Q: We recently approved an employee to go into negative annual leave for personal reasons. This employee is working part-time and would now like to make up the annual leave hours by working additional hours on top of their regular hours and having these additional hours go towards their annual leave accruals instead of being paid. Is this legally allowed?

A: No. If the employee is completing work that is contributing to your business and an employment relationship exists, you cannot allow them to work for free, even at the employee’s request.

We recommend allowing the employee to continue working their ordinary hours until they have accrued enough leave to bring their balance back to neutral.

Please note: The answer is correct at the time of publishing. Be aware that laws may change over time. Refer to Annual leave for current advice.