The eruption beneath Iceland's Eyjafjallajoekull glacier has caused significant chaos across the world, leaving thousands of people stranded abroad, unable to get home due to flights being cancelled as a result of the ash cloud sitting above Europe.
This turn of events is now causing disruption to many businesses, as employees have been unable to return to work as planned following periods of annual leave. Employers’ primary concern will be ensuring that their business can continue to function as normal in the face of staffing shortages. However, a second issue employers will have to consider is that of how they deal with any affected employees annual leave entitlement given their extended absence from work.
The current situation does allow for some flexibility in approach on the employers part. The terms of the employee’s contract of employment may dictate what option is most suitable in any particular case. Employers may decide that, given the inconvenience which employees have been put to through no fault of their own, a one off agreement could be entered into that simply sees the employee receive full pay without any deduction from their annual leave entitlement.
However, there is no compulsion on employers to opt for this compassionate option. The situation could be dealt with by notifying the employee that any additional days’ absence will be deducted from their annual leave entitlement for the year. Alternatively, if a view is taken that deducting this unplanned absence from the year’s holiday entitlement is overly harsh or may cause hardship (e.g. because it disrupts future holiday plans), the employee’s additional absence could be classed as unpaid holiday.
There are more creative solutions which employers could adopt in an effort to reach agreement with staff to deal with the situation (e.g. allowing the employee the opportunity to make up lost hours over the coming weeks and months, if business needs allow for this). Such an approach may be more beneficial as it maintains good working relationships with those employees who, given the inconvenience to which they have already been put, may be close to “erupting” themselves!
As always, if our Employment Unit can be of assistance to you with any particular issues raised by the above, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with a member of our Team by calling 0141 221 1919 or emailing us today.