At Workpay, we are committed to fostering work-life harmony - because let’s face it, work is part of life. Rather than striving an elusive “balance”, our goal is to create harmony where both work and life coexist seamlessly. With this in mind, we are excited to announce updates to our Annual Leave Policy and outline important actions to help you plan ahead for 2025.

Important Annual Leave Policy Updates & Action Items

1. Increased Annual Leave to Cover December Office Closure Period - In addition to the allocated 21 annual leave days, we have included an additional 7 days of annual leave allocated specifically for the December office closure period. During this time, no additional leave ~ beyond emergency, study, sick or compassionate leave, will be approved. Please refer to your in-country leave policy for the updated definition of emergency leave and other exemptions.
2. Plan Ahead for FY 2025 - To ensure wellness and effective team planning, all employees must:

1. Submit leave requests for at least 15 days by the end of January; and
2. Submit leave requests for any leave days that spilled over into 2025 by 30th June to avoid losing them.

3. Apply for 5 days Annual Leave taken During Office Closure - The 5 mandatory leave days taken during December’s office closure i.e. 23rd, 24th, 27th, 30th & 31st Dec, must be applied for in the Workpay systems. Exemptions to this requirement are:

• If you only had less than 5 leave balances prior to office closure, apply for any balance you had since the rest were granted as free/paid time off to reward you for a job well done with managing your leave;
• If you were a new hire, and hadn’t accrued 5 days, off days granted during office closure were considered as free/paid leave; and
• If you were part of the skeleton team during the closure, only apply for the days you didn't work. For example, if you worked on the 23rd and 24th Dec, but were off on the 27th, 30th, 31st Dec and 2nd & 3rd Jan, you should only apply for 3 days. *Remember, 2nd & 3rd Jan were granted as free/paid time off to every employee.

To simplify the process for applying for the 5 day December leave, we’ve temporarily updated the leave application settings to request the number of “days” instead of the usual “return date”. The system will automatically exclude weekends and holidays ensuring that the requested number of working days (5 days) are accounted for. It then sets the return date automatically. Once this exercise is complete, we will revert the leave application settings to its original format.

4. Leave Approval in Workpay’s System is Mandatory - this should go without saying but we regrettably have had instances where employees take leave without approvals. No leave should be taken without prior approval in the Workpay system. If you proceed on leave without approval, this will be treated as misconduct.

For more details, refer to the full Annual Leave Policy in your respective in-country Employee Handbook. They are available on The Workpay Wiki.

Let’s plan to create harmony between work and life in 2025 together - plan your leave, be considerate while doing and, of course, plan to enjoy and rejuvenate during your well-deserved time off.