EddScott

Wife has a hair salon and during the Christmas period chose not to open between Christmas eve and New Years eve. They don't open on Mondays and they stayed closed on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

Think Tuesday was classed as a bank holiday which can be included in working out holiday pay - BUT what about Wednesday and Thursday - can they be treated as holidays for payment purposes? We did pay them as holiday pay for that period.

Does Christmas day and New Years Day count has holidays?

The reason for the question is that one of the girls is part time and entitled to 17 days leave. She has already had a week off and is having next week off due to have an ingrowing toenail removed. What I'm not sure is whether she had used up her holiday pay and whether we have to pay her while she has time off over this toe nail.

That then leads me to wonder if days taken due to illness are not included in holiday pay - I assume not? If that is the case we need a doctors note to say how long she should remain off work for?

Coffin Dodger

Indeed time off for an operation, presumably essential as I know they can be pretty painful, would be classed as sick leave and she should got a doctors note signing her off for however many days they see fit. This should not affect annual leave entitlement.

As for the days between Christmas and New Year, firstly both the Monday and Tuesday after Christmas were bank holidays so no annual leave needed. Now the tricky bit, quite a few years back we had our contracts changed saying that the company could specify up to 3 fixed days a year that we must take off and would be taken from our annual leave entitlement. This was mainly done so that the company could close between Christmas and New Year. There was also a requirement that we were notified which days were fixed well in advance of the event. I think we also got given an extra days leave as a sweetener.

Anyway if you don't have wording such as this in the contract they could argue that it was your choice to shut up shop, they were prepared to work so should be payed as usual with no loss to annual leave entitlement.

Lofty91

Agree with Coffin Dodger, it was your decision to close between xmas and new year so it should not use up holiday entitlement. Where i work if you don't return to work the shift following a bank holiday you lose the bank holiday pay.

Lisawrx

iTrader: (1)

Agreed. I'm not sure on what is actually employment law, but this is how it should be. If you don't have something within their contracts, then how is it fair just to shut, and expect them to use holidays when they may have been happy to work? Also, what if all their entitlement was already used before the decision to stay closed was made? Do you expect them just to go without pay due to your decision that they were not even made aware of?

As above regarding the operation. She shouldn't be required to use holiday to have an operation. I would imagine if she only needs to be off work for the op, and less than 6/7 days (not sure how many days exactly), she can just self cert for that time. If it will be more, she should have a note beginning on the day of the op for the period they feel she should be off work for.

EddScott

We offered them 2 days unpaid leave (and keep the holidays intact) or 2 days paid holiday and they chose the holiday. I guess this wasn't correct?

We haven't provided contracts but will be providing contracts and an employees handbook next week.

We are still learning how to run the business and we're not trying to duff up our employees.

we gave them christmas bonus out of our own pockets and offered either a day off or reduced hours of 10 till 4 which meant they got an extra week holiday but we want to make sure we don't end up doing too much for them because its not always reciprocated.

Lisawrx

iTrader: (1)

I assume employees normally have a day off (or two) each week..was Christmas Day/NYD not just classed as that, and not holiday. That is what my work did. We work a 5 day week (Sundays are optional) so Christmas Day/NYD was our day off and in the case of boxing day, nobody worked as we were closed, but being a Sunday it didn't matter as that as I say is an optional extra shift above contracted hours. So basically no holidays were required to be used unless people wanted an extra day off.

EddScott

Christmas day and New Years day were both on Saturdays and the salon is open Tuesday to Saturday so I believe both days will use up holiday allowance. Just the same as the Tuesday bank holiday will use up holiday allowance. The salon is not open Monday so all monday bank holidays can't be used to take up holidays. There are 8 bank holiday days that can be taken from holiday allowance (from what I've read on the net anyway)

Lisawrx

iTrader: (1)

I can only give a perspective based upon working in a large shop, and I'd imagine they encounter these same issues.

Normally we are open everyday. Because xmas day fell on a Saturday (normal working day) we were made to use this as our day off that week, normally we have set days during the week (mon-fri, rarely usually getting a sat off). Because bank holidays can't count on a weekend, whether you are usually open or not, they pass over to the monday and tuesday.

Now in our case, we were open on those days. The way it worked (and I'd imagine this is correct) is if you worked either or both (mon/tues) you would be paid accorrdingly and given 1 or 2 days in lieu. If you didn't work, you were paid holiday pay, for those Bank holidays, which was not taken from the holiday entitlement, the same as any other bank holiday.

MMT WRX

There are loads of online government sites that can help you with this. If an employee is not contracted to work Monday they are still entitled to Bank holidays. Think about it, if you don't open the shop on Mondays how are they going to get all their statutory Bank holidays. Also, we find it best to work in hours not days its far easier to calculate holiday entitlement. I would priorities getting contracts written and issued, I think there is a legal timescale on that. My Mrs deals with all this bollox I only tend to get involved when there's an issue.