UK law in respect of holiday entitlement states that, for those who work five days a week the statutory entitlement is 5.6 weeks which equates to 28 days per year. Bank holidays can be included in these entitlements.
5.6 weeks or 28 days applies to full time employees, and where the employee works part time then the calculation is based on a pro rata amount. For example, if an employee works 3 days out of the 5 days per week, then the calculation is 3/5ths of the annual entitlement.
It is important that the employer supports their people taking holiday, and that this is discussed between the employee and line manager regularly throughout the year. One of the reasons for providing a holiday entitlement is to prevent burnout.
Can an employer vary this entitlement?
The answer is ‘Yes’. And where the employer is able to enhance holiday entitlement, this is considered to be a great engagement tool and can help to attract and retain staff to work at your company.
Employers can enhance their holiday entitlement above (but not below) the statutory minimum. This might include:
- Additional days above the statutory holiday entitlement
- Summer or winter business shut down days – such as the Christmas period
- Additional holiday that the employee is able to buy if needed for specific occasions
- Employee birthdays
- Allowing the carry forward of holiday days to the next holiday year if the employee has not taken some of their holiday*
*Only allow in certain circumstances and where the employee has taken the statutory amount.
It is advisable to provide a holiday policy outlining the approach to booking holidays. This will ensure that employees follow the correct process e.g. booking holiday for approval, allowing sufficient notice. The policy must be consistently applied to staff to avoid any potential discrimination.
Requests for additional holiday / days off
The employer is under no obligation to give additional holiday or days off, when requested by the employee, however in such instances the employer may decide to offer unpaid leave. The employer should be cautious as these decisions may become expected. We would advise caution with this and to only allow on a case by case basis e.g. where the employee has used up holiday and they have an unplanned event.
Holiday administration and calculations
Whilst spreadsheets may work in the short term, having a HR management system which includes an automated holiday booking process and calculator can remove the administration burden out of this process will enable the business to focus on operational matters. HR software enables the employer to:
- Give access to employees, to book their own holiday, to check and plan their holiday entitlement and to view team absence calendars
- Allow line manager to approve/decline holidays via an automated process, to manage and view team absences, and benefit from automatic holiday calculations
- Means that businesses can benefit from cloud-based records, save manager administration and time freeing them up to focus on the business and monitor holiday statistics with reporting tools
If you have any questions relating to holiday entitlement and would like to implement a HR management system or automated holiday process into your business, then please contact the Nockolds HR team either via email enquiries@nockoldshr.co.uk or call us on 0345 6460406.