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What is built-in annual leave?

And is your BIL roster actually compliant?

Yes, there is a such a thing as a roster that has your annual leave period “built-in”.

This is a foreign concept for most people, but before you label us as “un-Australian” for even mentioning such a thing, BIL has been popular for many years within the companies and the employees that use such arrangements.  They are currently utilised  across such diverse industries as manufacturing, corrective services and offshore oil and gas.

Built-in leave (BIL) rosters schedule your leave days off well in advance. With the result that you can know when your leave periods will occur over the next several years.

For example, you may work for 24 weeks with your usual rostered shifts (totaling 152 hours every 4 weeks), and then get an allocated 4-week block of annual leave.

BIL arrangements ensure that:

  • Employees are regulated at their ordinary hours across the roster (e.g. 38 hours in the above example)
  • Leave is taken in regular periods across the year so that employees have regular periods where they can rest and recharge
  • Staffing levels are maintained at the required levels across the year, without the usual variations seen within traditional leave systems
  • Traditional peak periods for leave requests like Christmas and Easter are rotated across the workforce each year in a fair and equitable arrangement
  • Everyone uses their leave allocation each year and there are no high leave accruals in the system (unless by approval)
  • The administration and time burden of managing leave requests and leave ballot systems is reduced and departures from the scheduled leave become part of the employee’s requirements for managing leave

The working arrangements for rostered shifts still need to consider the whole picture – from health and safety considerations (including fatigue), operational requirements and workforce preferences, to market disruptors and new technologies.

Does all of their annual leave have to be rostered?

Actually no.

Whilst there many examples where employees do have all of their annual leave rostered each year, it can also be only partially rostered (e.g. 70%) with the remainder able to be taken flexibly.

These flexible days can even be used as single leave days (with suitable notice) if that suits all the requirements of the operation and the workforce. This allows employees some additional flexibility for weddings, birthdays and other family and social events.

What if I want to move my leave period to another part of the year?

This is usually arranged either by special one-off request, or by identifying an employee in the preferred leave period who is willing to swap.   For example, you and I can swap our Christmas and Easter periods for this year.

A swap though needs to be approved by a manager who ensures that skills mix requirements for the operation is not affected.

But if you and I have swapped, and I work your leave period first when I would have been rostered off, there can be an issue if you leave the organisation before I get to take my leave.  In the rare event that this occurs, the organisation ensures that still get to take my agreed leave period.

Leave accrual hours still need to be tracked by the payroll system to ensure fairness in pay and leave hours for parties.

Surely employees aren’t happy being told when to take their leave

This is a normal question for anyone who has never worked a built-in leave roster.

However, you may be surprised as employees are drawn to the regular and equitable leave periods where they can plan holidays well in advance.  Also, through rostering of the RDO’s or rest days either side of the leave periods they can usually achieve slightly longer breaks than would normally be achieved through traditional leave taking.

For example, one group of employees surveyed had high satisfaction scores with 87% who were happy with their current BIL arrangements, and another 11% who wanted to maintain BIL but would like to see their leave allocated in slightly shorter periods and more often.

Is your BIL roster compliant?

Orkest Consulting recently assisted a client who had worked this type of arrangement in place for years, and the majority of their workers were happy with it.

However, the union argued that the arrangement and the associated employee agreement conditions deprived the employees the right to choose the timing and duration of their annual leave.

Read more to understand the issues and how to ensure your BIL roster is compliant.

The role of the workplace has changed and will continue to evolve. As we move towards more flexible working models whilst navigating economic pressures, meeting the whole of business demands has never been more challenging.

Contact the Orkest Consulting team to explore how alternate roster and work hours arrangements can find the balance between what’s good for people, for business and your future – all at the same time

Orkest is an expert workforce planning and design consultancy, specialising in roster optimisation. 

Drawing on two decades of advisory across Australia and the Asia Pacific, we’re helping organisations solve their most crucial workforce challenges by finding balanced solutions that are good for business and good for people.

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