With so much going on in the world, it is hard to remember what year we’re in, but, we can confirm the new year is 2022 and not only that, it is Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee year, 70 whole years on the throne!
The Queen has ruled for longer than any other Monarch and in 2022 she will celebrate her devotion to a life of service by becoming the first British Monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee. This historic milestone means that there will be an extended bank holiday weekend from Thursday 2nd to Sunday 5th June 2022. There will be no late May bank holiday as a result, but we will get 9 bank holidays in 2022 rather than the usual 8.
The bank holidays in the UK for 2022 will be:
New Years Day Monday 3rd January (substitute)
Good Friday Friday 15th April
Easter Monday Monday 18th April
Early May Bank Holiday Monday 2nd May
Spring Bank Holiday Thursday 2nd June
Platinum Jubilee Bank Holiday Friday 3rd June
Summer Bank Holiday Monday 29th August
Boxing Day Monday 26th December
Christmas Day Tuesday 27th December
So why do we need to share this? Well as with all things over time our systems need updating, many of you will be recording absences including bank holidays in your system and there have been historically many ways to do this based on how you work, your environmental needs and skills available at the time of go live.
There are three categories that we see most commonly:
- Recording bank holidays in an absence scheme, but this simply shows in the employee calendar, it doesn’t affect entitlements or pay.
- Bank Holiday entitlements (days) are added to the Annual Leave scheme entitlements in the table.
- Payment Table holds the bank holiday dates and shows a reducing balance for each day, a pro rata rule on the annual leave scheme then adds this to the annual leave scheme entitlements.
For each client the one they chose worked at the time but times are changing, and it is likely that as the world becomes more flexible, bank holiday dates may change or fluctuate over the coming years. Births, deaths and marriages or coronations etc have an impact so we want to help you to future proof your system, to help you understand what you need to do by giving you an informed choice.
If you fall under 1 or 3 in the above list, then we would say you need to do little to your system, however, if you are in group 2 there will be an impact, and you need to consider the consequences.
Absence Scheme tables generally are not date effective so if you add an extra day then the system will likely backdate this to the date the scheme was first attached which could be the date you implemented your system.
Adjustments can often be made to an individual’s entitlement; this will clearly get around the issue, but you need to proceed with caution where staff work different hours on different days.
Do you need help future proofing your system?
We’re an HR technology consultancy firm that helps businesses like yours understand, on-board and maximise the benefits of your HR software. If you have any questions about what was discussed in this article, need help with updating your software or would simply like to future proof your system, contact us here to find out how we could help you.
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