I've done this before after accumulating several years worth of leave due to a previous employer having strange ideas about project management and the mythical man-month.

I suppose I was kind of pressured into it, but I also liked having a pseudo-bonus that year.

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[–] Dave 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Paywalled so I can't read the article, but yeah, this is not some sneaky loophole. Unused annual leave is a liability to the employer, and you can't cash in leave without employer agreement.

So I'm gonna argue this is probably better for the government that has just made a bunch of people redundant and pushed that work onto remaining staff, than it is for the staff who deserve some time off but can't take it on account of all that extra work that needs doing.

[–] absGeekNZ 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

There is a minor advantage to the worker, if they accrued the AL at one pay rate and didn't use it. Then the use/cash it in at a later date after a pay increase, the accrued AL is payed out at the higher rate.

This isn't much of an advantage, unless you have had a major correction to your pay rate in the intervening period (like 20-30% increase). For a "normalish" pay rise of 5% the increase is small.

e.g. AL = 0.08 * rate, after a pay rise it is 0.08 * (rate * 1.05) or 0.084 * oldRate (for old accumulated leave).

A side note, it would be better for businesses if AL was accumulated in $ rather than hours. It is better for workers if it is accumulated in hours rather than $. To be fair thought, if it was in $ there would have to be adjustments for time value of money, it would be way more complicated and almost impossible to audit correctly.

[–] Dave 3 points 4 months ago

It's probably a good thing that employers are incentivised to make employees take their leave. Imagine if it was in $ and the longer your employer avoided letting you take leave, the more the value eroded due to inflation...

[–] deadbeef79000 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Odd, wasn't paywalled for me other wise I'd have found another source.

I guess The Post plays a little bit of silly buggers with the paywall.

[–] Dave 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Do you access from work where your work might have an IP-identified work subscription?

It seems The Post is a Stuff site deliberately split off so it can be paywalled regional content (along with a couple of others): https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/29-04-2023/inside-stuffs-bold-unconventional-new-paywall-plan

[–] deadbeef79000 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

No, I was on a train via cellular, using my regular ol' Firefox...

[–] Dave 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Weird! I'm using Fennec (a fork of Firefox for Android) and I get a paywall every time! I wonder if they have some criteria or maybe something in my stack is triggering it (I have everything from uBlock to Tracker Control to PiHole blocking stuff 😆).

Interestingly, on desktop (Firefox) I'm not getting the paywall! But desktop mode on mobile does paywall me, but mobile mode on desktop doesn't. I don't know what their criteria are 😮‍💨

[–] deadbeef79000 2 points 4 months ago

Gestures broadly at a giant pile of crap JavaScript.