If you operate a non calendar holiday year i.e. April – March then you may need to take some action now to avoid breaching the Working Time Regulations (WTR) in the 2016 – 2017 holiday year.  I know this sounds a long way off but unusually Easter is late this year and early next year and this means there are ten bank holidays coming up this holiday year but only six the following year and your contract may state you give employees eight bank holidays, so hence they will be two short.

Under WTR employees are entitled to a minimum of 28 days paid holiday per year and it is common for contracts to state 20 days holiday plus bank holidays, making 28 in total. If your holiday year runs from January – December the there is no need to worry as there will always be at least eight bank holidays in a calendar year.  However, this is not the case for holiday years which span two years as five of the bank holidays vary on different days and so it is possible that these companies could fall foul of providing 28 days paid leave if, as is about to happen, Easter is late one year and early the next, or vica versa.

So if your contract of employments state employees get 28 days holiday inclusive of bank holidays there should be no a problem.  In this case, employees will get ten bank holidays and 18 days annual leave to choose in the coming holiday year and six bank holidays and 22 days annual leave in the 2016- 2017 holiday year.  In this case, all you need to do is advise them of these facts so they aren’t busily planning their 20 days leave.

However, if your contract states employees are entitled to 20 days plus the bank holidays then employees would be entitled to 30 days in the next holiday year but only 26 days in the following year and that would be in breach of the WTR for the 2016-17 leave year.

So what do you need to do?

As the problem of late /early Easters will keep reoccurring every so often and productivity may be affected in years where there are ten public holidays, you should be looking at a long term solution.  You could therefore consider one of the following:-

1. Consulting with staff about changing the holiday year from a non-calendar to a calendar year of January to December.
2. Consulting with staff about changing the wording of their contracts of employment so that the 28 days minimum includes the bank holidays
3. Allow employees to carry over the two extra days they will get during the 2015 – 2016 holiday year in to the following year, so that they will then have the minimum 28 days.

As a word of warning, it is not really an option to just reduce employees’ holiday entitlement down from the 30 to 28, in this holiday year, as that would be a breach of contract.

If you need some help to decide what to do or with consulting with staff then we can help, so just get in contact with me here.