Several Tips for Employers, Employees and Bank Holidays

Paid holiday to full-time employees doesn’t have to include bank holidays. What many don’t know is that paid leave for bank holidays is completely at the employer’s discretion. 

Similar to full-time workers, part-time employees don’t have a statutory right to paid leave for bank holidays. It is imperative to ascertain parity between the two. 

Full-time employees and part-time employees should be treated equally. This implies to paid leaves. If one group gets one, so should the other. 

An employer shouldn’t treat pro-rata workers any less or more favorably than full-time or part-time employees. 

If a staff member has public holidays off as part of their annual leave and falls ill on a bank holiday, they should be allowed to take the annual leave at another time. However, if they have time off in addition to the annual leave, but fall ill, what follows is entirely dependent on the terms of their employment contract. Manage leave effectively with this leave tracker from Tracktime 24.

It is not uncommon for workers to pretend to be sick when they are not entitled to paid leave. So, if you think a staff member is feigning illness, do a formal investigation and if necessary, follow the disciplinary procedure. 

Given the employer does not ultimately prevent a worker from taking their annual leave during the course of the year, it is their responsibility to come up with rules on when the leave can be taken. The employers’ decision to create a shutdown period where a leave must be taken is permissible under the Working Time Regulations. However, a notice of a period twice the length of the intended leave period should be issued. 

According to UK Law, any person on maternity leave is entitled to all the terms and conditions they normally have during the time they are away from work, whether they get paid for public holidays or not.

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