Termination on Public Holiday

[Cottoneyes]

Long story short, we have had an employee resign giving 26 Dec as their final date of work.

Unfortunately the manager of the person in question accepted the resignation without question.

I'm having a spirited debate with a colleague as to whether we are required to pay the public holidays.

Anyone got information or link to legislation that could settle this one? Person is in a management role and paid around $130K base so not really subject to any award.

My view is we shouldn't pay it, but that is due to having seen her management style and prepared to be unfair on her own staff causing issues for us on principle, I would like to send her on her way with a thought that she needs to be a bit fairer in her future staff dealings. The alternative view is that because the manager accepted the resignation we have to honour it.

[Sonya P]

Cottoneys,

When you refer to public holidays are you meaning Christmas Day and Boxing Day?

If 26 Dec is the last day of the notice period, then I don't see how you can legally avoid paying for those two days.

Furthermore, you talk about a manager "accepting" a resignation. It's not like they or you as the employer have any choice in the matter. You can't NOT accept a resignation. It's not an "offer" it's a "notice" as required by their employment contract. The notion of "accepeting" a resignation is outdated.

The only option you have is to tell the individual to leave immediately, but you still have to pay them out for their notice period.

[Greg Schmidt]

If the employee is still employed on the public holiday, she's entitled to be paid for them. Presuming that she wasn't actually required to work on the PH, some re-education of her manager may be appropriate.

As an alternative, you could have told her that she would be finishing employment on Dec 24th. This would technically have changed the resignation into a dismissal at the initiative of the employer. However an Unfair Dismissal claim in these circumstances is unlikely because
(a) as a High Income and probably award-free employee she probably wasn't eligible to claim; and
(b) not worth it; she'd only be able to demonstrate that she'd "lost" 2 days' wages by being dismissed.

What did you end up paying her?