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Consulting and accountancy firm EY will shut its UK offices on 3 July to help ensure staff use up their annual holiday allowance. The company sent a memo to its 17,000 employees on 15 June, according to reports. Many employees have been reluctant to take leave during lockdown while travel restrictions have remained in place. The closure will not apply to the group’s financial services teams, executive team and employees based in Ireland, however. EY has already encouraged staff to take 70% of their annual leave before the end of August – but only 19% has been taken so far. The memo to staff said that the leadership team wanted staff to have a “genuinely meaningful break”, and that the most impactful way to do this would be to allow everyone to be off at once. Organisations have been recommended to encourage employees to take holiday during the coronavirus pandemic, in order to protect their physical and mental wellbeing. In March, the government announced that those that have been prevented from taking annual leave because they are in a front-line role will be able to carry over some statutory annual leave into the next two leave years. The Working Time (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 amended the Working Time Regulations 1998 to create an exemption relating specifically to time off during the pandemic.
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