To celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee this year, the May Bank Holiday will be moved to Thursday 2nd June 2022 and an extra bank holiday has been added for Friday 3rd June 2022.
This will result in a 4 day bank holiday from Thursday 2nd June 2022 until Sunday 5th June 2022 – which most workers will be very happy about.
But are your staff automatically entitled to these extra days holidays? The answer will depend on the wording within your employee’s contract of employment.
Checking The Small Print
By law, employees do not have an automatic right to paid time off on a bank holiday.
To understand their entitlement, you will need to check the wording of your worker’s contracts where it states whether or not they will be required to work on the additional bank holiday, or if they will be expected to take the extra bank holiday as annual leave.
Interpreting The Wording
Understanding the wording is crucial. For example, if the contract states that “your annual leave entitlement is 28 days including bank holidays” then the employees do not have the automatic right to take the extra jubilee bank holiday as additional holiday.
If the contract wording is more generic such as “your annual leave entitlement is 20 days plus bank holidays” then it is probable that they will be entitled to the 3rd June as an additional paid holiday this year.
Planning Ahead
The best advice for an employer is to forewarn employees of their entitlement (or not) of the extra Bank Holiday, and, if you are planning to shut the company down for the day, how you will manage leave.
If you are not giving workers an additional day paid holiday, you must give sufficient notice that they will have to book it out of their annual leave entitlement.
Professional advice from the experts.
If you are unsure what statutory rights your employees have on this matter or need some advice and guidance when reviewing your employment contracts, then ForrestHR can help.
Our team of experienced Consultants can work with you to help re-draft your existing contracts of employment, if required, or assist in drafting new employment contracts to include the correct annual leave amount for future employees.
We are always here to support your business. For more information on this or any other HR query, you can call us on 01892 726060 or email hello@forresthr.com. You can visit our website on www.ForrestHR.com.