Hi All, I would love to know your thoughts.
We have always had in our employee contracts that employees are required to reserve holiday entitlement for the Christmas week as we shut down over that period. I have recently joined my company and have noticed that for the past 2 years employees have been given these 3 days as extra holiday as a ‘thank you’ at a Christmas.
With covid carry over some of our employees already have quite a bit of holiday and if anything the Christmas shutdown would be a good time to use some of this up.
I have a few questions for consideration;
1. If we revert back to what our contract says, is this now potential an implied term given the past 2 years the holiday has been given as extra?
2 For new starters that join late in the holiday year who may not have enough entitlement for the Christmas period - what should we do here? Perhaps we could offer 1.5 days to match employees using 1.5 days of their entitlement?
1. I dont think this is an implied term legally - engagement wise some may disagree
2. Most people would pull some from next year or offer unpaid
3. Its certainly a compromise
Thank you, yes I agree it’s the engagement I’m concerned about especially given how hard they have worked during covid. Ok will consider those suggestions, thank you
We had a similar situation, albeit a few years down the line. We had been 'gifted' the three days between Christmas and New Year for a few years in a row, until it was decided it should be made a contractual term. It made holiday planning much easier - when the break was 'gifted' in November, suddenly everyone in the company had three days of annual leave to use before the end of the year!
This year, we consulted with all employees about using some of the annual leave accrued during furlough leave/covid generally for the Christmas/New Year break. The vast majority of employees agreed it was a reasonable suggestion, and so for 2021 only, that is what we're doing. We reassured everyone as part of the consultation that we would revert to the three days 'additional' leave from 2022.
