Can anyone employed in HR help me with this question?

I am hoping you can help me with an HR problem at my work. Due to the fact that my work currently has no HR, I can't as them. (my company is in fanancial stife, the HR girl left, and they didn't replace her.)
I had 4 weeks off sick leave with certificate from my surgeon. I was concerned before I left that I would not have enough sick leave, as I have only been permanent for the last year, and it doesn't really give me many days. I talked to our general manager, who said that as my rollover date from when I started was mid January, I would still be paid, but "owe them back" hours in January. So I thought that it would be fine.
anyway I just received my pay, and noticed that I got paid, some "sick leave with cert" but obviously ran out of hours, so they just put "sick leave wihout pay", and didn't pay me.
There was absolutely no communication that this would occur, so I was never given the option of taking it out of annual leave, or trying to come to another arrangement.

To add insult to injury, I ended up going back two days later than I wanted to, as they wouldn't let me come back until I met with the HR girl (who was still there at this time) to write a back to work plan. It was bull sh*t, as I didn't need a plan and delayed my return by two days, due to their error of not arranging the meeting on the day that I said that I would return.

Do you know where I should go from here? Is there any legal grounds available to me to assist? We are not unionised, so there will be no assistance from there.

TIA - Not good to be about $1,000 short over the Christmas period!

Not sure if this will really help you, but in addition to speaking with the GM, I would have advised speaking to payroll as well to discuss SL/AL hours and the payment during your time off (with the GM acknowledging rollover and the okay to pay pro-rata). If payroll was unaware of the discussion you had with the GM, they have done what they were required to do. Sucks I know, and it would have been nice of them to contact you and let you know you were out of hours and to discuss options. When I was in payroll, we had an agreement with the permanents that any SL taken in excess of entitlement + pro-rata would be taken from their AL hours.
As for the return to work plan, was the injury work related? If so, then it is a requirement they do this under Workers Comp. If not, then they were probably doing it as a 'safe guard' to ensure you weren't at risk of relapse, or the quality of your work affected if you couldn't do certain tasks.

Have a chat to the GM and see if the shortfall can be made up, and mention that you aren't happy you had to wait a further two days to return to work because of their error. I'm not sure if you will get any compensation for it, but they might make it up with your SL pay adjustment.

Hope that makes sense, and I hope it helps a little

Our payroll won't speak directly to us, all communication goes through line managers. You can email them, but it is quite a complex process, and they don't make it easy. But yes you are right, I should have firstly had it in writing from my GM, and had evidence that he contacted HR. lesson learnt there.

In regard to the injury, it is no way work related, and as I had a return date for them weeks in advance, they had plenty of time to ensure the meeting could occur the day I was due to return. They called me the morning I was going back to tell me that I had to have a meeting. They never told me this before I went on leave, and therefore said I could not come back.

It sounds like there is a communication breakdown between managers and payroll, managers and HR, and managers and yourself (not at your fault though). Your manager hasn't notified the relevant departments of what needs to happen, or contacted you (or whoever contacted you re your return) in regard to the meeting BEFORE you were due to return.

You could maybe have a chat to Industrial Relations / Fair Work to see if there is anything they could suggest. Otherwise I would suggest speaking with the manager you spoke with prior to leaving and if they don't come up with a suitable solution, is there the ability to take it above them? You may not be the first person who has had this happen.

Hope it can all be sorted. Sorry I'm not of more help

I just tried to speak to the General manager, and was advised that e has gone on leave and will not be back till mid Jan. spoke to my direct manager, who gave me the payroll guy's info. I called. No answer. I emailed him also and he just responded to tell me that he has never heard of this arrangement before. He didnb't offer any sort of apology for the lack of communication, although I strangly stated that I am disappointed that there has been no discussion with me. He said it can come out of my annual leave. I have opted for this.

Again no apology from anyone. Pretty much fobbed off and a pain in the butt.

Thanks for the info though. Much appreciated.

Strange. Just got my pay slip. Out of the 37 hours, only 7.6 came from annual leave , the rest from normal hours. I am now really confused, and can't follow it up for over a week now