likely already had the benefit of compensating for that time.

Overtime requests will only be considered at the end of the month once we can see the overall impact of it across that period.

We will not unreasonably decline an overtime request, but these are the initial factors that go into a decision.

Family Responsibility Leave

Family Responsibility Leave covers specific requirements. Anything else not mentioned in section 27 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act does not qualify for Family Responsibility Leave.

Family Responsibility Leave is only applicable:

• If an employee's child or adopted child is sick (younger than 18 years).
• Upon the death of the employee’s spouse or life partner.
• The death of the employee's parent, adoptive parent, child, adopted child, grandchild, grandparent, or sibling.

Note that an employee only qualifies for such leave in cases of illness of the employee's child or adopted child. No other incident of illness is covered under this section, such as the illness of the employees spouse or life partner, etc. The employee must use annual leave for that purpose.

Similarly, an employee only qualifies for family responsibility leave if the death is one of the family members named above. The death of any other relative is not covered by family responsibility leave. Such must be treated as annual leave.

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