This year’s Spring Bank Holiday will move from late May to Thursday 2 June and an additional bank holiday will then take place on Friday 3 June to celebrate the Queen’s platinum jubilee.
ARE EMPLOYEES AUTOMATICALLY ENTITLED ?
This depends on the wording of the employee’s contract of employment. Employers are advised to check the wording of their employment contracts and ensure their employe
es understand whether or not they will be required to work on the additional bank holiday in line with the terms of the contract. It is also important to note that employees do not have an automatic right to paid time off on a bank holiday.
To help, we’ve set out below the most commonly used phrases relating to bank holidays in employment contracts and what right they give the employee to have paid time off work on June 3rd 2022.
Wording in the contract of employment | Effect in respect of entitlement to paid time off |
“28 days holiday per annum” | Potentially – employees are entitled to request holiday on any of the bank holidays, including the additional bank holiday. However, there is no increase in holiday entitlement as a result of the additional bank holiday. |
“20 days holiday per annum plus 8 bank/public holidays” | Potentially – because the contract is silent on which bank holidays are included, an employee has the right to request the additional bank holiday as paid time off. However, the employee will not be entitled to one of the later bank holidays in the year. This should be clarified with the employee at the time of booking annual leave. |
“20 days holiday per annum plus bank holidays” | Yes –this wording is not limited to the normal/usual bank holidays observed in England and Wales, therefore a contractual entitlement to paid time off on all bank holidays arises, including any additional bank holidays to those normally observed. |
“20 days holiday per annum plus the usual bank/public holidays observed in England and Wales” | No – the wording specifically states only ‘the usual bank/public holidays’ are included in the entitlement. The additional bank holiday is not usually observed in England and Wales, therefore there is no entitlement to request paid time off on the additional bank holiday. |
“20 days holiday per annum plus the 8 bank/public holidays usually observed in England and Wales” | No – as above, only the 8 usual bank/public holidays are included, therefore there is no entitlement to the additional bank holiday. |
However, even where there is no contractual entitlement to request the additional bank holiday as paid time off, many employers will decide to allow their employees to take the additional bank holiday or to provide time off in lieu as a gesture of goodwill.
How have you approached additional bank holidays before?
An additional bank holiday was given in 2011 (to mark the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge) and again in 2012 (for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee).
When considering how to deal with this year’s additional bank holiday, we would recommend reviewing what was done previously. Adopting a different approach where employees have previously been offered paid time-off or time-off in lieu to mark an additional bank holiday, may provoke a negative reaction from employees. If in doubt, contact Louise on 01243 641726 or louise@bhp-group.co.uk for further guidance.