World Cup Bank Holiday in Scotland, 15th June. What does it mean for employers? 

The Scottish Government has announced an additional, one-off bank holiday on Monday 15th June.  This has been granted to mark the World Cup finals.  This holiday is being recognised by some, but not all, public sector employees. 

Employers are not obliged to provide this holiday to their staff.  Employees do not have a statutory right to the holiday or to time off on specific public holidays.  (There may be a very small exception  to this rule if an employment contract makes provision for holidays by stating that employees are entitled to “all bank holidays”).

Even if your contract of employment states that employees are entitled to specific bank holidays or refers to a set number of bank holidays that are recognised; there is still no requirement to grant this particular holiday.

Employers will have to ensure that multiple requests for the day off are dealt with in compliance with normal procedures, and in a non-discriminatory way.

Another issue that employers may need to grapple with is employees who are not entitled to the time off calling in sick, with past tournaments seeing workplace absence spikes. If you think that this may be a potential issue, you may want to issue a reminder that false sickness will be treated as misconduct. 

If you do wish to grant the holiday as a discretion, you are entitled to do this as an employer; although there has been a mixed response from both the public and the private sector to do this.

Should you have any concerns about this holiday or wish to discuss it further, please contact 121 HR Solutions at enquiries@121hrsolutions.co.uk.