Holiday blues

Holiday Blues! Many businesses are wondering how to deal with the issue of team members taking holiday entitlement this year. With Coronavirus still prevalent, many have cancelled their holiday plans (or had plans cancelled for them) and will potentially be hoping to take their holidays later in the year. On top of that there is now the possibility of people having to quarantine on their return from certain areas.

Businesses can’t have everyone off at the same time, particularly if they are already stretched by the extra workload needed to be Covid safe. So what is the answer?

Carry forward leave

1. Exceptionally, the government have relaxed the rules around allowing people to carry over their statutory leave. Those who have not taken all of their holiday entitlement due to COVID-19 will now be able to carry it over into the next 2 leave years. This is a step away from the usual obligation on employers to ensure their workers take their statutory holiday entitlement in any one year – and failure to do so would usually result in a financial penalty.

Employers must still make sure their  teams have a reasonable opportunity to take their holiday, and may not replace the leave with a payment in lieu unless the worker is leaving employment. For more information you can read the full guidance here.

But using this approach presents businesses with a financial risk in the event that team members leave (or are made redundant) before the holiday balance has reduced to normal levels.

Sticking to planned holiday dates

2. Employees CAN take holiday while on furlough (just because travel plans are cancelled doesn’t mean holiday can’t be taken). Just be mindful that pay will need to be at the full rate, rather than the 80% furlough rate if you chose this option.

Setting leave dates for teams

3. You are able to set holidays during the remainder of the year for your team, providing that you give them twice as much notice as the length of the leave you are setting eg 2 weeks notice for 1 set week off. This could be during furlough periods, during their usual working week or even during their notice period.

Planning and monitoring

With all of these options, planning and monitoring is key to be sure you have employees in work when you need them but don’t accrue a large cost liability which will need to be paid out if someone leaves the business. If you don’t have an HRIS which tracks holiday (and other leave) for you there are plenty of options out there to make this easy.

Get in touch today if you have any concerns at all about holiday entitlements during the pandemic.