We all know we have to let our teams have holiday - but do you know all the rules?
Time Off
The minimum statutory holiday entitlement for full time employees or workers is 28 days or 5.6 weeks which can include bank holidays.
The minimum statutory entitlement for part time employees or workers is based on the time they work. So a part time employee who works 2.5 days per week is entitled to 14 days holiday or 2.8 weeks including bank holidays.
Holiday entitlement normally accrues at 2.33 days per month for full time workers. For part time workers, their entitlement will be pro-rata to their normal working hours.
Casual Workers
Casual workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of holiday each year regardless of how many weeks they work in a year. Casual workers' holiday pay should be calculated on the basis of a 52 week average.
Bank Holidays
How you handle bank holidays will be specific to your business requirements, but you basically have 2 options:
Employees are not required to come to work on bank holidays and so the 8 days are saved to be taken on the bank holidays, leaving 20 days for the employees to take during the rest of the year.
Employees are required to come to work on bank holidays which means the employees can have the 8 days to take during the rest of the year. If an employee works a bank holiday in this scenario, there is no deduction taken from their holiday entitlement.
If you wish, you can choose to pay employees an inflated rate of pay for working on a bank holiday, particularly if your business doesn't typically operate on a bank holiday.
With regards to additional bank holidays such as the King's coronation, you should check your employment contracts to understand whether there is a contractual right to the time off or not.
Notice to Take Holiday
Broadly speaking, employees (and employers) should give twice as long notice as the period of holiday requested (or required by the employer). So if the employee wants to take 5 days off, they should give 10 days' notice.
Employers can request more notice than this depending on how their work is scheduled in.
Employers can refuse holiday requests but reasons for this should be reasonable and the employee should be notified as soon as possible.
Shut Down Periods
If there is a period where your business shuts down completely (such as Christmas) you can require your employees to save some of their holiday to cover this period of shut down, provided it is in your contracts!
Holidays & Sickness
If an employee is unwell during a period of holiday, they are able to claim their holiday back to take at a later time and take the period as sick leave instead.
Holiday Pay
If your employees are paid the same salary every single month with no exceptions, then their holiday pay will likely be equivalent to their normal working day or week.
However, there have been a number of tribunal cases over the last 5-10 years which have changed the way we calculate holiday for employees and workers whose pay or hours vary.
Where employees work different shifts each week, receive commission, receive bonuses, work overtime or whose pay varies, employers are required to pay average holiday pay.
This means that you take the average of the employee's pay over the 52 week period prior to the holiday period in question (or up to their start date if they have worked less than 52 weeks).
For casual workers, if there is a week in which no work was done (and so no pay received) you need to take into account an earlier week.
Holiday Year
The holiday year can be whatever you want it to be! Some businesses like to line it up with the financial year, others like to go by the tax year. Most tend to go January - December, just because it's easier to remember!
Got more questions about holiday entitlements? Holiday pay? How it all works?
Book a consult call with our HR Warrior Princess today!