Beating the January blues

Following the highs of Christmas and New Year and the exhaustion brought on from the aftermath of partying and overindulging with too many chocolates, it’s understandable that returning to work in January can be a struggle for many.

So, it’s no surprise that the most depressing day of the year, known as Blue Monday, falls in January.

Holiday companies see a peak in enquiries and bookings, with people wanting to have a break firmly in the diary to look forward.

The knock-on effect is that business owners find themselves inundated with holiday requests, especially as employees jockey to get their days off booked to avoid clashing with their colleagues.

How to review your Annual Leave Policy

January is a good time to review and that includes your company policies. And since we’re talking about holidays, let’s review your annual policy (assuming that you have one!).

Your Annual Leave Policy needs to deal with a number of key areas:

• Statutory rights: What is each employees entitlement?
• What is the minimum period for holiday notice that they need to give?
• Should holiday notice be given in writing, verbally or through online applications?
• What’s the internal process for planning annual leave
• How to do you track and approval annual leave
• What is the maximum amount of time that each employee can take at any one time
• Do you have fixed periods where the you stipulate when leave is taken
• Acknowledge the right of the employer to refuse annual leave
• Do you allow leave can be accrued? If so how much and how long can it be held over
• What happens when and employee is sick whilst on holiday
• How does parental leave entitlement effect annual leave?
• When an employee leaves, what is the policy relating to unused leave?
• How is annual leave and bank holidays are pro-rated for part time staff?

As you can see your annual leave policy can become quite complex. This means that employees must be able to easily access the policy and that it is presented clearly and without being ambiguous.

Here are a few examples of how we are helping our clients with their Annual Leave Policies:

• Manage the holiday leave process including pro-rated calculations for part-time staff
• Create and write relevant annual leave policies for clients, either for handbooks or one off policies
• Deal with issues (good and bad) and questions relating to annual leave

If you feel that your Annual Leave Policy requires either implementing or stream lining Lloyd HR Consultancy can help you. Please call Charlie Lloyd or 01737 336336 or email us.