As the country continues the battle against Coronavirus, working hard to return society to some form of normal, the important issue of holiday leave has begun to dominate in the list of challenges that your HR department will be tackling.

But where do you, as the employer, legally stand post-Coronavirus? What are your employees entitled to in terms of carrying over leave from 2020 into 2021? And what is the best approach to managing holiday leave as we continue to tackle this pandemic?

Whether you are struggling to encourage employees to take annual leave while working from home or finding monitoring employees’ travel during time off in line with self-isolation guidelines, let’s explore some top tips for holiday leave post-coronavirus.

Holiday Leave: Employers’ Rights Post-Covid

Workplaces, large and small, all have their own holiday policies. However, as Covid-19 hit the Irish workplace, your HR team has undoubtedly been inundated regarding holiday leave queries. So, what are you entitled to from your employees in terms of their annual leave?

Simply put, it all depends on how your employees have been working over the past few months. Perhaps they have worked from home throughout the pandemic but have used little leave. Maybe you haven’t had the capacity to afford them the time off if you have been working with a skeleton staff. Or perhaps they have been receiving their pay through the Wage Subsidy Scheme (WSS).

As an employer, it is your role to ensure your colleagues are clear on what their holiday entitlement is. Perhaps as we begin to enter back into offices and structured workplaces, it would be productive to get your HR team to review what holidays each employee has left remaining, remind them of this figure, and encourage them to take breaks.

Understandably, some of your employees may be reluctant to use holiday leave as they may feel they cannot use it to head away overseas. For those employees, it is important to remind them of their rights but also to ensure they are aware of their limitations on carrying over leave, depending on your organisation.​

The Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997 provides that the timing of an employee’s annual leave can be determined by the employer “having regard to work requirements” so this gives employers the right to ask their employees to take annual leave during the emergency period. In relying on this provision, employers are obliged to consult with their employees 30 days before the start of the annual leave. While this may be quite restrictive, it still offers the opportunity to exercise your rights as an employer.
Holiday Leave: Employees’ Rights Post-Covid
Understanding the rights of your employees during this period is also crucial to ensuring you keep staff satisfied and your business’ reputation high.
For those employees that have worked throughout the lockdown, they will be entitled to fully paid holiday leave. For those that have been unable to take leave due to the needs and capacity of your business, now is the time to afford your employees that treasured time off. Not only will it ensure that you keep on the right side of your employees, but it will ensure their rights are met, improving job satisfaction and leaving them refreshed to boost your business performance.
For those employees that you had placed on the WSS, their rights will differ. Employees can only accrue annual leave relevant to the time that they have worked. While those staff will likely have accrued full annual leave entitlement up until the month of March, it is important to make the right calculations for their leave entitlement during their placement on WSS and communicate this to them.
For those employees that you may have unfortunately had to lay-off during this period, it is important to remember that they retain the right to be paid for a public holiday during a lay-off period of up to 13 weeks from the date of lay-off.
Jet-Setting: Employees’ Rights for Overseas Travel
While many of your employees will remain cautious throughout the rest of 2020, some will be itching to throw open the suitcase and jet-off somewhere abroad. While various quarantine rules continue to remain, it is important to acknowledge these in relation to the annual leave entitlement of your employees. While you may have the capacity to grant the initial holiday request, with two more weeks of isolation needed, employees must be notified that they will not be able to receive pay for this additional time off (unless they can take their full quota of minimum holiday entitlement).
Do your staff have a duty to inform you of overseas travel? While opinions may differ, if they make a false declaration and have been overseas but are not self-isolating then this could result in disciplinary action as it would be a serious breach of health and safety legislation and could out the rest of your staff and possibly your customers at risk
 

With Irish childcare costs rising by €770 a year across Ireland, parents returning to work face more pressure than ever.

This is reflected in “working parent guilt”, experienced by 66% of men and 60% of women.

Regardless of gender or reason for parental absence, all working parents should feel adequately supported by their workplaces when returning to work.
 
Why is it Important to Support Working Parents as they Return to Work?
Returning to work after a prolonged period of time, for example maternity or paternity leave, can be exciting but daunting.

Employees come and go, while working tasks change over time. Returning parents have to learn new names and faces, while getting to grips with new tasks and managing their new work-life balance.

