BrightHR’s Alan Price discusses how business leaders need to address remuneration ahead of this weekend’s public holiday; St Patrick’s Day.
Sunday 17 March is St Patrick’s Day, a religious and cultural holiday to mark the patron saint of Ireland. Despite its Irish origin, St Patrick’s Day has swept the globe as millions celebrate worldwide every year with parades and local events.
Because it falls on a Sunday this year, millions of Irish workers will be enjoying a long weekend as the public holiday will take place on the following Monday.
But, as with every public holiday, there will inevitably be questions about who is eligible for a paid day off.
Public holidays and pay
Remember you have a statutory obligation to remunerate all full-time employees on public holidays. So, that means there are some employees who don’t automatically get paid for public holidays. These include:
- Part-timers who don’t accumulate 40 hours in the previous five weeks
- Employees that have been absent for over 52 weeks due to occupational illness of injury
- Employees absent for more than 26 weeks due to non-occupational illness or injury
- Employees absent because they’re striking
- Employees on a period of layoff that exceeds 13 weeks
- Employees absent on health and safety leave
But let’s remember, there are some industries, like hospitality and care, that will be expected to work on public holidays, and their contracts will reflect this. So then, what’s the situation around pay, you may ask?
You could pay them for the work done, give them a different paid day off within one month, an extra day’s annual leave, or an extra day’s pay. Whatever your decision, make sure you have a policy in place, and everyone is treated equally. If not, you could face claims of unfair treatment from your staff.
Also, employers may need to prepare for last-minute holiday requests to extend the weekend even longer. In this case, employers will likely be in a position where they must decline some of those requests for time off to avoid understaffing. It’s not a situation anyone wants to be in, but ultimately businesses do need to keep those wheels turning.
That’s why it’s important to have an annual leave policy in place that sets out how annual leave will be managed, outlining the process for submitting a request, and the criteria for accepting.
By Alan Price
Alan Price is the CEO at BrightHR and COO at the Peninsula Group. A version of this article was previously published on the BrightHR blog.
Find out how emerging tech trends are transforming tomorrow with our new podcast, Future Human: The Series. Listen now on Spotify, on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
