The South African government does not impose a strict limit on the probationary period at the beginning of employment. However, employers cannot keep employees on probation indefinitely. In most cases, employers keep employees on probation for three months. However, this delay may change depending on the type of role. Overtime that must be paid is one and a half times the employee`s salary for overtime worked. The parties may agree on how overtime will be paid, e.g. DEM employee 30 minutes off for each hour of overtime worked (with full pay) or the employee may be entitled to at least 90 minutes of leave for each overtime hour worked. If the employer prefers to release the employee for overtime rather than one and a half times the employee`s salary, the leave must be taken within one month of the overtime worked. If the parties agree and it is included in the service contract, the exemption can be deducted within 12 months, but then it must be expressly agreed in the service contract. An employee generally has to complete the 12-month leave cycle before taking the leave, although employers have the discretion to change this.

Employers cannot pay employees in lieu of vacation leave, although they must pay them for unused leave upon termination. In the absence of an agreement between the employer and the employee, the employer may order when the leave is to be taken. The employer must provide an employee with an additional day of paid leave if a public holiday falls on a day during the employee`s annual leave. The employer must pay an employee a public holiday indemnity at least equal to the remuneration that the employee would have received during a period corresponding to the annual leave, calculated at the employee`s rate of pay immediately before the beginning of the annual leave, and at the normal rate of pay. For the calculation of an employee`s vacation pay or severance pay: in cases where there is an agreement, overtime may not exceed three hours per day or ten hours per week. (a) Workers whose wages are below the threshold have the legal right to demand in respect of the above articles. However, an employee may not refuse to work overtime if the required work could not reasonably be expected due to circumstances that the employer could not reasonably have expected, such as: Sudden equipment failure must be dealt with immediately and cannot be performed by workers during normal working hours. The lunch break is granted after five hours of continuous working time.

Tea breaks are not considered work breaks. The legal lunch break is one hour, but can be reduced to 30 minutes by agreement between the employee and the employer. Section 6 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act provides that the Minister of Labour, on the advice of the Commission, shall issue a decision excluding workers earning a certain amount per annum from the sections of Chapter 2 of the Act. Chapter 2 deals mainly with the regulation of workers` working time. The current threshold is R205,433.30 per year. It is extremely important to remember that if the employer becomes aware of the notification of threshold earnings, it must not make unilateral changes to the terms and conditions of employment of employees earning more than R205,433.30 per annum. The conditions agreed in the original employment contract are legally binding and must be complied with, unless it is mutually agreed to change these conditions. If you have been employed full-time for more than 4 months, you can take 3 days of paid leave from family responsibilities per year if your law applies to all workers and employers, except members of the National Defence Force, the National Intelligence Agency, the South African secret service and unpaid volunteers working for charitable organisations. Therefore, the employee earning above the threshold must contact the employer, negotiate and reach an agreement on the number of regular and overtime hours that will be required of the employee.

Once this is established, the parties must agree on overtime pay. This remuneration may be lower than the legal minimum. Therefore, it is obvious that it is illegal for an employer to force an employee to work a full shift of, say, 9 hours, and then be “on standby” for the next 12 hours – this would violate the daily rest condition. Employees in the so-called “24/7” industry such as hospitality and IT are still subject to the 45/10 rule. If an employee works after 6:00 p.m. and before 6:00 a.m. the next day, the employee works at night.