200+ Sunshine Coast Council employees to lose personal leave in system error

Sunshine Coast Council has discovered a major error affecting 359 workers’ personal leave balances, with some set to lose accumulated hours dating back to 2019.

Sunshine Coast Council City Hall in the Maroochydore CBD. Picture Lachie Millard

More than 350 employees of the council will have their personal leave balances overhauled after a system error from almost six years ago was discovered.

Sunshine Coast Council employees will have their personal leave hours changed after errors made by a HR system implemented in 2019 were recently uncovered.

The notification of the changes were made public by The Services Union in an address to their members, stating council staff took on a review and found an error in the accrual of personal leave for some employees.

A Sunshine Coast Council spokesman said council was undertaking pay automation improvements and a system error regarding personal leave was detected in the process.

In a letter to the union, council explained the error occurred when their current peopleHUB system was introduced in 2019, which resulted in incorrect leave balances for some employees.

“The system configuration was corrected in September, 2021 however, the vendor did not carry out the necessary system update that would have corrected any legacy issues of incorrect balances back to implementation,” the letter read.

The Services Union expressed concerns for employees with little sick leave following the change due to the current flu season.

This means the system issues only impacted employees who were using peopleHUB up to September, 2021 and no one hired after this date.

An external Dayforce specialist consultant who analysed the impact of the error also identified some employment statuses and awards were incorrectly changed, such as part-time to full-time.

The letter read the consultant advised council to correct the issue by manually recalculating leave balances for affected employees.

A summary by council showed the changes will be made in three separate rollouts.

It shows 147 employees will gain personal leave and 212 employees will lose personal leave hours.

“Council recognises that an employee impacted by a reduction to personal leave balance will need to be considered carefully,” the letter read.

Therefore, any employee who would receive a negative balance in the changes will instead have their balance set to zero.

The Services Union sent a letter in response, expressing its thanks in council notifying the organisation of the matter, but also sharing concern about the “record-breaking” flu season.

Sunshine Coast Council is expected to make the changes across three rollovers. Picture: Sam Turner

The union proposed for employees to access up to five days of personal leave in advance in anticipation of when the next 15 days of leave was given as per their award.

This comes after Sunshine Coast Council found a $20m deficit in their budget following a miscalculation in depreciation, which affected at least the past five years of financial statements.

The council spokesman said the organisation was working with employees to resolve any possible impacts, and council was committed to supporting staff through the process

The letter sent by council stated employees would be notified of the changes and given one week to respond, and anyone requiring support would be directed to HR or their Employee Assistance Program.

Originally published as 200+ Sunshine Coast Council employees to lose personal leave in system error