When & How to Use Additional Days Off as a Benefit

An extra day off as a staff benefit might sound like an employer’s worst nightmare. In certain circumstances, it probably is.

However, one of the biggest factors employees look for in the current employment market is work-life balance. What better way to tip the scales than offering extra days annual leave?

Still, you need to manage it well for it to be effective. In this article, we’ll take a look at whether it’s an appropriate benefit for your workplace, and how to manage it.

For immediate advice on issues such as annual leave or staff benefits, speak to one of our HR experts today on 01455 858 132.

What is an extra day off scheme?

Additional day off schemes are systems where you allow an employee to take extra annual leave as a benefit. This can be managed as a reward for exceptional work, or as part of a holiday purchase scheme.

How do I implement this as one of my staff benefits?

How you add this to your business depends on the type of scheme you want to use.

Reward scheme

If you’re setting up additional days off as a reward, you need to establish which metric you will use to award this. If it’s an employee of the month scheme, how is the employee chosen? If it’s based on performance, do you use sales figures, or some other performance metric?

If you’re unsure which metric to use to measure the reward scheme, include staff in the conversation. They will be able to shed light on the performance metrics that matter to them.

Once you decide this, write up the procedure for taking these extra days off and how they are awarded. Add this into your company handbook. If you plan to add the benefit to staff contracts, you need to get the employee’s consent to alter their contract. This way, the scheme will be administered fairly and everyone will have visibility.

Holiday purchase scheme

This type of scheme works through salary sacrifice. In other words, employees agree to a reduction in pay in exchange for receiving additional holiday.

One of the benefits annual leave for employees provides in this instance, is that they will enjoy tax and National Insurance (NI) savings. The cost of running these schemes is often offset by the savings you make in employer NI contributions and reductions in staff salaries.

If you want to implement a holiday purchase scheme, you need to speak to each department to weigh up the benefits and costs of running it. Once everyone is happy, you can outline the restraints of the scheme, such as a total amount of extra days that can be taken. Once this is done, outline the new staff benefit in your handbooks.

Benefits of additional days off

The benefit to you is that you are in control. The employee has to confirm which days off they wish to take. This means you can refuse a holiday request, or even cancel annual leave (so long as the correct amount of notice has been given).

For the employee, they have greater autonomy over their work/life balance. It gives them more freedom which will help improve their morale. This in turn improves overall retention and promotes a positive company culture.

Implement non-cash employee benefits with Croner

To make sure your employee benefits are implemented seamlessly and don’t break employment law, get advice from Croner.

Our team of experts work with businesses every day to fix existing contracts and documentation as well as implement new policies and procedures.

Speak to one of our HR consultants today for support on 01455 858 132.