Sick During Annual Leave?

If you fall ill or need to care for someone during your annual leave, you might not have to sacrifice your holiday time. Under the National Employment Standards, if you’re sick or injured during a period of annual leave, you can use your accrued paid sick leave instead of annual leave. This ensures those sick days come out of your personal leave balance and not your annual leave. The same applies if you need to care for a family member or respond to an emergency, you can use paid carer’s leave instead.

To do so, you’ll need to:

• Notify your employer as soon as possible

• Provide evidence, like a medical certificate, if requested

If you don’t have enough sick leave, you can agree with your employer to either stay on annual leave or switch to another type of leave, such as unpaid leave.

Unfortunately, if for example, a close family member passes away during your time off, you’re also entitled to use compassionate leave instead of annual leave. Similarly, family and domestic violence leave can be accessed during annual leave if needed.

The law recognises that if something serious disrupts your annual leave, you don’t have to lose it entirely.