“Spare a thought for your friends in payroll”: Call for understanding as new September 22 public holiday poses challenges

The September 22 public holiday recognising the death of Queen Elizabeth II has seen Australian businesses and payroll staff scramble to adapt.

A national day of mourning will be held next Thursday to commemorate the Queen, who died last week week aged 96.

But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s call to make the occasion a public holiday came as something of a surprise to the business community.

Now, many small and family businesses face a choice: open their doors, pay staff public holiday penalty rates, and potentially operating at a loss, or shut up shop for the day and lose customer trade.

Taking to LinkedIn after the announcement, payroll professionals have outlined the unenviable task ahead of them as they manage those new workplace requirements.

Payroll consultant Gemma McDonnell-Mossop called on workers to “spare a thought for your friends in payroll and workforce management”.

Payroll staff must now reschedule staff and services, and update payroll software to ensure Thursday counts towards public holiday rates, she said.

In addition, payroll staff must now double-check employee annual leave, to ensure Thursday counts as a public holiday and not a day of leave on their systems.

“The [cherry] on top is that it is that for Victoria it extends the existing long weekend (will now be Thu to Sun) but splits the WA long weekend (Thu, then Sat to Mon) meaning an onslaught of requests for Friday the 23rd off as well to deal with!,” she added.

Workforce compliance startup Yellow Canary even took the step of providing a how-to guide to other professionals, detailing how the day “throws a bit of a spanner in the payroll works”.

Beyond the points raised by McDonnell-Mossop, Yellow Canary’s customer success lead Kirsty Martin also suggests staff should check if the holiday impacts the pay processing cycle, and how banks will process payments over the public holiday period.

And, like McDonnell-Mossop, Martin suggests employers and employees alike should take a gentle approach to those navigating that particular minefield.

“We think the most important question to ask your payroll team is whether they prefer coffee or chocolate?” she said.