Family Responsibility Leave South Africa

The Family responsibility leave in South Africa is governed by Section 27 of the BCEA Basic Condition Employment Act 1997. According to this, employees can receive up to three days of leave per year on meeting the specific criteria decided by the employer. Here is all you need to know about these leaves and how they work, so dive right in.

How Does Family Responsibility Leave Work?

The South Africa Department of Labor offers its employees three family responsibility leaves in cases of emergencies. However, to avail of the family responsibility paid leave, the employee is required to show reasonable proof of a legitimate reason listed in the BCEA Basic Conditions for Employment Act of 1997. Here are some general conditions you must fulfill to receive the perks under these leaves.

• The employee must have been in employment for longer than four months.
• The employee who works for at least four days a week for the same employer.
• The employee who works for at least 24 hours a month.
• To get the paid responsibility leave, the employee must be covered by the BCEA.

Family Responsibility Leave Reasons

The employee can request for the three-day paid leave during each annual leave cycle, in the following scenarios. And, the employer is obligated to grant these leaves to the employee.

• When the employee’s child is born.
• When the employee’s children are sick.
• When the people close to the employee (spouse, parent, grandparent, child, adopted child, grandchild, sibling, or adoptive parents) die.

Instances When You Cannot Take Family Responsibility Leave

In the following cases, an employee does not have the right to ask for a BCEA family responsibility leave.

• The family responsibility leave does not include the death of the parents-in-law.
• An employee working less than four days cannot get the leave.
• If the employer rejects the proof provided by the employee, the leave is nullified.
• The unused leaves cannot be lapsed at the end of each annual cycle by the employee.
• The employee cannot apply for a family responsibility leave for a child (sick) if he/ she is over the age of 18.

However, the employer can always give the employee leverage to use their leaves for this purpose, according to their company’s policy. In such cases, the employer must be consistent about the decisions of all the employees.

Who Can Take the Family Responsibility Leave?

According to the Basic Conditions of the Employment Act, the family responsibility leave applies to all employees and employers other than the following.

• Member of the National Defence Force, member of the National Intelligence Agency, South African Secret Service, and Unpaid volunteers currently working for charity.

Moreover, the section of the Basic Conditions that regulates the working hours does not apply to the following.

• Employees in senior management.
• Sales staff traveling and regulating their own working hours.
• Workers with less than 24 working hours in a month.
• Workers who are earning more than the specified amount in the Basic Conditions of the Employment Act.
• Employees in emergency work.

What Does the Family Responsibility Leave Include?

The employer is subjected to pay the employee for up to three days included in the family responsibility leave. During these days, the wage of the employee is ordinary, as received on any other working day.

How Many Days is Family Responsibility Leave?

Full-time workers registered by the BCEA Basic Conditions for the Employment Act of 1997 are entitled to three days of paid family responsibility leave during each annual leave cycle. Typically, one annual cycle for leave consists of twelve months from the date of employment. Your family responsibility leave expires at the end of each annual cycle, even if you have some remaining.

5 Days Family Responsibility Leave

Although full-time employees are entitled to three days of family responsibility leave, domestic employees have the right to enjoy five leaves. However, the condition is that you must be working full-time with the same employer. It is equally important to note that these types of leaves are not accumulative, meaning they do not include any unused portion lapses at the end of the year.

What Proof is Required for Family Responsibility Leave?

The employee is required to provide reasonable proof of birth, illness, or death to receive the family responsibility leave. For instance, in case of the death of a close one, you will provide a death certificate, a medical certificate in cases of illness, and a birth certificate for instances when the employee’s child is born.

Here is a quick summary of the documents you will need to prove your need for the family responsibility leave.

Reason for Leave	Proof Required	When It is Required
Death of an immediate family member	Death certificate, authorized by the state Proof that the deceased person is your immediate family member	Within seven days of coming back to work
Birth of a child	Birth certificate Proof of paternity	On returning from the leave
Illness of the child (minor)	Proof of parenthood (birth certificate, etc).  Medical certificate that specifies the name of your child.	On returning from the leave

• Please note that your company may require additional documents to prove the reason for the family responsibility leave.

Leave Approval Under BCEA

In cases where the employees are not eligible to receive the family responsibility leave but still want a leave to attend to their personal matters, it depends on the company to allow such employees to use their annual leaves. In addition, BCEA also allows these employers to verify and validate their leaves in terms of section 27 (5), which states that,

• “Before paying an employee for leave in terms of this section, an employer may require reasonable proof of an event contemplated in subsection (2) for which the leave was required.”

This reasonable proof can be anything including the doctor’s note, death certificate, etc. That said, please note that South Africa’s labor force has different industries and sectors, each having its own Collective Agreement. And, as per these agreements, companies may allocate different numbers of leave.

Things to Remember

Finally, here are some important things you must remember in consideration with the family responsibility leave.

• The request for the leave must be in writing. It should be on the company’s leave form, authorized by the head of the department.
• Once the leave is authorized, the original application should be included in the employee’s personal file. The employee must keep the duplicate of the application.
• An employee can claim their family responsibility leave as a part of the day (½ day) or the entire day.
• A certain industry or company employment may have a different number of days allocated for responsibility leave and the conditions under which you can grant these leaves.

Difference Between Compassionate Leave and Family Responsibility Leave

Generally, the short-term leave taken by workers when their close family member is ill or passes away is known as compassionate leave. Under South African legislation, the term used for these leaves is Family Responsibility since 1997. Despite this, you will see employees using both terms interchangeably in practice, which leads to confusion sometimes.

However, it was soon cleared up under the BCEA Basic Conditions Employment Act, in which these leaves were addressed as family responsibility leaves. All the payslips, reports, and system-generated slips today use this term. This change does not influence any other condition regarding the responsibility leaves.

FAQs

In conclusion, the Department of Labor in South Africa gives its employees leverage to attend to family emergencies with paid leave. Aside from the conditions highlighted in BCEA 1997, you must carefully consider your company’s employment contract.