It is crucial workplaces support returning working parents as they navigate this new territory. Such support will prevent feelings of resentment creeping in, while large staff turnovers can be avoided, retaining returning talent and using this experience to develop new staff and improve the workplace.
 
How Can Businesses Support Working Parents when they Return to Work?
Returning to work can be a challenge, particularly for new parents, as they acclimatise to the responsibility of juggling a new baby alongside their existing workloads. Working parents with multiple children will also face new challenges.

A study has revealed just 14% of male working parents had never had a request for leave turned down. Clearly there needs to be more flexibility from employers for all working parents, men and women.
 
Flexible Arrangements
With a Eurobarometer study revealing only 1 in 4 Irish workers receive flexible arrangements, it is crucial Irish businesses improve to allow working parents the satisfaction of a positive work-life balance.

Whether it’s a dental appointment, or a sports day, allowing working parents the breathing space to balance their work more flexibly can only be positive for a working environment.  

Flexible arrangements can include:

·         Flexi-Time
·         Work from home days
·         Temporary or permanent part-time arrangements
·         Job shares

Such arrangements can enhance employee wellbeing, and prevent large staff turnover, allowing a business to retain their talent and their capacity for superior performance.
 
Upskilling Others
Employees seeking to ‘up their game’ and take on new tasks could also be utilised by a business to take the pressure of returning working parents. While not replacing the returning employee, by having an extra pair of hands on a task, businesses can improve a working environment while ensuring that their performance does not suffer.
 
Inclusive Culture
An inclusive working environment is crucial for returning staff. Not only will they need to acquaint themselves with new staff but begin to learn new tasks and remember old ones.

An inclusive culture where all staff feel that they can interact with each-other frequently and cohesively can only benefit an organisation. By fostering an inclusive culture, new or childless staff and returning staff can be provided the space to get to know each other, and to develop positive dynamics for the workplace.

Developing such relationships between staff will prevent resentment towards workloads from either staff group, while growing understanding between colleagues and the professional and personal challenges they may face.

​In the final article of this series, the importance of a parent-friendly culture and its positive impact on the workplace will be explored more in-depth.

Whether single, married, separated or divorced, all working parents deserve support from their workplaces during holiday season.

A recent survey found just 55% of working parents feel that they can ask for entitled annual leave during busy school holiday periods.

While SMEs can struggle to maintain performance with multiple employees on annual leave at the same time, effective planning and fostering of an inclusive culture will ensure school holiday periods are managed effectively.
 
SME School Holiday Challenges
Working parents juggle on a daily basis. From school runs to sports team try-outs, a child’s social schedule can be endless. On top of this, school holidays present a fresh challenge, as organisations face the task of giving parents time off, while ensuring company performance does not suffer.

School holidays cannot be avoided; give or take a few days, most working parents face the challenge of obtaining sought-after annual leave all at the same time.

While those with children are often prioritised, SMEs workplace environments can begin to foster a culture of resentment from childless employees, coupled with unnecessary guilt from working parents.
 
Impact on Workplace Wellbeing
Such a culture can damage a workplace and their employee wellness. Resentment from childless staff can cause a breakdown in dynamics between management, as well as fellow subordinate colleagues.

On the other hand, working parents may feel guilty to ask for annual leave during school holiday periods. This can result in a deterioration in their own workplace wellbeing and resentment towards poor management of holidays.

Ultimately, this culture of resentment and guilt can severely impact workplace relations, leading to higher staff turnover and a breakdown of organisation performance through loss of talent.
 
How Can Businesses Support Staff During School Holiday Season?
Working Mother recently published the “Top 100” companies for working mothers, with the top 10 featuring companies such as Deloitte and IBM. In this survey, it was identified that these top companies see childcare and working parental challenges as a joint venture between themselves and their colleagues.

Organisations like this raise the bar for their counterparts; SMEs, in particular, face the threat of losing staff to organisations that take working parents and the challenges that come with this sector seriously.

Annual leave is often considered a given, overlooked as nothing more than a simple holiday allowance. However, there are a number of ways organisations can improve their annual leave programme to boost morale, improve retention and support working parents.
 
Foster a Culture of Inclusivity
Businesses can learn to juggle school holiday season effectively by fostering a culture of inclusivity of working parents, as well as an understanding towards the resentment that can be felt by childless employees.

