With the festive season upon us and New Year looming, it is wise to calculate annual leave allowances for your team members and inform them of their entitlement for 2022. This avoids responding to individual enquiries and encourages employees to book their leave for the year in advance. Thanks to the Queen, there is also an extra day’s allowance to plan for!
How many holiday days should we be offering?
The statutory holiday allowance, obligatory according to UK employment law, is 5.6 weeks. For full time employees working a regular 5 days per week, this equates to 20 days plus 8 Bank Holidays per year. For part time employees or those on a rota, this should be pro-rated according to their working days or hours, including their proportion of Bank Holidays. If someone works irregular hours, it may be best to give the entitlement in hours; 224 hours, pro-rated.
Statutory holiday entitlement is the minimum you must give, but it is an option to give over and above this as a contractual or discretionary additional benefit. If you decide to offer this for your teams it is important to remain fair. Some organisations also offer an further day’s annual leave as a performance-related reward, or perhaps supporting employees’ mental health by allowing a ‘duvet day’ or ‘welfare day’. Others offer an guaranteed day off on or near the individual’s birthday. Attendance-related reward schemes, however, are not advised as this can be seen as a discriminatory policy.
Why is 2022 different?
The UK has been given an extra Bank Holiday in 2022, yay! This is to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, her 70 year reign. We will now have a double ‘late May’ Bank Holiday weekend on Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd June. We advise that this extra holiday should be treated as statutory for all employees and therefore added onto 2022 entitlement, making it 29 days holiday for full time employees, for next year only!
How can Ashton People Solutions help you?
- We can create a bespoke holiday calendar which will help keep track of requested and planned leave. This can assist you by keeping track of remaining allowances and ensuring there are not too many employees off at once.
- We have drafted an addendum to contract, a separate document which explains the extra 2022 temporary uplift in holiday allowance as an aside to the employee’s usual contract. Get in touch with us if you would like this tailored for your teams.
- Having trouble figuring out an employee’s entitlement? We can do the calculations for you, and explain it step by step to make it easier for you in the future.
- Lastly, we can provide a bespoke Annual Leave policy for your company, which sets out allowances, rules and processes.
Please say hello if you think we can help you get any of the above organised for the new year!
01352 878535 | info@ashtonpeoplesolutions.co.uk
