Pay when office is closed?

I know plenty of offices who are closing on the 20th and not opening again until 6th. If you only deal with other businesses then those 2 days before Christmas and 2 days after New Year's Day are pointless because none of our clients will be in, and if they are then they won't be in the mood for getting sold to.
 
Generally it's always been paid, and if you're doing well as a company you should not be so tightfisted. Playing fair is a virtue if you want to attract talented employees who really care about the firm.

Where I work currently, as an administrative measure (due to it being public sector and hiring a lot of fixed term folk), we're contracted 7 hours 24 minutes a day (30 minute lunch break), if we work 7:30 a day, the extra 6 minutes accumulates to 3 days off at christmas.

We get a great deal with the annual leave round here, I must say.
 
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daver said:
We issue our holiday days about 9 months in advance e.g. April 2014-March 2015 was published in June. We have several 'shutdowns' where shop floor employees are required to take annual leave - these are pretty much in the periods where loads of people are off anyway. Out of 33 days including bank holidays 21 are allocated each year and 12 are allowed to be used at other times. Office staff don't necessarily have all 21 days enforced but you can't run the shop floor properly with loads of people off at the same time and you need periods of downtime for maintenance of machinery.
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Do you find you get a lot of staff taking additional unpaid leave?
 
Haggisman said:
Do you find you get a lot of staff taking additional unpaid leave?
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Very rarely, the leave year runs April-Mar so by the time people have not leave left its not really the time they want to take it. We have in the past experimented with for example no shutdown in August bank holiday week but so many people took it off anyway.

People abusing the company sick pay scheme is another story though
 
daver said:
People abusing the company sick pay scheme is another story though
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Perhaps if there was a more relaxed, better, and more forward-thinking approach to annual leave you would find staff less inclined to take sick leave.
 
If it is stipulated far enough in advance that there will be a shutdown with mandatory leave then that's OK, although yours is a bit long. My Ts&Cs require me to reserve a few days each year (3-5) to cover the shutdown. To say 10 is taking the mick a little.

To tell her this late, you should be giving it as paid leave with goodwill. No holiday deductions. Where my wife works, they do this when the workplace is closed and you are not permitted to work - "bonus days."

If she asked for a 2 week holiday starting in 3 days time - would you grant it? This is what you are forcing on her and her limited leave allowance.
 
Gilly said:
Perhaps if there was a more relaxed, better, and more forward-thinking approach to annual leave you would find staff less inclined to take sick leave.
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Indeed. Forcing staff to take 60% of their holidays when the company wants them to, leaving them little over 2 weeks for when it's convenient for them, is just asking for trouble...
 
Wow! I wish you were my boss. Forcing your only employee to take unpaid leave or mandatory holiday at a few days notice... Nice.

If your employee is salaried I would expect you to pay for any shutdown period. If they're not salaried I'd expect you to give them some free holiday days to cover the period.
 
Haggisman said:
12 days forced holiday... nice :(
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Indeed.

The problem is one of the lads who's just started a few months ago only has 7 holidays to take.

And guess when we found out about how many we needed? The week beforehand.

I only have 11 to my name, and I'm meant to be going away for a few days in January to see family.
I figured it'd be like 7 holidays to use, not flipping 12!
 
Martini1991 said:
Indeed.

The problem is one of the lads who's just started a few months ago only has 7 holidays to take.

And guess when we found out about how many we needed? The week beforehand.

I only have 11 to my name, and I'm meant to be going away for a few days in January to see family.
I figured it'd be like 7 holidays to use, not flipping 12!
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I'm guessing they're taking it out of his next year's allowance then?

I'm not one to abuse company policies, but in those circumstances I'd have no qualms about making the most of the sickness policy! ;)
 
To be fair I'm losing a bit of money this Christmas by paying everyone for 9 days holiday as full days of work. On the whole I'm doing very well and have some great guys working for me it seems only fair I do my best to help them have a good Christmas.

If I were doing badly it would have been a different story. I dont agree with unpaid forced leave. If it means Id have to take a paycut for the month but come new year I've still got a happy (sometimes), hardworking team then ill happily take the cut.
 
Haggisman said:
I'm guessing they're taking it out of his next year's allowance then?

I'm not one to abuse company policies, but in those circumstances I'd have no qualms about making the most of the sickness policy! ;)
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Any time I've been sick I've taken it off as a holiday.
If we're off sick for a day it's a days wage lost.

I assume they're going to take it out of his next years.
 
This is disgusting. As an employer I would not do what I would not have done to me, this is taking advantage, pure and simple.

My guys get all the bank holidays as public holidays, standard. Anyone having to work gets lieu and additional pay. They all get at least 25 days (depending on their contract and TUPE terms) plus BH. I am on 31 days from 2014.

I haven't had a sick day in years, even though i have 52 weeks full pay available to me should I need it.
 
I got called in for a bank holiday once, forced to come in, and I got my basic pay.

I only got that day as a holiday back because I "forgot" to mention a prior day off (Otherwise I wouldn't have had it, just like the other lads who didn't)
 
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