the business ladder

Friday 29 April will see a bank holiday take place in honour of the Royal Wedding. However, the bank holiday is only optional for employers, and as such they are being encouraged to ensure that they make it clear to their employees whether or not they are having the day off to avoid uncertainties.

Although, by law, bank holidays do not require employers to give their staff paid time off, Angela Baron, the adviser of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), stated that it would be unusual for a business owner to not do so.

“In the spirit of things you should give people the day off if you possibly can. But there will be reasons why some businesses can’t just close down for the day, in which case you could operate a first–come–first–served basis or a lottery to see who will come into work that day.”

She continued saying that if staff are still needed on the day that Employers could request volunteers who were not interested in watching the Royal Wedding. Another option could be allowing the setting up of a television in the office so that some staff can watch the event as they work if they wish to.

“If you need to have a certain number of people on site then it has be made clear to people that holiday requests may not always be approved.”

A flexible holiday policy has been seen to work, one such advocate being the entrepreneur Tamsin Fox-Davies, who said, “I don’t expect my team to work bank holidays or national holidays, even though I usually do.”

“I outsource some of my business to a small team in Mauritius and have had issues in the past where I haven’t known about their national holidays. We now have a system where they tell me well in advance so I can plan around that. I need them to give me good notice if they’re not going to be available at the normal time.”

<--- return to news section

If you wish to receive further information on our business training and consultancy services please click here