As 2023 approaches, so does the end of the calendar year for many businesses. If your business calendar runs from January – December, you should organise and reconcile matters like remaining annual leave now.

Employers must provide full-time workers with a minimum of 28 days of paid holiday per year. The minimum is stipulated by the law and is known as statutory leave entitlement. Employers can allocate their staff as much annual leave as they like, as long as it aligns with the legal minimum. 

The end of the year is approaching, and it may be the case that employees have days to take, but not enough time to use the holiday. It is a legal requirement that employees must use at least 28 days (5.6 working weeks) of their annual leave each year. Employees must have taken the legally required amount. Only holidays that are in addition to the legal requirement can be carried over. The employee’s entitlement to carrying additional holidays over to the next working year is dependent on their contract.

Many employers stipulate in contracts that holidays must be taken before the year’s end. But similar to many HR issues, it isn’t always a one size fits all situation.

• Maintain your position and enforce that holidays cannot be carried over.
• Allow the employee to take over a percentage of holidays into the following year. In this case, you can require that the employee take the dates in a certain time frame (ie three months) 
• Allow the employee to carry over all remaining holidays. You can again, require that the holidays are taken within a certain time frame, or by taking specific dates. 
• If you can, you can take preemptive action and require the employee takes specific holidays. Employers have the right to enforce annual leave as long as they give double the notice.

In some cases, an employee may not have been physically able to take their holidays. If an employee has been on maternity leave or has been absent due to illness or disability, they have the right to carry over the remaining annual leave.