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Holidays: preparing for operational change
As we approach April 2024, Mathew Akrigg ACIPP, CIPP policy and research officer , looks at upcoming changes to holiday from an operational perspective, to help put it all into practice
I t seems like I have devoted the last couple of years at work to holiday pay and the prospect of change. Well, it’s finally here, changes are afoot, and I’m back to let you know how they might impact your day-to-day operations.
Defining workers One of the first things we need to
consider from an operational perspective is who the new rules apply to. Before the draft legislation (https://ow.ly/ XmVu50Qvw1Q) was published on 8 November 2023, we didn’t have a clear idea of what the terms ‘irregular hours’ (IH) or ‘part-year’ (PY) meant. We have our own sensible definitions, but this means little when needing to legally define them for the purposes of employment rights. To eliminate any doubt, here are the government’s definitions taken verbatim from the recently released guidance for employers (https://ow.ly/UFfN50Qvw3e): “A worker is an irregular hours worker, in relation to a leave year, if the number of paid hours that they will work in each pay period during the term of their contract in that year is, under the terms of their contract, wholly or mostly variable.” And: “A worker is a part-year worker, in relation to a leave year, if, under the terms of their contract, they are required to work only part of that year and there are periods within that year (during the term of the contract) of at least a week which they are not required to work and for which they are not paid.” Now, I said I would eliminate doubt on the definitions, but I didn’t promise they would be crystal clear. The first question you may have could be around the ‘wholly or mostly variable’ hours for IH workers. Well, as with any well-crafted piece of legislation,
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | March 2024 | Issue 98 56
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