Taking family, medical & other leave

Sick leave

At Warehouse Stationery, you become entitled to take paid sick leave after three months of starting, not six months as provided for in the Holidays Act.  Each year you have sick leave entitlement of eight days that can be carried over into the next entitlement year. If you take time off due to illness in the first three months of your employment it will be unpaid.  You can use your sick leave if you have to look after a sick family member or person who depends upon you for care.

We may require you to provide a medical certificate for any paid sick leave absence. If we ask for a medical certificate after less than three days’ absence, we will meet the cost of this. You are entitled to attend a doctor of your choice.

Extended Sick Leave - Wellness Support

Where possible we help you if you need to take extended sick leave because of more serious illness.  If you have been with us for more than three months you may be eligible to paid sick leave for a period of up to three months. This leave is for personal, unexpected health issues and is at our discretion.

You apply for this leave through your Manager and it also requires Employment Relations Manager approval. We need documentation from your medical provider so that we understand your diagnosis, prognosis and medical needs. Your application is considered on its merits.   At the end of the three months your situation will be reviewed. If extra leave is required, then any other sick or discretionary leave accrued must be taken before any further extended leave can be considered.

Refer to our Wellness Support policy on inSite or check with your Manager

A note about when you can’t come to work

If you are sick for the day or just running very late, you must notify your Manager as soon as possible – preferably prior to your start time or as soon as practicable after that start time. Text messaging is not appropriate. You must contact your Manager by phone and leave a voicemail if they are unavailable, notifying them of your contact phone number.  Leaving a message with a fellow Team Member is not sufficient notice of your absence.

If you are away for three consecutive shifts/work days or more without approval or notifying us, your Manager will endeavour to contact you before terminating your employment due to abandonment.

Bereavement leave

You are entitled to this leave from the start date of your employment, not six months as provided for in the Holidays Act.  You can take three days’ paid leave on the death of a close family member, not necessarily consecutively. A close family member is considered to be your partner, parent, child, grandchild or grandparent. Any further leave required is granted at your Manager’s discretion.  You may take one day’s bereavement leave for any other person where your Manager agrees that you have suffered bereavement.

Leave for jury service

If you are required for jury service, inform your Manager as soon as possible and complete a leave application. We will give you paid special leave for your normal working hours but you must reimburse us of all Court fees you receive less your expenses (via Accounts Payable) and if you are no longer required to be at Court or serving on the jury you return to work.  There may be occasions when critical work requirements may enable your jury service to be deferred.  Consult with your Manager or People Support in this instance.

NZ representative sports leave

We are proud of our Team Members who are chosen to represent NZ in sport.  Once you have been with us for one year and are chosen to represent NZ in sport you may apply in writing to your Manager for assistance (including any documents from your sport’s officiating body).  At your Manager’s discretion, you may be granted up to 15 days paid sports leave, up to six weeks unpaid leave for preparation (or annual leave may be taken) and/or financial or sponsorship assistance.  This assistance continues at our discretion and will stop should you no longer be a NZ representative.

Parental leave

This leave is for when you are expecting or adopting a baby. You become entitled to parental leave after six months of starting work with us, provided you work at least an average of 10 hours per week. Parental leave is unpaid; however, you may be entitled to Paid Parental leave under the government scheme. You can continue to use your Team Discount Card while on parental leave.

We recommend that you use any accumulated annual leave before you start parental leave. As part of our commitment to you we will treat any annual leave accrued during your absence as normal annual leave - this is over the minimum legal requirements.

To apply for parental leave, you need to give at least three months’ written notice.

When you plan to return to work, you need to give us 21 days written notice.   Upon your return to work from Parental Leave, your length of service is considered continuous and uninterrupted for long-service award purposes. You have to return to work for at least a further six months before you take another period of parental leave.

You can find all you need to know on inSite or ask your Manager to print out a copy for you along with the application forms.

Ease Back to Work

Ease back to work for new parents will provide some balance as you return to work with part-time hours on your full-time pay to make the changes easier, so you don’t have to worry about any financial impact on your family.

This is available for all permanent team members who normally work 5 days per week (or 40 hours) and are returning to their previous role in a full-time capacity after they have been on parental leave.

If you work 5 days a week, you can take the equivalent of 1 day off every week for a period of 4 weeks while you ease back into work. You will still get paid for the day you have off. You will need to negotiate which days you have off with your manager.

Adjusting to a new member of the family is an exciting and challenging time in anyone’s life. We recognise that being a supporting parent can be really hard emotionally and financially.

This is available for all permanent team members who are the supporting parent and welcoming a new child into their family will be eligible for 5 days paid leave. Your Manager will need to authorise this request.

Refer to our Parental Leave SOP and forms on inSite or check with your Manager

Lifestyle Leave

You are able to purchase Lifestyle leave of 5 or 10 days per year that will be paid for via deductions from your wages or salary over a 12-month period at your current salary/hourly rate. You will need to complete an application form that can be downloaded from inSite and ask for approval from your Manager. Once approved the Lifestyle leave can be taken immediately within the next 12 months. (Carrying the leave over past 12 months is by approved exceptions only)

Refer to our Lifestyle leave SOP and forms on inSite or check with your Manager

Inclusion and Belonging

Here at TWG, we’ve got a great track record of taking bold steps in addressing major social issues that impact our team our and country

Family violence is not OK. Asking for help is

Family violence is an unfortunate reality for many families in New Zealand. To support our team members who may be experiencing family violence The Warehouse will offer up to 10 days of paid leave in any calendar year to be used for medical appointments, legal proceedings and other activities related to family violence.

If you are a person that uses Violence in your family and would like to learn about other ways of coping – asking for help is always OK. We can put you in touch with agencies that can help. The Warehouse may also be able to provide you with unpaid time off to attend these appointments.

Please refer to the policy available on inSite.

Gender Transition Support
At TWG we have our Gender Transition policy which acknowledges some of the unique needs of team members wanting to transition and formalises our commitment to enabling access leave and support for gender transition.

There are four broad areas in our Gender Transition policy:

-          An additional 10 days paid leave for medical related appointments that are associated with gender reassignment surgery.

-          Use of existing leave (including sick leave) in relation to identifying as a different gender.

-          Free and confidential counselling through OCP for those thinking about transitioning. 

-          A business commitment to formulate support plan to meet the needs of transgender team members.

Please refer to the policy available on inSite.

At TWG we want to support and encourage team members who may be contemplating suicide to access the professional help they need without the barrier of the initial GP visit cost.

The policy provides for:

• one paid GP/Doctor visit to seek support related to suicide for team members.
  
• paid time off for professional support appointments related to suicide eg counselling
  
• where practical, helping team members to arrange their GP visit or counselling visit where this is urgently required.
  
• provision for a team member (with their manager’s approval) to take an immediate family member to see a GP as a suicide intervention during work hours, without loss of pay.
  

Please refer to the policy available on insite.