Quick Guide to Minimum Holiday Entitlement
Published: 30/07/2018
Free trial
See for yourself how you can save time and money. Enter your details below for a free 30 day no-obligation trial.
Business owners and managing directors often underestimate the significance of minimum holiday entitlement. In this article, we aim to explain why paid employee time off is important and how to ensure you’re not violating the law.
Annual leave is an employee right, providing both part-time and full-time staff the opportunity to enjoy a well-deserved break. It offers them a chance to relax and spend quality time with friends and family, allowing them to return to the office feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. Consequently, all workers are granted a certain number of days per year by law to do just that.
Every company should encourage its staff to utilise their holiday entitlement. After all, it plays a crucial role in employee well-being by helping them achieve a work-life balance. It also has direct connections to morale and productivity. However, the results of a recent study by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) have raised concerns. It was found that 2.2 million employees do not receive the legal minimum holiday entitlement.
The minimum holiday entitlement for workers in the UK is 5.6 weeks (28 days) per year. While employers cannot offer less than this minimum, they are permitted to provide their staff with additional paid holiday days.
Although employees can take as much time off as they need, minimum holiday entitlement ensures that only for 28 of those days will the employee receive their regular pay rate.
While part-time staff are also entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid annual leave, this does not amount to 28 days. This is because part-time workers work fewer hours per week than full-time staff; therefore, they receive less paid holiday time.
Self-employed individuals and contractors are not categorised as workers. Consequently, they are not entitled to paid annual leave.
The regulations mentioned above are mandated by law; however, many workers feel unable to utilise them due to unrealistic targets. Additionally, many report having their holiday requests denied.
These figures indicate that employees are missing out on approximately £3 billion of paid leave each year. Furthermore, it appears that women are disproportionately affected. In other words, millions of employees across the UK are being deprived of their time off - this constitutes a serious injustice.
Legality isn’t the only issue associated with employees not taking holidays. Working long hours, forgoing breaks, and lacking time off can lead to burnout. It is quite ironic because all three extremes are intended to either boost or sustain high productivity. Yet the result is the opposite of that.
Unfortunately, things don’t end here. Burnout can seriously impact an employee’s health, threatening both mental and physical well-being. Ultimately, burnt-out workers not only underperform but are also more likely to take sick leave or, depending on the frequency and duration of their burnout, leave their job altogether.
There are two key solutions for claiming holiday entitlement: contacting Citizen Advice or addressing the issue directly with the employer. Since we are not legal experts, we will focus only on possible resolutions through a conversation.
While employees are entitled to annual leave, employers can deny a holiday request for a valid reason. For example, if the employee’s time off would cause understaffing during a particularly busy period and is requested on short notice.
There are additional nuances, such as having contracts that specify how many consecutive days off can be taken or how many staff members can be off at the same time. The employer is also not required to explain the denial of holiday requests, although it’s a good practice to be transparent. Keep in mind that this is only valid if it doesn’t impede minimum holiday entitlement. In summary, the denial of holiday requests can be justified, depending on the context.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread adoption of furlough schemes, many uncertainties regarding unpaid holiday claims have emerged. A subject that was previously rarely discussed has gained significant attention, involving not only employment tribunals but also appeals and modifications to the management of unpaid holidays.
The key point clarified is that not being paid for time off constitutes an unlawful wage deduction, which must be appealed within three months. The pandemic has exposed numerous holiday entitlement issues in industries that workers had not previously encountered. This, in turn, highlights that some sectors have experienced this ongoing trend long before COVID-19.
Minimum holiday entitlement issues often don’t stem from malice. Sometimes, they result from outdated practices. For example, if your company records annual leave requests, holiday accruals, and other time-off-related metrics manually, you are vulnerable to errors. In this case, such errors may lead to legal violations.
Such methods also lack transparency; thus, even if this was an honest mistake, your staff will have no visibility into it. They will only face the consequences. However, there is a way to prevent this from happening.
The best way to tackle human error is by eliminating humans from the process. We have developed Timesheet Portal to minimise manual data entry, which often results in mistakes.
Our Project edition features holiday management software that provides HR and your company total transparency regarding annual leave. It includes functionalities such as:
Booking and management of employee holidays, enabling managers to instantly view days taken and days remaining;
Graphical holiday calendar, facilitating better workforce management;
Analysis options to ensure compliance;
Automatic calculation of holiday pay if you’re a recruitment agency working with contractors.
As an employer, you are legally required to provide each team member with 28 paid annual leave days. However, 2.2 million employees do not receive the minimum legal holiday entitlement despite this obligation.
While some employers deliberately break the law by imposing malpractices, such as threatening employment termination for unmet targets, others fall victim to inefficient processes. For the latter group, the best solution is to implement a holiday management system.
Are you concerned about your holiday-related compliance? Reach out to us; we are here to help.