There is no universal way of recording time off when it comes to public holidays. In some companies, employees don't work bank holidays, in other companies they do. Some companies include bank holidays as part of annual leave allowance, others do not.
EXAMPLE: 25 days annual leave a year may include five bank holidays. In another company you may get 25 days annual leave a year, but you also get bank holidays off, so in reality you have 30 days off a year.
How your company does things determines how you should set up time off policies and your employees' time off allowance.
Does adding public holidays come off an employee's time off allowance?
No, this simply adds it to the Sage HR calendar. It's then your choice how you want time off allowances to be affected by public holidays reference in this calendar.
For instance, some companies simply set the time off balance to be minus the number of public holidays. Then set public holidays to not count against the allowance of the policy if time off is taken during public holiday dates.
View example
View example
Employees get 25 days of annual leave, which includes five public holidays.
Add public holidays to the calendar.
Set the time off policy allowance as 20 days (total minus the public holidays).
Ensure public holidays are set to not count as workdays.
If you see it's a public holiday in the calendar, you know the employee is not at work. Time off requests taken during those dates of public holidays will not include the public holiday dates when deducting the employee's time off allowance.
For example, if the employee takes off Monday to Friday, but Monday is a public holiday, the approved request only deducts by four days.
The advantage of this is that you won't have to manually book leave for all employees just for the public holiday dates.
Some companies set the allowance to include public holidays, and then manually process the public holiday dates as time off requests.
View example
View example
Employees get 25 days of annual leave, which includes five public holidays.
Add public holidays to the calendar.
Set the time off policy allowance as 25 days.
Ensure public holidays are set to count as workdays.
Book leave for multiple employees just for the public holiday dates.
These days come off the employees' allowance and show as approved leave in the calendar and time off reports.
Settings to consider
Set up public holidays
Before you establish time off settings, you need to make sure you have set up public holidays to show in your employees' Sage HR calendar. You can import public holidays and put employees into public holiday groups.
Time off allowance
An employee's time off allowance is determined either by the time off policy allowance or the employee's individual allowance
Time off policy allowance can be amended in the time off policy's setting.
An individual allowance can be entered or amended in Individual allowances settings.
Count public holidays as work days
This setting determines whether time off requests on these dates come off an employee's allowance once approved:
If selected - All time off requests falling on public holidays will also be counted against the allowance
If left clear - All time off requests falling on public holidays will not be counted against the allowance
This setting is found in your time off policy settings under General.
Example scenarios
Example scenarios
To help you set up how you record public holidays for your company, below are some examples of scenarios of how some companies deal with public holidays, and what they would need to do to replicate this in Sage HR.
You can use the example scenario that applies to you to apply your settings, or if you need further clarification feel free to message one of our Sage HR experts.
Scenario 1 - Public holidays are non-working days for employees. Public holidays are not included as part of an employee's time off allowance
Scenario 2 - Public holidays are non-working day. Public holidays are included as part of an employee's time off allowance
Scenario 3 - Public holidays are working days. Public holidays are not included as part of an employee's time off allowance
Scenario 4 - Public holidays are working days. Public holidays are included as part of an employee's time off allowance. Employees may be given a day back in lieu if they work a public holiday.
Below of the settings you need to apply for these different scenarios.
Scenario 1
Public holidays are non-working days for employees
Public holidays are not included as part of an employee's time off allowance
In this case we would advise there not being a need to record this time off, as you will know they will be off on these public holidays.
Don't want to track when they take them off?
There is nothing you would need to do in relation to recording employees off on public holidays, however you may still want to note when these public holidays are in your calendar.
📌TIP: It's easy to import public holidays into your calendar.
Want to track when an employee is off on a public holiday?
This would be totally optional, but if you wanted to do so, you would need an employee or an employee's manager to book time off for that day and approve the request.
In the employee's time off policy setting, Count public holidays as workdays in the time off policy setting would need to be not selected.
Scenario 2
Public holidays are non-working day
Public holidays are included as part of an employee's time off allowance
You will need to acknowledge the included public holidays in the time off policy allowance total or individual allowance total for the employee. Public holidays must be booked off by an employee or employer and have the request approved.
In the employee's time off policy setting, Count public holidays as workdays in the time off policy setting would need to be selected.
Scenario 3
Public holidays are working days
Public holidays are not included as part of an employee's time off allowance
Employees need to book a public holiday off like any other working day.
In the employee's time off policy setting, Count public holidays as workdays in the time off policy setting would need to be not selected.
Scenario 4
Public holidays are working days
Public holidays are included as part of an employee's time off allowance
Employees may be given a day back in lieu if they work a public holiday
In the employee's time off policy setting, Count public holidays as workdays in the time off policy setting would need to be not selected.
📎NOTE: In the employee's time off policy setting, select Show "Details" field.
If employees are able to get a day back in lieu for working on a public holiday, this makes it possible for an employee to include a note on their time off request to inform their time off approver that the time off is a day owed in lieu for working on a public holiday.
See example below:
