Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Employment lawEquality, diversity and inclusion

‘Tis the season to be cautious

by Personnel Today 2 Mar 2006
by Personnel Today 2 Mar 2006

‘Staff are entitled to take festive bank holidays in addition to their annual holiday entitlement.’

Employees are entitled to a minimum of four weeks’ holiday in each leave year, which equates to 20 working days for most people, but public holidays may count towards this minimum. Employers can incorporate festive bank holidays into employees’ annual holiday entitlement, but this must be within their contract of employment and subject to the minimum holiday requirement.

‘The firm is automatically liable for personal injury if an employee injures themselves at the Christmas party.’

An employer is under a duty to take reasonable care of the health and safety of its employees, which includes taking steps to eliminate a risk that it knows, or ought to know, is real. However, this duty of care might not cover injuries resulting from an employee’s own over-zealous celebrations.

‘We can’t ask staff to use their annual holiday entitlement if the office closes between Christmas and New Year.’

Unless an employee’s contract says otherwise, employers may specify any period in which their staff may, or may not, take holiday as long as they inform staff of this requirement at least twice as many days in advance of the start of this period. In other words, if you want staff to take 28, 29 and 30 December as holiday, you must inform staff of this six days before on 22 December. Most contracts, however, allow employees to dictate the timing of their holiday. In this case, you could run into difficulties enforcing a shut down, unless you have a good commercial reason for it.

‘We are unable to discipline staff who come in with a hangover because it is the festive season.’

In reality, this tends to be overlooked during the festive period. However, if employees get to work later than the time specified in their contract of employment, technically they are in breach of their contract. Employers are, therefore, entitled to react through appropriate disciplinary action or deducting the time from their pay, if they have the contractual right to do so.

‘We can’t make a non-Christian employee take time off at Christmas because of religious discrimination laws.’

If the office is closed, there is nothing unlawful about requiring employees to use their annual leave entitlement to take time off work as long as you give them sufficient notice. Religious discrimination laws are far more likely to be used by religious employees who are not permitted to take leave during a religious festival that has significance for them. Whether this does amount to discrimination will depend upon all the circumstances of the case, including the particular needs of the business at that time.

‘We cannot object to staff doing their Christmas shopping online at work.’

Internet access and workstations are resources owned and paid for by the firm and you can therefore set limits at your discretion. Employees should not assume that you are happy for them to use office internet facilities for personal use.

‘We have to give staff the same Christmas bonus as last year or they could sue.’

An employer will be in the strongest position if there is a written statement that bonuses are non-contractual. If your contracts say nothing and you have always paid such bonuses, then you may have established a ‘custom and practice’ of doing so. In this case, employees may be able to sue you for an unlawful deduction from wages if you do not pay a Christmas bonus.

‘It’s not our problem if the Christmas party venue is non-DDA compliant.’

Even if your Christmas party is held off work premises and outside working hours, you may still be liable for disability discrimination if the venue does not comply with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). To avoid such claims, if you are aware that any of your employees are disabled or if they might be bringing a disabled guest, you should check your party venue has disabled facilities. You should also consider broader health and safety obligations, and ensure that the venue is suitable – for example, by having fire exits.

‘We should ban the Christmas office party because of the risk of legal claims.’

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

The risk of legal claims arising from office parties is small. Employers need to balance that risk against the level of goodwill an annual party can generate. If you ban the Christmas party, you will lose out on a good opportunity to foster improved working relations and could cause untold, unseen damage to staff morale that might not be easy to remedy.

Andrew Yule is a solicitor at law firm Withers LLP


Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
Land Rover offers £10,000 to lure staff to Liverpool plant
next post
John Lewis Partnership to roll out new HR and payroll system

You may also like

Fire and rehire: the relocation question

22 May 2025

Fewer workers would comply with a return-to-office mandate

21 May 2025

Redefining leadership: From competence to inclusion

21 May 2025

Consultation launched after Supreme Court ‘sex’ ruling

20 May 2025

Minister defends Employment Rights Bill at Acas conference

16 May 2025

CBI chair Soames accuses ministers of not listening...

16 May 2025

EHRC bows to pressure and extends gender consultation

15 May 2025

Culture, ‘micro-incivilities’ and invisible talent

14 May 2025

Contract cleaner loses EAT race discrimination appeal

14 May 2025

Why fighting the DEI backlash is about PR...

9 May 2025

  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • The Majority of Employees Have Their Eyes on Their Next Move PROMOTED | A staggering 65%...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Self-Leadership: The Key to Successful Organisations PROMOTED | Eletive is helping businesses...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+