Planning ahead for the King's Coronation.

​When the UK government announced that there will be a bank holiday to celebrate the Kings’ Coronation, it wasn’t long before employees were making plans on how to spend the extra day off on 8th May. You may not know that the bank holiday is discretional. Organisations need to plan ahead for how and if they will be implementing the additional bank holiday and sharing this information with employees.

Does the extra bank holiday apply to your employees?

The first thing that you need to do is check how their employment contracts outline how additional bank holidays will be approached. There is no statutory right to this time off so reviewing the wording in contracts will determine whether your employees are entitled to the time off.

For example;

• Contracts that say employees have a right to 20 days’ annual leave plus time off on 8 public/bank holidays, (or 19 days plus 9 bank holidays in Scotland) where the bank holidays are listed and there is no extra flexibility in the wording, will not have an automatic right to time off.

• Contracts that give a right to 20 days’ annual leave plus 8 public/bank holidays but do not state the bank holidays gives the employer some flexibility to move leave around, for example, the employer in this situation could provide staff this extra day off but require them to work on another public/bank holiday.

• Employees who have a contractual right to all public/bank holidays will be entitled to the extra day off.

• Employees whose contracts give them 28 days’ annual leave including all public/bank holidays have a right to the extra day’s leave but it will be deducted from their 28 days’ annual leave, so effectively they will have fewer days on which to ‘choose’ to take leave.

Employers should check their contracts carefully for any other flexibility in the wording such as “8 public/bank holidays as listed, or other days as determined by us” which may allow the employer to give staff the extra day off but require them to work on another public/bank holiday.

Of course, where contracts do not include an automatic right to time off, employers can choose to give their employees an additional day of paid leave or employees can make an annual leave request in the usual way.

Are you obliged to offer extra pay?

For workers who are required to work on the day of the extra bank holiday, there are no statutory rules regarding extra pay on bank holidays. This will depend on the wording of the worker’s contract and any custom and practice that has been set on previous bank holidays, such as for the Queen's funeral in September 2022.

If there is no contractual right to the additional bank holiday but there is the possibility of giving the bank holiday anyway employers may want to consider how the additional days bank holiday could positively impact morale.

What else to consider

Consideration also needs to be given to those with caring responsibilities, providing as much notice as possible will help those impacted by schools and caring facilities closures or changes in hours make alternative arrangements or request leave.

For some businesses, it won’t be possible to recognise the bank holiday for employees but maybe a day off in leu is possible or right to be paid time and a half. Again this will come down to the wording within the employment contract. Employers also need to be considering if the bank holiday will increase workload due to the increase footfall or demand for their services created by the bank holiday.

As there is no one rule for all, one off changes to bank holidays can be tricky to navigate. While there is no indication of government plans for this day to become an annual bank holiday, there are options available to ensure you do what’s right for your employees.