The holiday season is fast approaching and with the combination of lockdown fatigue, the release of some restrictions and the recent good bout of weather we have experienced, many of us will be scouring the diary and booking some well-earned time off. This past year has been unlike any other and many employers will face some challenges when it comes to holiday entitlement and booking time off work.
We have highlighted some of the key issues that businesses will face as the volume for holiday requests increase.
Accrued Holiday
Due to the pandemic, many employees did not take their full allocated holiday entitlement last year. This could have been for many reasons, such as needing to carry on working or being on furlough leave. During 2020, the government gave additional flexibility to certain categories of employees to enable them to carry over up to four weeks (20 days) of their statutory annual leave and spread them across the next two years. Employees who can benefit from this additional flexibility are those who were not able to take their leave due to Covid, such as where the employee needed to work, maybe to cover for self-isolating colleagues, and was simply unable to take annual leave. This is differentiated from employees who could have taken leave but chose not to as they did not want to use up their leave by remaining at home.
As an employer, if you find yourself in a situation where a good proportion of your team has accrued a high volume of annual leave, you should firstly start encouraging staff to use it where possible. Even if the individual is not going on a summer holiday, taking time off, away from work is really important. Alternatively, you can request that employees use their leave by providing double the notice period, compared to the amount of leave being requested. For example, if you request that an employee takes 1 week of annual leave, you must provide 2 weeks’ notice. If you require that an employee takes 2 weeks of annual leave, you must provide at least 4 weeks’ notice and so on.
Payment in lieu of accrued but unused statutory holiday should only be permitted on termination of employment and payment should not be used as a substitute for annual leave. It is important to recognise that employees will need sufficient time away from the work environment to rest and recharge.
It is vital that as employers, you continuously review annual leave entitlements across your teams and decide the best way to manage any remaining annual leave.
Annual Leave and International Travel
As restrictions across the UK continue to ease, some employees may be considering a trip abroad. At present, the UK are operating a traffic light system to categorise the safety of individual countries and the rules on return to the UK.
This system, along with the countries included in the green, amber and red lists are ever changing, and are dependent on the number of COVID-19 cases and the progression of the vaccination programme in each individual country. At present, government advice is not to travel to those countries on the amber or red list, as these pose the most risk.
If employees wish to travel abroad, they will need to follow the set of corresponding rules designated to the list in which their chosen country is part of.
Green List Countries – Employees will not need to quarantine on return to the UK. However, they will need to complete a passenger locator form and provide a negative test result prior to travel and on day 2 of post arrival.
Amber List Countries – Employees will need to complete a passenger locator form and provide a negative test result prior to travel, quarantine at home for 10 days and take a test on day 2 and day 8 post arrival of their return to the UK. Returning travellers will have the option to end their quarantine early through the ‘Test to Release’ scheme.
Red List Countries – If employees are returning from a destination on the red list, in addition to the green and amber list requirements, they must pay to use a ‘quarantine hotel’ for 10 days. They will not be eligible to use the ‘Test to Release’ scheme. This could affect their ability to work and thus must be managed carefully.
Managing quarantine and isolation requirements
If your employees have worked from home due to the pandemic or otherwise, they can continue to do so whilst in isolation. If employees do not usually work from home but are able to do so to quarantine, they can continue to work and be paid as normal. You will need to ensure that the appropriate tools and support are provided to those employees who have little to no experience of working from home.
If an employee cannot work from home, you have a couple of options.
- Suggest that the employee extend their holiday period and deduct the additional quarantine period from the leave entitlement.
- Offer unpaid leave.
You could alternatively provide employees with a combination of both the above options.
Communicate with those employees who are planning trips abroad and plan for the possibility of their quarantine on return and the implications this has on their work and the business.
Annual Leave Policy
Amendments will need to be made (if not already) to your company policy regarding annual leave requests for the foreseeable future. This will eliminate ambiguity and confusion over the challenges, implications and consequences of employees taking annual leave and travelling abroad. When employees request leave, you may wish to ask them where they intend on going and how they would manage a potential quarantine period.
To treat all employees fairly, you may wish to implement a ‘first come, first served’ basis on annual leave requests or stipulate a limit as to how many people can be off at once within a team. Consider an electronic ‘leave chart’ that can be made visible to all team members, so that individuals and teams can better prepare their leave requests and are aware of periods that are not available to book.
Manging requests to reschedule or cancel annual leave
Employees may wish to cancel prebooked annual leave if their holiday has been cancelled, or if their holiday destination has been re-categorised to amber or red. Once annual leave has been approved, employees no longer have the right to cancel or reschedule their booking. Employers can insist that they still take this time off. The exception to this is if employees are suffering from long term sickness absence, or if they are in a period of maternity or adoption leave.
However, this is usually to the discretion of the employer and should remain as flexible as possible during these times.
For clarity on any of the guidance provided here in our blog or for more information and advice, please do not hesitate to contact us.