Workplaces can foster such a culture by ensuring that staff at all levels interact with each other. This could be through organising weekly meetings between different staff or departments, a staff night out, or even spontaneous coffee outings.

Such staff interaction can ensure that workplace dynamics are kept inclusive, establish greater understanding between colleagues and their personal situations, as well as prevent resentment from creeping in.

In turn, organisations can better understand how to support their colleagues during school holiday season.
 
Plan, Prioritise, Perform
Planning staff holidays well in advance will help organisations to satisfy employee needs, and prevent resentment growing between colleagues and towards management.  

By ensuring that effective cover is available, with equal skills, companies can support working parents while maintaining their success and performance as a business.

Prioritising tasks for employees who are about to go on annual leave should also be high on an organisation’s support agenda. Providing staff adequate time and space to plan, prioritise, delegate and deliver their workload leading up to their time off will ensure organisation performance is not affected.

Not only will this improve performance of cover staff, but a working parent will feel able to cope with their workload when they return.
 
Work Together with Working Parents
Working together with working parents is crucial for an organisation to retain talent, while ensuring effective performance regardless of time of year.

Businesses can improve relations with working parents by discussing how they can improve their annual leave programme to suit their needs.

An inclusive culture will eradicate unnecessary feelings of guilt often experienced by working parents when seeking annual leave during school holidays.

With many workplaces denying a carry-over of annual leave, this is critical. Organisations can ensure that all staff take their full holiday allowance, de-stigmatising this benefit, and improving employee wellbeing as a result.

Superior planning and management, alongside a ‘joint’ attitude will ensure organisations work together with working parents and tackle school holiday periods effectively.

The next article in this “ABC: Working Parents” series will explore how organisations can support working parents as they return to work.

While it may already seem to have past, the last few days have definitely felt like Summer. With Met Eireann issuing weather warnings and beer gardens packing-up across the country, employers will be all too aware of the multiple employee issues Summer brings with it.

Below are five of the biggest issues employers face with some tips on how to deal with them.

#1. Maximum office temperatures
The HSA’s Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Regulations 2007 state, ‘during working hours, the temperature in rooms containing workstations is appropriate for human beings, having regard to the working methods being used and the physical demands placed on the employees’. While there is no specific maximum temperature, employers must evaluate what is considered ‘appropriate’, factoring elements such as the physicality of the work, whether particular uniforms must be work, etc.

#2. Unauthorised time off
I’ve written extensively about annual leave entitlements before. One big issue employers often report is when an employee decides to take their holiday, despite the fact that their request has been declined…or not authorised.
In such situations it is essential to remain calm and adhere to your company’s disciplinary guidelines. This means that the first step you should take is to conduct an impartial investigation to establish and understand the reasons for their absence.

More often than not it will be for a genuine reason. If, however, it is not then you may need to take disciplinary measures, which should be clearly stated in your staff handbook.

#3. Summer dress codes
With things heating up, the idea of wearing a three-piece suit can be the stuff of nightmares for a lot of employees. As such, many employers to adopt a more relaxed dress code during the summer months. However, employers need to be careful if they adopt a more relaxed attitude.

Depending on the role particular employees perform, they may not all be able to ‘dress down’ to the same extent. For example, those in customer facing roles may need to maintain a more professional image than those working in the company warehouse. Although any workers, where required, must continue to wear any protective wear associated with their role.

Employers must ensure that clear guidelines are still provided to staff, outlining what is deemed acceptable during the more relaxed months, for the department in which they work. This should be done objectively to avoid any feeling of discrimination from any element of the workforce.

#4. Competing summer holiday requests
As an employer, you are not obliged to agree to a worker’s request to take holiday at a particular time, unless the employment contract provides otherwise.

If competing requests for holiday are received from different workers, managers may prioritise requests, provided that they do this in a way which is fair and consistent. There are many different ways of doing this. For example, some businesses opt for operate a first-come, first-served system, while for others may opt for a seniority system.
Again, your staff handbook should include a holiday policy, which details the request procedure. This can help limit the likelihood of short notice on holiday requests, which often results in refusal and thus employee dissatisfaction.

#5. Keeping staff motivated
The summer months can be very disruptive for many businesses. The coming and going of staff, kids on holidays, clients on annual leave, not to mention the sunshine blasting through the window, can contribute to employees losing focus and productivity dropping.

