Member Article

Time to lose the British Bank holiday?

Business owners can’t be blamed for rubbing their heads and cursing the British Bank Holidays. Requests for long weekends rapidly race in, productivity can fall off a cliff and following the weekend suspicions can be raised about potentially alcohol-related absences.

Although business owners are increasingly turning to absence management software such as BrightHR, many businesses around the UK still rely on emails, spreadsheets even easily lost pieces of paper.

It’s estimated that the British Bank Holidays collectively cost the UK’s economy around £20billion annually so it’s understandable why many businesses owners view these additional holidays with suspicion.

It’s only natural that the demands of the workforce during the run up and following a Bank Holiday weekend will leave the UK’s SME leaders questioning if employees get too many Bank Holidays others may go further and ask themselves if it’s time to banish the British Bank Holidays altogether.

Even business owners appreciate spending time with their family and friends over the Bank Holiday, so they’re probably sitting in the “are there too many Bank Holidays?” camp rather than wishing to ban them altogether.

British productivity are generally accepted to be below those of other developed economies. By reducing the number of Bank Holidays in the UK, we could raise the number of hours worked by Brits to similar levels of various countries we compete with internationally. Whilst this may not help our national productivity levels there should be further output benefits for British business.

OK, so businesses that are based in offices, factories and those in construction are probably worst hit by bank holidays, but while not every industry loses out to these annual breaks, there are plenty of beneficiaries of the Bank Holiday system - think retail, leisure and wholesale.

The thing is, those businesses that gain from bank holidays are in a smaller percentage than those who take a hit from the costs of managing and coping with the increased demands on the company’s administration of holiday requests.

Of course, taking the decision to reduce the number of UK Bank Holidays, would always fall to being a social question than an economic one. With the rise of workplace automation, it may be time to start thinking about taking even more time out of the workplace to concentrate on areas of our lives that are more socially important.

So better than asking if there are too many bank holidays, we should instead question if they could be spaced out better. By spacing bank holidays out, businesses would be more likely to benefit from a well-rested and socially connected workforce, increasing productivity and maintaining momentum between breaks.

There’s no doubt that regular breaks make staff more focused and productive, and productivity is key to the success of any business. BrightHR recently conducted a survey of UK business leaders which revealed, unsurprisingly, that 90 per cent recognise that having a good relationship with employees has a positive effect on productivity and being understanding and generous with time away from the office in crucial to this.

Our wider ‘It Pays to Play’ research also points to the fact that employees needn’t be away from the office to enjoy down time - fun activities such as a game of ping pong or an office bake -off improves staff mood and morale, in turn reducing stress, absenteeism and so boosting productivity.

Perhaps the best thing to do is learn how to better cope with the challenge of the bank holiday date-bagging rush by getting your teams together, planning annually and start looking for that city break bargain to make the most of it yourself.

Planning for Bank Holidays will ensure your business doesn’t unnecessarily stall whilst key members of the team are away for certain periods, thereby reducing the potential for loss of productivity or products and keeping the UK happy and healthy through their holidays.

Download BrightHR’s ‘Play and Productivity’ report for free here: https://pages.brighthr.com/playandproductivity.html

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Dalley .