Will we have to grant staff the extra bank holiday in 2022?

To celebrate the Queen reaching the milestone of 70 years on the throne in 2022, the May bank holiday weekend is being shifted to the start of June with an additional day being added to the bank holiday calendar to allow for 4 days of events from Thursday, 2 June 2022.

Whether or not you will have to grant this bank holiday to your staff will largely depend on what your contract says.  

Some contracts will say you are entitled to ‘x days holiday plus 8 statutory bank holidays’.  If that is the case, then the employer is not automatically forced to allocate a 9th bank holiday day but clearly they may choose to do so as a matter of discretion.  In those circumstances, the employer could decide whether or not to pay for that day off.

Other employers will have contracts that say ‘you are entitled to x days holiday plus statutory bank holidays’.  In that example, the employer is already tied into granting the extra day as it will form a statutory bank holiday.

Many employees will believe that because the announcement has been made regarding the holiday that they are automatically entitled to that day off work.  This is not the case and staff are going to be required to work (and of course not everybody can have a bank holiday off).  This will need to be communicated well in advance.

Refreshing Law

13 November 2020