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Holidays

An employee was granted to carry forward holidays (which is at discretion of management) but employee was absent due to sickness when holidays were due to be taken and has now returned to work asking to reclaim the holidays back. Our contract states that ‘if sickness occurs during a public or contractual holiday, the period of holiday concerned is not transferable to another date’. Are we obliged to allow employee entitlement to these holidays now?

In the absence of any statutory regulations around this subject (and there aren't for carry over) then go back to the contract. It appears to be quite specific. If she was absent then the holidays are lost. 

If the holiday entitlement is being calculated for the purposes of termination payments then it would have to be counted as not taken (in terms of accrued holidays) but if you are still a member of staff and in employment then the entitlement is lost per the contractual arrangement.


We have realised that public holidays this year fall at a weekend. It seems that most people are giving the day for Boxing Day and January 2nd on Monday 28th and Monday 4th respectively. We would like to close on 31st December and give our staff the 31st December as a public holiday INSTEAD of Monday 4th January. Is there a stipulation that says a public holiday can only be taken following the day it falls on?

There is no legal requirement as a business to allow your employees to take the public holiday on the next available day following the public holiday. You have an obligation to ensure that your employees receive the day back but can stipulate which day it is you require them to take. Therefore it is quite in order to do as you suggest.


Our employees are requested to submit their holiday dates for the first half of the year by the start of March but not all have been received to date. Can we enforce employees to take holidays?

Unless it is contained within your Holiday Policy then you cannot enforce employees to take holidays.  If it was contained in your policy that the place of work was to shut down for 5 days during April and employees were required to use 3 days annual leave then that is enforceable.  Otherwise, you are unable to enforce employees to take holidays.  It may be an idea to send a reminder out to the employees who have not submitted their holiday dates in the first instance.  If this is not successful then involve Line Managers with the request for information.


I work for a small family-run business and when the owners go on holiday, the premises are closed and the staff are obliged to take a holiday, either by using annual leave or taking unpaid time off. The bosses usually give us short notice and the holiday arrangements are not documented. Is this legal?

Though you say that the arrangements are not documented, it is possible that they have become contractual through practice over the years.  If so, as long as your bosses allow you to take the statutory minimum paid holiday entitlement – currently 28 days a year for full time employees – there may be little that you can do.  Even if closing the premises to cover their holiday means that you are forced to take leave. 

Your bosses are required to comply with the Working Time Regulations 1998 when they specify the days when you are to take your statutory annual paid leave. The law says that, unless they have agreed something different in writing, they are required to give you twice as much notice as the number of days’ leave you are required to take. So, if they want to close the premises for two weeks, they must give you four weeks’ notice.  If they fail to do this, you could argue that you are not obliged to use your statutory entitlement and can still insist on taking leave at another time. But if your employers’ holiday arrangements have not become contractual, there may be grounds for going to an employment tribunal to argue that any unpaid leave you are obliged to take is unlawful deduction from your wages.


How do I calculate holidays for an employee who works two days a week? A fulltime employee working five days a week is entitled to 24 days of holidays including Bank Holidays.

Part-time employees are entitled to holidays on a pro-rata basis, so the employee would be entitled to 2/5ths of the annual entitlement - that's to say 2/5ths of 28 days, totalling 11.2 days holiday per year. If the Bank Holidays were in addition to their basic entitlement, they should also receive 2/5ths of the Bank Holidays irrespective of whether they work on the day the Bank Holiday falls.