Employers will need to be aware of, and prepare for, an extra bank holiday in 2022 to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, taking place on Friday 3rd June 2022.
In addition, the late May bank holiday will also be moving to Thursday 2nd June.
Employers and businesses are going to need to plan and organise their resources carefully over the long Jubilee bank holiday weekend. We anticipate there could well be a significant increase in annual leave requests by staff in and around the end of May/early June. If your business is a seasonal one, then this could also be a time of year when you require a full staffing schedule so you may not want to grant holiday requests for then. Some forward planning would be a good idea.
Aside from the expected normal holiday requests, we expect most employers will accept the situation and be generous to staff, but some of our clients have already been asking if they are actually legally obliged to honour the extra bank holiday on 3rd June? The technical answer is that this will depend upon the wording of the relevant contract of employment or statement of terms and conditions (assuming a written one exists and which is a legal requirement).
If an employment contract states that an employee will be entitled to x days annual leave “plus eight bank holidays” then, strictly speaking, there is no legal entitlement to an extra bank holiday. However, if the contract states that the employee will be entitled to x days annual leave “plus bank holidays”, then there would be an entitlement to an extra bank holiday.
For further advice and information about what to do and/or how to be legally compliant, please contact us by ‘phone on 07921 938675 or by email at andrew@aiMac-hr.co.uk.
We look forward to hearing from you!