Every labor law amendment leaves business owners with two questions: what actually changed, and what should I do about it this week? This guide answers both in practical terms. Note that it is general awareness content and not a substitute for legal advice on your specific situation.
1. Contracts and documentation
A written contract is no longer a formality. Anything left unwritten tends to be interpreted in the employee's favour, which means verbal understandings about allowances, working hours or probation periods become a source of dispute. Review your contract templates and make sure they clearly state the job title, base pay, allowances, place of work and working hours.
2. Working hours and overtime
Maximum working hours, rest breaks and minimum weekly rest are recurring inspection points. The common problem isn't exceeding the limit — it's being unable to prove compliance because there's no accurate attendance record.
- Keep an attendance record you can export for any past period.
- Separate overtime hours from regular hours on the payslip.
- Document the employee's consent to overtime where required.
- Watch for repeated overruns — they're usually a planning problem, not a legal one.
3. Leave and accrued balances
Annual leave is an entitlement that doesn't disappear through neglect; the balance accrues and is settled at end of service. Companies that don't track balances precisely get surprised by large liabilities when a long-tenured employee leaves.
- Calculate each balance from the hire date, not just from the start of the fiscal year.
- Distinguish annual, sick and casual leave in the record.
- Approve leave in writing inside the system so the approval leaves a trace.
- Issue a quarterly balance report and share it with managers.
Most labor disputes don't start with bad intent — they start with the absence of a record both sides agree on.
4. Termination
Dismissal without documented process is the biggest risk an employer can carry. Written warnings, an investigation and a notice period aren't bureaucracy — they're the evidence that protects the company later. Keep a signed copy of every warning in the employee file.
5. A practical 30-day rollout
- Week 1: audit missing or unsigned contracts.
- Week 2: fix the attendance record and confirm you can export historical reports.
- Week 3: reconcile leave balances and standardise how they're calculated.
- Week 4: document your disciplinary and termination policy and share it with the team.
Compliance ultimately isn't a one-off project — it's the natural output of a system that records everything as it happens. When contracts, attendance and leave live in one place, a legal review becomes a single report instead of a week of digging.
Frequently asked questions
- Does unused annual leave expire at the end of the year?
- As a general rule, annual leave doesn't simply expire when the year ends; the balance counts toward the employee's end-of-service entitlements unless there's a clearer agreement governing carry-over that doesn't conflict with the law.
- Does overtime need to be documented in writing?
- Yes. It's always safer to keep an accurate attendance record and documented consent to overtime hours, because the burden of proving compliance normally sits with the employer.
- What's the most important document at termination?
- A complete employee file: the signed contract, written warnings, investigation minutes where applicable, and evidence of the notice period and final settlement.