Rather than delivering a nice chocolate egg, the Easter Bunny may deliver you a shock if your holiday year runs from March to April — and your annual leave policy is along the lines of “20 days’ holiday plus bank holidays”?
As Personnel Today highlighted in April last year, the Easter bank holidays fell on the 3rd and 6th April in 2015. This year, whilst Easter is not falling on the earliest possible date (March 22nd), it does fall in March — with the bank holidays being on the 25th and 28th March. This means that (in England and Wales) there are 10 bank holidays from April 2015 to March 2016, but there will only be 6 from April 2016 to March 2017.
The Working Time Regulations state that someone who works 5 days a week is entitled to 5.6 weeks of statutory holiday, which equates to 28 days. In the 2015 April to 2016 March your employees gained 2 additional days which, if you do not honour, means as an employer you would be in breach of contract. In the upcoming holiday year, they only get 6 bank holidays, resulting in 26 days in total. This is below the statutory minimum of 28 which every employer must ensure their employees receive, so you may need to provide an additional 2 days holiday in the 1st April 2016 to 31st March 2017 year.
At Cezanne, we passionately believe in providing a system which will support you in your day to day work. That’s why we provide configuration options to help you comply with the statutory minimum holiday. As shown below Cezanne HR can already manage varying bank holidays per year and highlight when additional holiday has been given, or the employee does not receive enough.
1st April 2015 – 31st March 2016
1st April 2016 – 31st March 2017
CezanneHR will also help you ensure your part-time workers receive the correct entitlement if they are also entitled to 20 days plus bank holidays pro-rated by their FTE. For example, if someone works Tuesday to Thursday, they would be entitled to 16.8 days’ holiday (28 * 0.6). Cezanne HR will calculate the bank holidays they receive and the number of additional days that should be applied to their entitlement.
John Hixon
Chief Operating Officer
With over twenty years’ experience under his belt in the HCM Tech industry, Cezanne HR’s Chief Operating Officer John Hixon has been a driving force behind the company’s meteoric rise. From ambitious start-up to one of the leading SaaS HR brands, over the past ten years, John has been instrumental in developing an HRIS platform that brings people and businesses together.
