With the end of 2014 steamrollering towards us – how much accrued holiday do your employee’s still have to take before the end of the year?

Does your summer holiday feel like a distant memory – whilst the pile of work you came back to is still a reality?

Well if estimations are to be believed – some 25% of UK employees do not use all of their annual holiday entitlement – so it appears you may not be alone!

Untaken holiday, mixed with our UK long-hours working culture (especially in comparison to the rest of Europe), is a recipe for disaster – and a lot of flat batteries!

At Breakthrough2Performance we believe in supporting businesses and their employees to achieve a healthy work-life balance.  Not only will employees return to work refreshed, it helps to address potential absence issues and stress claims and in a nut shell a healthy workforce is a productive workforce!

 

B2P has compiled the following list that you may want to consider:-

  1.  Ensure that your policies offer at least the statutory minimum holiday entitlement;
  2. Consider stipulating that your employees take at least one break of two consecutive weeks during each holiday year;
  3. Regularly check your holiday figures to ensure your team members are not accruing holiday which they will be unable to take by    the end of the year;
  4. Holiday entitlement (like car parking spaces!) is often an emotive subject! Ensure that your company policy about booking and taking holidays is clear e.g. when holiday can / cannot be taken, this is often common practice where organisations have peak volume periods, or establishments such as schools or the automotive industry where holiday is taken at times aligned to periods of business closure.
  5. Do you clearly communicate what happens to untaken holiday at the end of the year?  Will employees loose this time?  Will they be allowed to carry it forward to the following year?

How about considering making some positive changes for 2015?

·  Offering your employees the option to purchase additional holiday?

·  Employee suggestion schemes rewarding innovative business improvement idea’s with additional day(s) holiday?

·  Linking holiday entitlement to length of service – this one certainly helps with attraction and retention!