Easter already.
Being a movable feast, it keeps us on our toes. And that’s certainly going to be the case for some employers over the next few years as they’ll have to accommodate employees’ eggstra days off. Here’s why:
If you run an April to March holiday year and your contracts provide for 20 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays (of which there are eight) then the dates on which Easter falls mean you’ll have to do some adjusting. This year, Good Friday and Easter Monday fall on 3 April and 6 April. Next year, they’ll be on 25 March and 28 March. Two Easters fall within one holiday year. But in 2017, Easter returns to April.
So for the holiday year 2015/16, there will be ten bank holidays. Conversely, in 2016/2017, there will only be six bank holidays. In that year, therefore, some employers will need to allow two extra days’ leave to ensure that employees get eight, rather than six, public holidays. If that doesn’t happen, five-day-week employees will not be getting their statutory minimum 28 days’ annual leave entitlement.
So what to do? Well, you could simply top up leave as we’ve described. Or you could think about changing your holiday year to January to December. Or you could even look to make some contractual changes to provide for 28 days’ leave inclusive of public holidays. Be mindful though that changing employees’ contracts is a delicate process. It will need to be planned out and navigated very carefully; something we can help you do.
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