What is Family Leave?

Family Leave is actually Family Violence Leave as defined in the Holidays Act. When this leave was first introduced it was initially called Domestic Violence Leave and was subsequently renamed Family Violence Leave.

At the time we felt, would anyone really want to see that on payslips and reports? and what about the emotional effort of having to apply for it, so we decided to call it Family Leave.

Full details of who qualifies etc can be found HERE.

Why do we call it Family Leave

As mentioned there were a number of things we considered at the time, all related to protecting the applicant and removing as many barriers as possible.

• Violence of any type is unacceptable and the effect of suffering from violence by their partner must be physically and emotionally horrific, so finding the strength to admit this is happening must be very daunting, then having to apply for Family Violence Leave knowing their manager will now know could be emotionally challenging and result in the person not applying. Changing the name slightly we felt may make it easier for those who need the leave, to apply for it.
• We also considered the possible outcome(s) if the abusive partner saw the item 'Family Violence Leave' on a payslip. This could result in greater violence towards the applicant as the abuser now knows they have told their employer and it is now publically known. Showing Family Leave instead on a payslip allows the recipient to protect themselves from further abuse.
• There is a lot of emotions around Family Violence whether it is currently happening or has happened in the past. We felt that seeing 'Family Violence Leave' when reviewing historical payslips may trigger a lot of bad memories and result in having to relive the whole episode all over again.

We can call it Family Violence Leave in the Ezytime Portal but we strongly urge you to consider the above points before requesting such a change. It will appear as Family Leave on all payroll reports and payslips in order to protect the recipients as best we can.

If you have any other ideas on how we can possibly assist someone suffering from Family Violence coming forward, then we would really appreciate your thoughts.