Two thirds of employers urge workers to take holiday

During a webinar on holiday pay, in May, Reward Strategy and SD Worx asked attendees a set of questions about how they were treating their employees during the crisis.

As for processes put in place around holiday pay during this period, just over 23 percent of employers were letting employees carry over leave for one year, while 16 percent were letting leave be carried over for two years. The remaining 61 percent were asking employees to take leave during the pandemic.

Employers can require workers to take holiday and cancel a worker’s holiday, if they give enough notice to the worker:

• Double the length of the holiday, if the employer wishes to require a worker to take holiday on particular days;
• The length of the planned holiday, if the employer wishes to cancel a worker’s holiday or require the worker not to take holiday on particular dates.

Listen to our webinar for more guidance on holiday pay during the pandemic here.

We also asked attendees about their use of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). Of the 63 percent employers using the scheme:

• 43 percent were not topping up payments;
• Four percent were topping up salaries by 10 percent;
• 36 percent were topping up salaries by 20 percent.

The scheme has since been updated, read more about that here.