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Holiday & Annual Leave

Most employees look forward to taking annual leave and they consider it to be an important part of their benefits package. If annual leave is well managed, it can be a real asset to your Business.  Introducing a policy and procedure on annual leave provides guidance to managers so that there’s a consistent approach to annual leave. It also ensures transparency, so that your employees know what procedures to follow to minimise disappointment and inequality, consequently reducing the chance of success of any claim at an Employment Tribunal.

Things to consider?

• The Working Time Regulations (SI 1998/1833) entitle employees to a minimum of 5.6 weeks paid annual holiday, which equates to 28 days for an employee on a five-day working week.
• The 5.6 weeks comprises:
  • 4 weeks (equivalent to 20 days) under reg.13 of the Working Time Regulations, which implements the four-week entitlement in the Working Time Directive; and
  • An additional 1.6 weeks (equivalent to eight days) under the Working Time Regulations because UK law is more generous than the Directive.
• Part-time workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks’ leave, but calculated on a pro rata basis according to the number of days or hours that they work. Do you have a robust calculator?
• Do you wish to give the statutory entitlement or increase it? This would need to be detailed in your contract of employment and your annual leave policy.
• Do you need your employees to work certain days of the year, i.e. bank holidays, month end, Christmas? If so, you can introduce policies on when employees can and cannot take annual leave.
• How do you prompt employees to take annual leave?
• Do you offer purchasing, selling, carry over of annual leave so that employees can balance work and personal commitments to suit their needs. Is it in a written policy?
• How have you considered requests for leave for religious purposes in your policy?
• If you have pregnant employees, it is helpful to plan their annual leave that they will accrue while they are on maternity leave and consider what this looks like on their return from maternity.
• If you have an employee whose sickness coincides with a period of annual leave, then you will need to consider how this is recorded appropriately. It is now law that employees have the right to take their annual leave at a time other than during a period that coincides with a period of sick leave, even if this means taking it outside the year in which the leave accrued.
• Do you a central system for managing annual leave (alongside all other absences), ideally via a HR System?
• Who calculates accrued annual leave provision for new starters, leavers and part timers and ensures it is legally compliant?

If you need HR help and support, then get in touch. 

Free Advice

Examples of help we can give:

• Review and draft an annual leave policy, ensuring it is legally compliant and best practice.
• Audit current annual leave process and provide recommendations on next steps.
• Provide full annual leave calculations.
• Administer the annual leave process, via our HR administration service.