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Many employees may expect that they are entitled to an extra day off for the Diamond Jubilee bank holiday, but that will very much depend on what's stipulated in their contract. At the same time, employers should consider what denying the day off may do to staff morale. This article acts as an employers' guide to the implications of this difficult topic. As you may be aware, as part of this year's Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee celebrations, the government has announced that there will be an additional bank holiday on June 5th. This, which is being combined with the moving of the spring bank holiday from the last week in May to June 4th, will lead to a four-day weekend over which the government hopes that the entire country will come out to celebrate the Queen's sixty year reign. While this long weekend can be great for certain industries, such as retail, leisure or tourism, the prospect of an extra bank holiday will likely lead to cries of dismay from many small business owners, unsure of whether they have to give their staff an extra day off. So, what are the implications of the extra Jubilee bank holiday for employers? On the question of whether your employees are entitled to an extra day off, that will depend on the terms that have been written into their contract. With contracts stipulating that employees are entitled to 28 days holiday a year, in line with employment law, then the question of bank holidays is largely irrelevant. Those 28 days cover an employee's total entitlement – if they want to take a bank holiday off, it will come out of that 28 day total. As an employer, all you have to worry about is the prospect of several staff members requesting the same day off. This can be managed through an effective company policy for the booking of holidays, which will stipulate the conditions under which holiday can be refused (normally due to a certain date being overbooked or because of the business's operational requirements). If your company policy stipulates that their staff is entitled to 20 days off a year in addition to the 8 regular bank holidays that occur annually, then you are protected if the names of those holidays are stated in the contract. An additional bank holiday falls outside the purview of such a contract, meaning that extra time off for the Jubilee will have to come from the regulation. Problems arise when the general term ‘bank holidays' is used without it being stated which days that refers to. Under such a contract, employees can legitimately claim a day's paid absence and employers have little legal recourse through which to dispute this. Leaving aside the legal questions, though, it's important to consider what requiring your employees to work on 5th June will do to staff morale. While they are quite possibly mistaken, many employees will assume that they entitled to the day off and many have already made plans with friends and family. One way to mitigate this is to make sure that your company policy is clearly restated so that employees know exactly where they stand. However, employers should consider the risk that disappointed staff will be less productive on the day and that too stringent an enforcement of company policy may put a strain on long-term employee relations. If this concerns you, it may be worth balancing the demands of workplace morale off against the likely financial impact, although such a calculation will very much depend on the circumstances of individual businesses. Employees should take note as to how this extra bank holiday is dealt with by their employers, as it may set a president for future similar eventualities. Matt Crumble works for PBS UK, a leading HR consultant and payroll outsourcing company. PBS offers HR consultancy and management services and has an online HR document shop selling a wide range of HR policies and model contracts of employment.
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Bank Holidays, extra statutory holidays, Jubilee bank holiday, employment law, employee rights, HR documents, HR policies, ,
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