40 employment
EMPLOYMENT LAW IN PRACTICE with
Doyle Clayton the employment solicitors
Hooray for the holidays (or is it?)
After the Easter break and the Royal Wedding most people took a deep breath and returned to work on May 3. For some though, the extended holidays gave rise to friction and bad feeling. Vanessa Potter, associate, asks whether employers have to give time off when the government declares additional holidays and, if so, do they have to pay employees?
The Working Time Regulations entitle full time employees to 28 days holiday each year. Although this is generally seen as 4 weeks (of five days) plus 8 bank holidays the regulations do not give employees the statutory right to time off on bank holidays, but rather to time off as agreed with the employer.
This means that there is no one- size-fits-all answer to the question of bank holiday entitlement. Each case is governed by the contract of employment.
For example if a contract states that the employee is entitled to 20 days annual leave plus statutory, bank and public holidays the employee should have been paid time off on April 29. However if the contract states that the employee is entitled to take named bank holidays or “the usual” bank holidays the position is not so clear and may not give the employee the right to an additional day’s paid leave.
Similarly, if the contract gives 28 days annual leave either as a total or including bank holidays the employee had no right to an additional paid holiday – April 29 and the additional holiday
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planned for the Queen’s Jubilee in 2012 come out of the overall entitlement.
The position for part-time workers can also be tricky as holiday entitlement is usually pro-rated. There is no single way of looking at this. An employee who works a three day week, entitled by contract to holiday in addition to public holidays, could have been entitled to three fifths of a day for the Royal Wedding. In practice would the employer have required them to work a portion of the day? Likewise would they give employees who do not work on Fridays the same leave?
The alternative view is that additional bank holidays apply only to those who work that day. This means that those who do not work on Friday had no additional entitlement.
Not to be ignored is the impact on staff of any decisions taken. Disaffected staff can cause often difficult HR issues!
Details: Vanessa Potter 0118-9596839
vpotter@doyleclayton.co.uk www.doyleclayton.co.uk
• Professional services firm KPMG has appointed Paul Hobson as a principal adviser in its Performance and Technology practice in the south east. Hobson joins a team of consultants in KPMG’s Gatwick office, advising clients on complex business issues including cost optimisation, financial management and improving technology systems. It follows the appointment of Simon Hammerschmidt as director of the practice at the beginning of the year. Hobson has 14 years of consulting experience in a number of public and private sector roles and has held management roles at BUPA and the Ministry of Justice. He was principal adviser in KPMG’s P&T Infrastructure, Government and Healthcare team in London where he worked on large IT-enabled business change and performance improvement programmes.
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• Eton Bridge Partners has appointed Louise Chaplin to its interim finance team. Chaplin joins the Windsor- based executive search and interim management firm from Ashridge Business School, where she has spent the past seven years partnering with FTSE 100 companies and high-growth organisations to develop leadership and management solutions. This background, combined with earlier recruitment experience, gives Chaplin a unique insight into the management and leadership requirements of businesses today. She focuses on creating strong and lasting relationships with her clients and has worked across a wide variety of business sectors both in the UK and internationally.
Chaplin has a BSc in economics and spent her early career in the Army, where, as a Captain, she served in Bosnia and Northern Ireland.
• Manches Thames Valley has appointed Eugene Wojciechowski to head up its employment team in Reading. Wojciechowski
joins Manches from Reading firm Shoosmiths where he was head of its Thames Valley employment team. Recognised in legal directory Chambers and partners as an employment specialist for whom “nothing is a problem”, Wojciechowski specialises in assisting employers with a full range of contentious and non-contentious employment law issues. He has advised a wide variety of clients from the information technology, financial services, logistics, automotive, utilities, media, retail, housing and charity sectors.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – JUNE 2011
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