10 Tips About Your Workforce and Bank Holidays

Do you have employees who work over bank holidays? 

Public holidays raise all sorts of questions, from employee and employer alike. To address a few of the frequently asked questions, here's 10 top tips from us on how to manage your workforce during a bank holiday:

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10 Tips About Your Workforce and Bank Holidays

1. Paid holiday for full-time workers does not have to include bank holidays. Paid leave for bank holidays is entirely at the discretion of the employer.
2. Like full-time employees, part-time workers have no statutory right to bank holidays as paid leave. It's important to ensure parity between the two.
3. It’s important to treat full-time workers and part-time workers equally. So if you allow one to have paid leave, so should the other.
4. You should not treat pro rata employees any more or less favourably than part-time, or full-time, workers.
5. If a member of your team has bank holidays off as part of their entitled annual leave and is then sick on a public holiday, you should allow the employee to take the annual leave at a later time…
6. …However, if the staff member has time off in addition to their entitled annual leave, and is then sick, what happens is dependent on the terms of their contract.
7. It’s not unheard of for employees to feign illness when they’re not entitled to paid leave. If you believe they're lying about illness, conduct a formal investigation and follow disciplinary procedures if necessary.
8. Current UK law entitles any individual on maternity leave to all the terms and conditions she normally has during the period she is absent from work, i.e. whether she receives pay for bank holidays or not.
9. Provided an employer doesn’t ultimately prevent an employee from taking their leave over the course of the year, it’s for the employer to determine the rules regarding when leave can be taken.
10. Under the Working Time Regulations, an employer’s decision to set a period of shut down where leave must be taken is perfectly permissible, provided notice is given which is twice the length of the intended leave period.

Need expert support?

If you have an issue with an employee's working hours, absence & sickness, or any other HR issue, speak to a Croner expert today on 01455 858 132.