Understanding leave

With the introduction of the new Progress Plan, now is an ideal time to look ahead and plan when you will take the leave you will accrue this year.

It’s important to check your leave balance and discuss a plan to take your annual leave and long service leave with your supervisor. The university expects that you utilise your full 20 days of annual leave (or pro-rata) every year.

Regular monitoring of leave balances for all staff will occur in 2021 to ensure that both the leave that accrues each year and other accrued leave is managed in line with the ACU Staff Enterprise Agreement. These actions are needed to manage the university’s increasing leave liability.

Approval is required to accrue annual leave above 40 days (or pro-rata) with conditions, on the basis that you take sufficient annual leave to reduce your accrued entitlement to below 20 days within one year. This approval is required from the appropriate member of the executive on the advice from the Director, Human Resources.

Staff should expect to discuss their leave arrangements with their supervisor more regularly, with any necessary arrangements entered into Staff Connect. More significant planning will occur with anyone whose annual leave balance is approaching, or over, 40 days.

Join us to know more

Sign up to our upcoming leave information session: Annual and Long Service Leave - Tuesday 23 March, 10.30am (AEDT)

This workshop is suitable for all staff and will cover the important aspects of both the annual and long service leave policies, how to manage your leave balances together with the university’s requirements and the important benefits of taking regular breaks to recharge, spend time with family and friends.  There will be time for discussion and questions at the end of the session.

Additional sessions will be held throughout the year.

Support for supervisors

Before opening the Progress Plan Review forms for your team, it would be useful to check your team's leave balances:

Click on the staff selector > select the person whose leave balance you are checking > click on the dashboard menu > select leave. You will see their leave balances.

A conversation guide for supervisors is available to help facilitate conversations with your team about their leave, developing a plan, and also to assist with navigating the new Progress Plan for academic and professional staff.

Keep a look out on the Supervisor Hub as well as the Learning and Development Workplace group for future information sessions specific to supervisors.

More information

More information about understanding leave and leave management:

• check your leave balances at any time in Staff Connect
• view more information about leave and how annual leave impacts academic workload
• for help navigating the Progress Plan refer to the User Guide and FAQs
• contact Service Central if you have any questions.