Holidays

Holidays – the basics
Annual leave should be agreed when an employee starts work. Holiday entitlements are sometimes mentioned in job advertisements and are often discussed at a job interview. The details of how much holiday an employee gets should be confirmed when a successful candidate receives a formal job offer.

Once an employee starts work details of holidays and holiday pay entitlement should be found in:
• the employee’s written contract, where there is one
• a written statement of employment particulars given to employees by their employer.

The document should contain sufficient detail to enable the employee’s entitlement to be precisely calculated, including any entitlement to accrued holiday pay on the termination of employment.

Holiday entitlements

The legal minimum
Under the Working Time Regulations 1998 (as amended), workers (including part-timers and most agency and freelance workers) have the right to:
• 5.6 weeks’ paid leave each year
• payment for untaken statutory leave entitlement on termination of employment.
Public holidays
Generally, public holidays include bank holidays, holidays by Royal Proclamation and ‘common law holidays’. There is no statutory entitlement to paid leave for public holidays. Any right to paid time off for such holidays depends on the terms of the worker’s contract.

Holidays

Issues