What is a week?

Q: We have a staff member that works 5 days and 16 hours a week. The work pattern is M2 T2 W2 T2 F8 and let’s just say they ordinarily earn $480 a week.
The staff member keeps taking Fridays off on annual leave and our payroll system works out the annual leave as follows:
1 day annual leave as 0.2 days of a week (1/5), and therefore $480 * .02 = $96.00
The staff member says she should be paid 8 hours and therefore believes the payment should be $240.
This doesn’t seem fair as she hasn’t taken 1/2 a week off, unless you are counting a week based on number of hours (8/16)
So which do we pay:
1) – 1 day is .2 of a week $96
2) – 8 hours is .5 of a week $240


A: The two calculations used are the greater of:

  • AWE: gross last 12 months (the gross will pick up any other taxable payment) from the last pay period/52 weeks /hours in a week to give you an hourly rate x hours taken on day
  • OWP: agreed rate for the week: gross for week $480/16 = $30 per hour x 8 = $240, OWP the 4 week average would not apply if the employee only works there hours.

If the employee does not get any other payment to inflate AWE, AWE and OWP would be the same.

Friday is not worked as .2 so the payroll system is wrong, the agreed day is 8 hours.  It’s just showing the limitation of the payroll system as it is based on what a full week would be paid at, not the part week.

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