Reserve Bank staff given eight 'wellbeing days' amid national productivity warnings
What productivity crisis? Staff at the Reserve Bank of Australia are being encouraged to take eight days of ‘wellbeing leave’ a year, no questions asked.
Staff at the Reserve Bank of Australia are encouraged to take eight “wellbeing days” off each year, with no requirement to provide any reason for their absence.
The wellbeing leave will come out of employees’ personal leave allowance, which is up to 18 days annually.
But unlike personal leave, the RBA does not “reserve the right to require documentary evidence” for any absences related to wellbeing leave, potentially opening the door to abuse.
The changes to the RBA’s enterprise agreement, which were signed off by the Fair Work Commission last week, also include a 5 per cent pay uplift and new provisions relating to accrued rostered day off leave. Staff covered by the agreement are those earning a base salary of up to $101,789.
The RBA downgraded Australia’s productivity outlook from 1 per cent to 0.7 per cent annual growth, with governor Michele Bullock warning in August that “the way we grow our living standards is through productivity”.
“The implication of slow productivity growth is that real wages can’t grow as quickly,” Ms Bullock added.
And in a speech to the Citi investment conference last month, the RBA’s chief economist and assistant governor Sarah Hunter outlined at great length “why productivity matters for central bankers”.
“This is an extremely important issue, given the fundamental role that productivity growth has as a driver of rising living standards for Australians,” Dr Hunter said.
Yet there appears to be little concern for getting the most out of the RBA’s 2,000-odd staff.
“Employees are not required to provide a reason for taking wellbeing leave, but are encouraged to use it to support their wellbeing,” a new clause to the RBA’s enterprise agreement notes.
Staff are advised that managers can take into account “business needs, including operational and work requirements, when assessing requests for wellbeing leave”.
“However, the bank must not unreasonably refuse a request for wellbeing leave made under this clause,” the enterprise agreement adds.
Senior fellow and chief economist at lobby group the Institute of Public Affairs Adam Creighton said that Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed that “public sector labour productivity growth has crashed by 9 per cent since 2022”.
“It’s a terrible look when the best paid section of the public sector, the Reserve Bank, is awarding itself even more generous employment conditions amid a slump in public sector productivity,” Mr Creighton said.
“In addition, recent IPA research found the average public sector employee earns almost $20,000 a year more than the average private sector worker, which makes such generous conditions completely unjustifiable.
“If you are genuinely ill that is one thing. However, in 2024, ABS figures show public sector workers took 13.1 sick days a year on average, a third more than available to private sector workers. It’s not like they need any more encouragement to take more.”
The RBA declined to comment.
The RBA’s workforce increased by 15 per cent over the last year, from 1774 in June 2024 to 2039 this year.
The extra staff were hired in the technology and IT teams, to help “implement our transformation and change agendas”, the RBA’s annual report noted.
The board of the RBA unanimously decided to keep the cash rate on hold at 3.6 per cent at the start of this month.
Ms Bullock, who was paid a total salary of $1.2m in the last financial year, said the bank had been surprised by the rise in inflation in the September quarter.
“We didn’t consider cutting,” Ms Bullock told reporters on 4 November. “We basically just talked about holding and the reasons to hold.”
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Originally published as Reserve Bank staff given eight 'wellbeing days' amid national productivity warnings
