Can Staff Roll Over
Can Staff Roll Over Unused Leave Entitlement?
We are well into the new year now and already some employees are talking about destinations for annual holidays, but what if they have not used last year’s leave entitlement? Can their unused leave for 2022 be rolled over to 2023?
The complete answer is, it all depends!
In general terms carrying over all or part of their 5.6 week legal entitlement, for those in full-time employment, has not been an entitlement, but a privilege granted by you, the employer.
It has all depended on the employee’s contract of employment, some employees contract states they can carry over all of their unused leave, others will not.
Some employers may limit the carry over, 5 working days is often used as the rule. Employees can also set an expiry date for carried over leave, for example the carried over leave has to be taken in the first three month of the following year.
However there are exceptional circumstances:
Legally an employee can carry over all of their leave entitlement if they were unable to take it due to maternity, paternity or adoption leave.
If the reason was sickness they can legally carry over up to 20 days.
The law changed in March of 2020 as part of new emergency legislation (The working Time Coronavirus [Amendment] Regulations) to provide some extra flexibility around leave carry-over.
This ensures employees who were unable to take holiday due to “reasonably practical reasons” to carry over up to four weeks of annual leave over their next two leave years.
The government has defined what these factors are and below we have itemised those which most fall within the domestic employment sector.
These include:
The health of the employee and how soon they need to take a period of rest and relaxation.
The length of time remaining in the employee’s leave year to enable them to take a holiday at a later date within the leave year.
Some employees may have chosen not to take their annual leave because of the pandemic restrictions on international travel, but this does not fall within the “reasons” and is not covered by the legislation.
The Graham Agency, keeping you informed.