To celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee there will be an extra Bank Holiday and as such your employees may be entitled to an extra day of holiday depending on the exact wording of your employee’s contract of employment. As you may recall for the royal wedding in 2011, contracts will need to be checked carefully to understand what the obligation to your employees is. There might not be an automatic right to the additional day off work.
So, when is the extra bank holiday?
There will be an additional bank holiday on Friday 3 June 2022 and the late May bank holiday, which normally would have fallen on 30 May 2022, will move to Thursday 2 June 2022.
Are employees required to have bank holidays off?
There is no statutory right for employees to have bank holidays off work. Full time employees are entitled to a minimum 28 days holiday leave a year and if stated in their contract of employment, these days can include bank and public holiday. You are not legally required to give your employees bank holidays off work.
How do I know if my employees are entitled to the extra bank holiday?
Entitlement to the extra bank holiday would depend on the wording in the employees’ contract of employment.
There are two ways in which an employee’s holiday entitlement is likely to be worded in their contract, either:
The employee is entitled to x days annual leave in addition to bank and public holidays; or the employee is entitled to x days annual leave inclusive of bank and public holidays.
In the first scenario, the employee will be entitled to the extra bank holiday off work as it is in accordance with their contract of employment. However, in the second scenario it is not legally required to give an employee the day off. This outcome would also apply to employees where a contract specifies the employee is entitled to the normal bank holidays as annual leave, as the additional bank holiday would not be regarded as ‘normal’.
What about part-time employees?
All decisions made regarding part-time employees must be done with the Part-Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 in mind. Part-time employees are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday which should be worked out pro-rata, in proportion to the hours they work. This entitlement again, may include bank and public holidays depending on the wording of their contract of employment.
If you decide to give all full-time employees the day off, and they are not contractually entitled to it, you must make sure that part-time employees are treated fairly, and if their usual non-working day happens to fall on this public holiday you should adjust their holiday allowance accordingly and offer them an extra day in lieu.
If you have any questions about how the extra bank holiday will impact your organisation, or need support with any of the HR issues discussed throughout, such as calculating holiday entitlement or drafting contracts of employment, email us at [email protected], we will be happy to help!
