Do I need to treat public holidays differently to standard annual leave?
There are three different ways companies can choose to manage public holidays. Option 1: you gift public holidays to staff as extra time off in addition to paid annual leave. Option 2: you include Bank Holidays within staff holiday entitlements. Option 3: your business is open as usual during public holidays. Whichever option you choose, make sure this is clearly explained in your company’s annual leave policy.
How you choose to coordinate Bank Holidays will affect how you manage them in WhosOffice. For example, if your workplace will be closed then you need to block out all public holidays in your annual leave calendar. And if these days are included in employees’ holiday allowance, they will also need to be deducted from their total holiday entitlement. This helps to avoid any confusion or calculation errors around total holiday allowances.
Can I customise which public holidays employees are entitled to take?
Yes, you can. This feature is particularly helpful for companies with an international footprint, as public holidays will vary from country to country. WhosOffice’s leave management feature enables you to track all Bank Holidays and display them on the company holiday calendar, but only grant permission for time off to employees living and working in the relevant regions.
You can also grant time off to staff observing other important national or cultural events, even if they aren’t recognised as a public holiday. For example, religious events like Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Diwali, Eid and Ramadan.
Can I restrict annual leave requests on Bank Holidays?
While some companies grant everyone the day off for public holidays, in some sectors (such as retail and hospitality) Bank Holidays are the busiest trading periods.
If this is true in your business, you can use WhosOffice’s leave management software to prevent people from booking time off during public holidays. Making sure your full team are available to support you when work is most demanding.
Can I use the public holidays feature to manage company events and training?
Yes – in addition to granting people time off for important events that aren’t public holidays, you can use WhosOffice’s leave management feature to manage internal commitments. For example, you can block out important training events and team building days to stop people booking that time off as annual leave or arranging external meetings that clash with internal exercises.