What Payroll Needs to Know About the Employment Leave Bill 2026: Four Key Perspectives OnDemand

OVERVIEW

The replacement to the present Holidays Act, the Employment Leave Bill 2026, has been released.

The aim of the change is to simplify and resolve the issues that businesses, especially payroll, have had with the current Holidays Act, which is overly complex and cannot consistently provide calculation certainty in payroll systems.

NZPPA will be heavily involved in raising awareness of the payroll requirements under this new bill by providing a range of updates and awareness webinars, writing a submission, publishing articles to highlight the issues, and providing comprehensive training once the act is passed.

WHAT THE WEBINAR WILL COVER

This webinar will examine the Employment Leave Bill from four key perspectives:

  1. What the Bill contains – a detailed overview of the proposed provisions (deep dive), how they differ from current practices, and the potential impact on payroll if the Bill is passed.
  2. Implications for payroll providers – the changes that may need to be made to software in response to the legislation, and how these changes could affect the work of payroll practitioners.
  3. The role of AI – how artificial intelligence could support compliance, administration, and implementation.
  4. Employment law impacts – how the Bill may affect broader aspects of employment law and agreed employment terms, and the resulting implications for payroll.

The on-demand pack includes:

  • Recorded webinar (3-hour running time)r
  • All the presentations are available as PDF documents
  • Q&A from the session
  • Additional reference materials.
  • Link to NZPPA” Employment Leave Bill Submission to the select committee

WEBINAR SPEAKERS

David Jenkins, the NZPPA CEO, who will take attendees on a deep dive into the bill and act as the MC, he will be joined by three special guest speakers who are subject-matter experts in their respective fields: payroll software development, payroll AI, and employment law.

Chris Mar (Principal Consultant – Datacom Payroll) has been with Datacom for over two decades and was the driving force behind the successful construction and implementation of Datacom’s Enterprise Payroll product, DataPay, as well as Smartly, specifically designed for the SME market. Chris now works on product and strategy and, in particular, the legislative compliance of payroll products and services. Chris has been on several government working groups related to tax calculations and employment law in Australia and New Zealand.

Stephan (Director & Founder – Alxemy) is passionate about leveraging technology to optimise payroll and workforce management. With over 20 years of industry experience, he specialises in complex problem-solving and providing strategic systems advice, ensuring businesses receive tailored and effective solutions.

At Alxemy, Stephan helps New Zealand organisations stay compliant, optimise operations, and prepare for the future through payroll, WFM, and HCM system selection, implementation, and consultancy support.

Anmol Shankar is a senior lawyer in PwC Legal’s employment law practice. He has significant experience advising on all aspects of payroll matters, employment law, privacy law, and health and safety compliance, and has particular expertise in independent investigations. His experience includes providing advice on employment disputes, restructures, employment agreements, policies, the Holidays Act 2003, and health and safety law. He has regularly attended mediations and has appeared before New Zealand’s Employment Relations Authority and the Employment Court.

He has extensive payroll compliance experience, including recently advising a large local government entity on legal aspects of its payroll function, and in relation to purchaser due diligence for a large-scale trans-Tasman traffic management company and workforce and payroll purchaser due diligence for a leading transport, logistics and freight company with operations across Australia and New Zealand.

Before joining PwC Legal, Anmol worked in-house for an award-winning employment relations team at one of New Zealand’s largest employers, as well as top-tier private law firms.

Member Price: NZ$75.00 + GST
Non-member Price: NZ$105.00 + GST

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