With the holiday season fast approaching now is a good time to review your systems and make sure you are aware of your obligations around paying employees for annual leave owed over the holiday period.
Whether your business is operating over Christmas/ New Year, or you have an annual closedown period, it is important to be prepared and ensure your staff are aware of the leave they are owed and/or if they will be required to take unpaid leave over that period.
Cashing Up Annual Leave
One area to be aware of that often catches people out is the clause around cashing up an employee’s annual leave. Employees can cash up a maximum of one of their four weeks’ minimum entitlement of annual leave per year.
An employer can’t:
- pressure an employee into cashing up holidays
- raise it in wage or salary negotiations
- make cash up a condition of employment
- put a cash up request into an employment agreement, but can include the process for making a request
You can find more information on this here.
Additional Resources
We’ve pulled together a few online resources that you may find helpful, both as a general overview of holiday pay and one specific to your obligations over your annual closedown.
