Annual leave owing hours disappeared

[Sam2205]

I recently returned from maternity leave to reduced hours. I was initially working 42 hours a week when I went on maternity leave. I came back to approximately 10 hours and have slowly increased this to 20 hours a week. 
when I left , my payslip read 212 hours of annual leave available and 36.92 accrued. This was in Feb. I returned to work in September and after my first payslip , MYOB got rid of my annual leave available to 55.74 hours. 
when our admin tried to rectify this. MYOB told that that this was fine. I didn't take annual leave. The government paid me for the 6 months at home. MYOB has deducted all my hours, everything that was owed to me and now telling my employer that I may have taken this leave ??? No I didn't. Can someone please tel me how to talk to an actual human regarding this complaint or how to fix this and get my OWED annual leave back. I've spent three years with this company with only 1 full week of leave in the whole 3 years prior to mat leave. 

[Leya_Wilson]

Hi @Sam2205 ,

Unfortunately, we would need to discuss this with your employer if they are using MYOB and take a look at the system itself to understand what has happened. 

Please get them to give the relevant support team for the MYOB product a call and we can assist further from there.

Many thanks, 

[Will_H]

Hi anyone reading this thread,

Just to add to Leya's response.

Any kind of leave balance changes should be discussed with your employer, but this is an area of legislation that can get a little confusing.

Actual guidance/advice from MBIE is avaialble at: 

https://www.employment.govt.nz/leave-and-holidays/annual-holidays/annual-holidays-entitlements/

Here's a link I found interesting that talks about the consequences of changing work patterns a bit:

https://www.nzppa.co.nz/blog/what-does-it-mean-when-you-reduce-an-employees-pay-or-hours/

The core answer here can get complicated fast, but generally in New Zealand:

1. Employees are entitled to Weeks of leave, not Hours of leave.
2. Your balance must (according to MBIE at the time I wrote this) be tracked as Weeks.
3. If an employees work pattern changes, we would expect leave balances to change as a result.
4. How much your leave is worth is calculated based on a complex calculation of what your average weekly earnings is, divided back down to your days per week/hours per day.
5. This gets extra complicated when people have been on maternity or unpaid leave.

Hopefully the above information helps anyone else curious about this kind of question find the right track.