Looking after leave

With the introduction of PMKeyS, leave administration presents clerical staff with a fresh challenge to ensure our leave is correctly administered.

To properly manage leave, clerical staff must first understand how PMKeyS deals with and reports leave.

War-like service entered in the log will result in credit of war service leave. Photo by Cpl Mark Eaton, 1JPAU(P)

To that end, the Army PMKeyS Cell (APC) has issued a series of articles through APC eNews and the PMKeyS Army website, (defweb.cbr.defence.gov.au/pmkeys/army/default/htm) which PMKeyS users are strongly encouraged to review on a regular basis.

Leave accrual in PMKeyS is an automatic process. Rather than the manual calculation of leave entitlements at the end of a leave year, PMKeyS credits basic recreational leave progressively.

The activity log is an important utility in the administration of leave and is used to report most additional recreation leave (ARL) types, which PMKeyS then accumulates to determine credit at the end of each leave year.

War-like service entered in the log will result in credit of war service leave. Members can also expect automatic accrual of ARL for service in a relevant locality, for example, remote locality leave, when posted or attached to those locations that attract this entitlement.

Leave applications are processed in PMKeyS fortnightly, rather than on occurrence. This then provides administrators with the opportunity to amend or cancel leave while the status of a leave application remains submitted.

Once leave is processed and has a status of confirmed, a reversal can be applied to cancel leave and restore credit. The transfer of leave data from AUSMIS to PMKeyS was largely successful because of sound leave administration and the correction of errors before migration.

Army orderly room staff and corporate support infrastructure personnel are congratulated for their diligence and care, which has produced a good result for Army. But Army still has some residual leave difficulties and these are receiving priority of effort to correct.

Where a member has no leave accrual in PMKeyS, or an adjustment to a previous leave year’s balance is required, units will be requested to complete a spreadsheet to aid reloading leave data.

This spreadsheet, complete with instructions, is being progressively issued to affected units by the APC. On return, corrected leave data will be reloaded under arrangements made with the PMKeyS customer support centre.

Regional visits are now being conducted by members of the APC to obtain feedback, identify user difficulties and provide advice on completion of leave correction spreadsheets. The APC visit program will also provide supplementary PMKeyS training for land command unit clerks and MPACs.

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