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The Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, has announced that there will be an additional Bank Holiday in 2012 to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. The Bank Holiday will be on Monday 4th June, the Queen's official birthday, and it is understood that the late spring Bank Holiday, normally at the end of May, will be transferred to Tuesday 6th June, to make a four day break. So what will this mean for calculating your employees' holiday entitlement in 2012?
Before your employees get too excited, they may need to know that there is no statutory right for employees to have time off for a Bank Holiday or to be paid if they work it. The statutory right is to 28 days' holiday per annum and, as long as you provide this as a minimum, there is no legal requirement on you as an employer to grant anything in addition. However, in the circumstances, most employers will probably give staff the extra day on a discretionary basis.
The statutory entitlement to 28 days of annual leave is pro rata for part-time employees. As many employers choose to include Bank Holiday entitlement in the 28 days' leave, this means that part-time employees get Bank Holiday entitlement pro rata as well as the annual leave entitlement. This is where confusion can arise: part-time employees get the pro rata entitlement regardless of whether they work on a Monday or not. In 2012, if you decide to allow full-time employees the additional Bank Hoiday as paid leave, you must give the same benefit to part-time employees on a pro rata basis.
An example, based on the 2012 entitlement: an employee works 15 hours per week, made up of 5 hours a day on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday each week. If their employer gives 20 days' holiday to full-time staff, plus the 8 normal Bank Holidays and the special Diamond Jubilee day as well, the part-time employee's leave entitlement in 2012 would be as follows:
(20 days per annum divided by 5 days per week) = 4 weeks' holiday per year. For the part timer, this is 4 weeks at 15 hours per week = 60 hours of holiday per annum, or 12 days.
(9 Bank Holidays divided by 5 days per week) = 1.8 weeks of BH entitlement per year. In the part-timer's case, this is 1.8 weeks at 15 hours per week = 27 hours of BH entitlement per annum, or 5.4 days per annum.
If you need any help calculating holiday entitlement for part-time staff, including Bank Holiday entitlement, contact us and we'll do the sums for you!
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