Sickness Absence-Holiday Leaves

The Best Practice:
HR policies should allow leaves to be carried forward due to illness.
Special Note: Working Time Regulations in the UK state that employees are limited to carrying across just eight days of leave each year.


Workers can accrue holiday pay while on sick leaves, the House of Law has ruled.In the final judgment in Stringer v HMRC this morning, the House of Lords ruled that workers who are denied holiday pay while on sick leave can claim to an employment tribunal for unauthorised deduction from wages under the Employment Rights Act 1996.
(sources:http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2009/06/10/51022/house-of-lords-rules-holiday-pay-can-be-accrued-while-on-sick-leave.html)

"too many" adults to claim sick days back while on annual leave.
Earlier this month, the ECJ ruled that employees who fall ill while on holiday are entitled to claim back their holiday, even if it means carrying days over into the next leave year.

Disadvantage for employers:
- "Too many employees may take advantage of this ruling, and employers may take a look at their occupational pay scheme, which is discretionary, and think about possibly changing it so that sick pay taken during annual leave is only paid at the statutory rate."
-"The ruling very much penalises employers that provide good occupational sick pay. If you provide statutory pay, you won't have a problem because few people will choose to take advantage of it."
-Confusion , see special note above.
-"It is not clear that the Working Time Regulations require, or even allow, leave to be carried over as the ECJ suggests it should be, so for businesses this will not be straightforward."
-"For small businesses where they are running workforces lean and mean, to have something else to stretch it even thinner will be very difficult."
-"The concern is that some will abuse the new rules and say they were ill when they weren't to gain more holiday. Companies will have to try to minimise that possibility as best they can by putting in procedures that make it more difficult to do"
-"This is bureaucracy gone mad. Holiday is a break from work. If you're ill and you're not at work we are obviously sympathetic, but holiday is intended to be a break from work."


Special Note 2: Separate from the Pereda case, HR departments are also struggling to cope with the ECJ ruling earlier in the year in the Stringer v HMRC case, which ruled that workers can accrue holiday pay while on sick leave, and again that any holiday entitlement should be allowed to be carried forward.


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Paid holiday and sick leave guidance issued by government (sources: http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2010/02/09/54072/paid-holiday-and-sick-leave-guidance-issued-by-government.html)

Paid holiday and sick leave guidance has been published by the government after two major court rulings last year.
Case 1: In Stringer v HM Revenue and Customs, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that workers who are on sick leave can still accrue holiday leave under the Working Time Directive.

Case 2: In Pereda v Madrid Movilidad, the ECJ ruled that workers who fell sick while on holiday should be allowed to reschedule their leave, even if it meant carrying it over to the next leave year.

All employees can celebrate !