Manage public holidays

The platform tracks Australian public holidays at a state and territory level. When a leave request spans a public holiday, the platform deducts one less day. The Public Holidays page is where you tell the platform which states’ holidays your org observes.

Open the page

Sidebar then HR Hub.
Public holidays.

You see a list of states and territories with their holidays for the current and next calendar year, all populated from Fair Work data.

Tick the states you observe

For each state your org has employees in, tick the box. The platform then:

Displays those holidays on every leave calendar
Deducts them from leave requests automatically
Calculates penalty rates correctly for timesheets when a public holiday is worked
Includes them in the rostering blackout calendar

If your business operates the same hours nationally, tick every state. If you only have NSW employees, tick only NSW.

Per employee state override

Each employee record has a Primary work state. The platform uses their state’s holidays for their leave and timesheet calculations, overriding the org wide setting if needed. This is useful for a Vic based employee in a NSW org, for example.

Add a custom holiday

Some orgs close on days that aren’t gazetted public holidays (e.g. the day between Christmas and New Year, an annual shutdown, or a local event). Add these manually:

Add custom holiday.
Date, name, and which states it applies to (or All employees).
Save.

Custom holidays behave the same as gazetted ones for leave and timesheet calculations.

Annual refresh

Public holiday dates are confirmed each year. The platform pulls the latest from the Fair Work data feed. Once a year, in November or December, sit down with this page and:

Confirm the next year’s dates look right
Add any custom holidays for next year
Check that the state mix still matches where your employees are

Holidays in reports

The leave report distinguishes between calendar days and working days deducted, so you can see how much of the leave year was used vs. how much was public holidays.