Unpaid leave and the holiday year

Unpaid leave

An employer may allow staff to have unpaid leave beyond the holiday entitlement in certain circumstances. Additional leave can be at the discretion of the employer, although there can be statutory entitlement to unpaid leave, for example, under the Maternity and Parental Leave Regulations.

Holiday year

The holiday year does not have to conform with the standard calendar year. The dates of the holiday year will depend on the organisation and may be linked to factors such as the organisation's financial year instead.

Organisations should review the holidays taken and annual entitlement remaining for each employee periodically throughout the calendar year. If appropriate an employer may issue reminders to employees to encourage them to take all of their holidays, for example, if an employee still has a large amount of holiday entitlement remaining in the last quarter of the holiday year.

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