Is your employer bank holiday ready?

Most of us are now looking forward to having a break with the family for Christmas, but local employers need to be thinking ahead to 2022 and managing employees’ holiday entitlement.

It was announced that there will be a further bank holiday on Friday, June 3, 2022, to mark The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Additionally, May Day will be moved to Thursday, June 2, in effect creating a four-day weekend.

A chain of flames [or beacons] will be lit in Lynn and across the world.

Whilst most of us will welcome the extra break, it could prove to be a bit of a bonfire for local firms in Lynn who have battled back from the pandemic and where employees who have been on furlough have continued to accumulate holiday.

One local client, a carpentry joinery business, has struggled to give employees time off on the run up to Christmas as they are so busy and want to honour their commitments to staff and customers.

New rules introduced in the pandemic allowed employees to carry over holiday for up to two years but need to be taken at some point.

Whether employers will need to permit staff to take this extra day will depend upon what it says in their employees’ written contracts of employment.

* Contracts of employment may stipulate whether all public holidays or only particular bank holidays are included in their annual entitlement

* The minimum statutory requirement for a full-time employee is 28 days or 5.6 weeks including public holidays

* Full-time workers annual holiday entitlement normally accrues at 2.33 days per month from the first day of employment

* Part-time workers are also entitled to a minimum of 5.6 weeks of paid holiday each year, calculated on a pro-rata basis, according to the hours they work

* Taking unauthorised annual holiday may lead to disciplinary action being taken by the employer

* In addition to the statutory minimum holiday entitlement an organisation may adopt the use of a time-in-lieu or flexi-time system and/or the use of unpaid holiday entitlement in addition to paid holiday entitlement

* The law has changed significantly in respect of the calculation of holiday pay so that now regular overtime and commission payments may need to be included.