Allocating responsibility to particular individuals and ensuring they recognise the important role they play in delivering your company’s product or service can help keep them on track. Additionally, promoting collaboration where employees have a sense of duty to one another can be very effective.

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Holiday season is fast approaching and the request forms are already starting to pile up no doubt, as staff look forward to a bit of down time from their humdrum work routine, whether it’s catching up on odd jobs around the house or soaking up some sun with the family on a beach in Spain.
While it may feel like things slow down during the ‘silly season’, thanks to the interruption of various team members using their annual leave, recent research reveals that employees may not be tuning out as much as they should and it could potentially be very bad for business.
The survey conducted by Regus found that, instead of resting 39 percent of employees continue to work up to three hours a day while on holiday. Perhaps this shouldn’t come as such a surprise. Advances in technology, in the way we are constantly tuned into our work through our mobile phones, along with a hangover from the downturn with staff keen to justify their roles, have made working while on holiday, or at least checking emails, fairly standard practice. While at first glance this might seem like a coup for employers, the reality is that in the long run it may cost you.
Here are some examples:
1.Staff Burnout
Even the best of us need a break every now and then. If your workers are unable to switch off and relax, then it’s unlikely they’ll reap the energising benefits of being on holiday. Instead of coming back fired up and ready to work, they tend to be less motivated and more easily distracted. In 2007 Business Week reported that ‘vacation deprivation increases mistakes and resentment at co-workers.’ Ultimately, this translates as a drop in productivity.
2.Increased Sick Leave
Stress related illnesses are among the leading causes of employee absenteeism in Ireland and the UK. Figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed that 30 million employees in the UK took time off work with stress, anxiety or depression in 2013. Workers who don’t take a break can eventually make themselves ill.
It’s not just mental either. In America a study conducted by the State University of New York of 13,000 middle-aged men at risk of heart disease showed that those who went without a vacation for five consecutive years were 30 percent more likely to suffer a heart attack.
Whether it’s short or long term that means further disruption to your business, which may impact on its profitability.

1. Legal Risks

Under health and safety legislation employers have a duty to ensure, as much as reasonably possible, the welfare and safety of their employees at work. If there is a culture of working while on holidays, or if employees feel pressured into not using their annual leave entitlement, then should an incident occur – be it a stress-related illness or an injury due to burn out – then an employee may have grounds to take action against your company.
Additionally, under common law, if it is believed that you as the employer failed to take reasonable care for the health and safety of such an employee, they may have grounds to bring a personal injury claim against you.
What Can You Do
Regardless for an employee’s reasons for working while on holiday or choosing not to take time off at all, you as an employer must take action to encourage it as much as possible. Here are some measures you can take to foster a culture where staff switch off when on holiday:

1. Communicate the Company Holiday Policy

Make sure all staff are aware of their holiday entitlements. This information should be clearly communicated in their staff handbook but it is also worth relaying the information through email, staff newsletters, weekly briefings or whatever other means you use to engage with your work force. This provides an opportunity to emphasise the value you place on employee downtime. HR automation software, such as HRLocker, can also be useful in providing employees with a visible diary, so they can coordinate their holidays and take ownership of their time off.

1. Lead by Example

As employers we are often the most likely culprits not to take our designated vacation time. Afterall, we are the steam that turns the wheel and keeps the business moving forward. However, the example we set tends to trickle down through the company as directors and managers follow your lead and their subordinates copy them.
If you want to instil a culture where staff feel comfortable taking holiday then you need to show that you too are happy to leave the office behind, even if it’s just for a few days.

1. Manage Workloads

One of the main reasons why employees work while on holiday is to stay on top of their workload. In fact, ‘leavism’, where employees use their annual leave just to catch up on work, is a growing concern.
Be reasonable in your expectations when distributing work to your employees. Regular management meetings and one-to-ones (where possible) with workers helps establish an open dialogue, where employees feel valued and employers can gauge their capacity. Establish a process for handing over ongoing work when an employee is scheduled to go on holiday so that is shared out equally and all employees, particularly those taking leave, are confident it will be managed effectively.

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David Bell is Managing Director of The HR Department, outsourced human resources specialists for Irish SMEs.