Platinum Bank Holiday – a paid entitlement?
The extra bank holiday on Friday 4th June 2022 to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee is a lovely national celebration but it’s also causing employers’ questions on what are their employees’ rights. For most employers, this will be a normal day of working.
Simply it is down to what is detailed in the terms and conditions of employment (the contract). If a contract is specific, for example, lists the bank/public holidays that may be taken then those are the ones that can be taken by the employee and not the additional bank holiday unless they wish to trade another bank holiday date instead.
If the contract states a set number of days as annual leave entitlement plus bank holidays then this will mean the employee is entitled to the additional day off. However, if the number of bank holidays is stated for example, “plus 8 bank holidays” then the employee is only entitled to 8 bank holidays and will have to choose to trade another bank holiday date instead if they wish to have the day off.
Employees do not have an automatic right to paid time off on a bank holiday.
Even where employees do not have a contractual entitlement to paid time off on the additional bank holiday, employers could consider providing this as a gesture of goodwill and wellbeing, where possible, or providing time off in lieu if employees are required to work on that day. Even though contractually an employer may be in their right as to it’s a normal day of working they may find the negative impact of not considering paid time off or time off in lieu more costly to the goodwill of employees and damaging to the culture of the organisation.
Get in touch if you wish to discuss the wording regarding bank/ public holiday entitlement in your employees’ contracts.
