Annual Leave Crisis

Almost a third or UK workers cancelled annual leave in 2020

A recent report claims

• 
28% of UK workers have cancelled 2020 annual leave
• The highest months for cancelled leave were while the UK was in full lockdown
• 
The highest number of leave cancellations were in April, followed closely by May

With the global pandemic still playing a significant role in the way people live their lives and the uncertainty of going holiday abroad due to the rules around quarantine, these findings are not surprising, and lots of employees will have accrued weeks of annual leave—and, in some cases, not enough time to use it all.

This is troubling for employers who may have employees with a significantly large amount of leave left to take in the final quarter of the year and there could be real productivity issues going into winter.

What about employees?

Although employees may not want to take their leave and go abroad as they do not wish to have to quarantine on their return, it is important for employees to take time away from work.

Annual leave gives your people downtime to refresh and recover, so employers should encourage employees to take time out from work.

The onus is on employers to fully explain their leave process to staff, as well as the updated rules around annual leave carry-over, as set out by the government earlier this year. That information might help them to spread leave throughout this year and next, therefore ‘flattening the curve’ of cancelled annual leave being rebooked and ensuring productivity stays high for the remainder of 2020.

Please speak to a DLP Advisor if you wish to discuss the above in more detail.

Image courtesy of Samuel Poon at Flickr